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GLOBAL VS LOCAL/
INTERNET
source: cyberlaw.stanford.edu/blogs/
cooper/archives/mediabooke.pdf
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Large media companies now claim the Internet has radically altered the media landscape by making an immense number of choices available to consumers…- Indeed, because the Internet is being cited as a justification to deregulate the commercial mass media, it is particularly important to debunk the myth that the Internet has significantly altered or diminished the influence of the powerful push broadcast media has on politics and on the marketplace; (1)
- the unique, many-to-many potential of the Internet is lagging behind, particularly as a political vehicle. Internet optimists, from the outset, hoped for a hyper-connected populous, capable of reaching out to anybody and anything with a simple set of keystrokes. They predicted intensified participation in the democratic process as a new outlet emerged to access and spread information, one which alleged to make it easier to be heard;
- true electronic democracy, it was hoped, would be created by “the possibilities for interactive and collective communication offered by cyberspace to encourage the expression and elaboration of urban problems by local citizens themselves;
- it is certainly too soon to pronounce the Internet a failure in civic discourse. To date, however, the Internet’s ability to create a more vibrant forum for democratic discourse has been limited by a number of factors, some inherent in the technology, others the result of global/national public policy.
Technological advancements are worthless, harmful even, unless they are translated into human advancements that come directly from institutions that encourage participation and instill confidence in exploration and action…- allowing the marketplace to dictate the nature and function of the Internet has already limited its potential. Poorer populations do not share the resources of wealthy citizens to participate in the media that have been established. In a sense, online services are being ‘reserved for the wealthiest’, and there is little policy enacted to keep the potentially positive effects of the Internet from disappearing completely;
- beyond the cost is a lack of education and skills necessary for disconnected citizens to utilize the access they hope to be granted. While the cost of computing power is decreasing, the standard equipment used on the Internet is growing more complicated every day. This makes it even more difficult for those who have not experienced early incarnations of computer and online technologies to enter the Internet community;
- according to the already mentioned Moneyline show’s survey on CNN, US respondents express support for public interest obligations extending to the Internet. They would like some sections of the Internet to be commercial free (82%) and protected from commercial development (77%). They believe some of the space on the Internet should be devoted to public forums (72%) and non-profit groups (68%). They believe service providers should give free advertising to charities (65%) and regularly post public service announcements (59%).
Furthered freedom for the large corporations perpetuates the digital divide between the information-rich and the information-poor…- companies introducing technologies quickly identify the likely early adopters and innovators and orient their product distribution to maximise the penetration within that market segment. It should not be surprising that the target market is resource rich households;
- by dominating the production and delivery of information and attempting to pass the Internet’s community-building function off as beneficial when in fact it isolates and polarises people, the major corporations “limit the control one has over the ideas one encounters”. Setting the precedent of consumption over democracy generates a marketplace where profit-maximization is not only glorified, but its debilitating effects are ignored;
- recently, Microsoft asserted that there were 7 different operating systems in the marketplace with over 20,000 applications available and at least 3 different computing environments (hand-helds, PCs and the Internet), and therefore Microsoft could not possibly be a monopoly. Even a conservative Appeals Court resoundingly rejected that argument;
- in the United States, with the passage of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 and the advent of high-speed Internet services, unaffiliated Internet Service Providers (ISP) were quickly squeezed out of the market. Cable and telephone companies became the dominant providers segmenting the high-speed market. Cable has an 80% market share in advanced services in the residential market. Telcos have a 98% market share in advanced services in the business market. AOL’s dominance of subscriber-ship is widely noted: with 25 million subscribers, putting its market share above 40%, and with over 30% of user time, AOL is well above the moderately concentrated threshold. Search engines fall in a similar range. The 4 firm concentration ratio is at the tight oligopoly level, just under 60%;
- there are simply too few ISPs on the broadband Internet: throughout the history of the commercial narrowband Internet, the number of service providers was never less than 10 per 100,000 customers. On the high-speed Internet there are now than 2 ISPs per 100,000 customers. For cable modem service there is than 1 Internet service provider per 100,000 customers. For DSL there are fewer than 2.5 ISPs per 100,000 customers.
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