The Internet As a Democratic Institution
Introduction
Throughout history technologies have enabled humans to communicate with each other through various mediums over vast distances. This has enhanced our way of living along with our social structures. Communication technologies have eroded distances between one another, and because of this we are becoming more educated about our world and ourselves. Communication, loosely defined, is the transfer of information from one person to another, or many. There are three main points that I will describe today's newest method of mass communication, the internet. First, I will explain what the internet is, how it is different from past technologies and what it can and does do. Secondly, I will discuss how a privately owned and controlled internet, will not truly reflect the essence of democracy. Finally, in doing so I will explain the functions of businesses within the modern capitalist system. Media, has always, and will always, be necessary for communicating information to the populace. Information is a human necessity within a democratic society. Information, by its nature is a free thing, yet within a capitalist framework it is perceived as a good. This is where the problem began and continues. Democracy survives on open debates and discussions between individuals sharing information, in order to form a more perfect society. Creating media that are privately owned - that is, owned by a person and not a society - when it is something that by its nature should be free to all constituents of that society, affects the essence of democracy. This is where the internet is heading - like all past media technologies of the 20th century - to a more privately owned and controlled system. The internet is multi faceted. It has many functions, only a few which are marketable yet the internet has become the machine behind the "new economy". The internet is in danger of losing its tag as a communicative/information based technology, instead the internet will become a market driven privately owned and operated capitalist institution. The future is uncertain and unfortunately history repeats itself. We can only hope that the internet will bridge the lacking gap of communication and democracy within our current hypermedia society. In order for democracy to exist within a society where its essence can be utilized, this pattern of privatization must end with the internet.
The Internet: Democracy, Capitalism and Media
Democracy is nestled in the belief that government should have no centralized power. That is, government should not be totalitarian, and should not dictate the laws and consequences of the people without the peoples consent. This is why democracy is founded on effective public debate and the open transference of information and opinions. In John Dewey's terms, democracy is where people control their government, because it is theirs to control. His view was that democracy is not an end in itself, it's a means by which people discover and extend and manifest their fundamental human nature and human rights. These rights are rooted in freedom, solidarity and a choice of both work and other forms of participation in a social order and free individual existence. (1) Democracy allows the individual to contribute to society through debate, speech, writing, etc. This allows for each persons ideas and opinions to be heard and distributed. The advent of the media in the 1930' and 1950's which eventually became private, shifted their motives towards a spectator democracy rather than one of participance. A spectator democracy - from a media controllers perception - functions best when they are able to "manufacture consent" from the populace in order to control political or industrial motives. (2) This shift changed our society in many ways, but the rise of the internet has arguably been a saving power to this content controlling media. Our hopes are that this will remain true. Media, in its true essence, allows the exchange of these ideas and opinions through various mediums openly and free from control. Today, this is not what media has become, rather it has become exactly what media is not, regulated. Historically, private control has dominated media technologies in the US. The private industry quickly controlled large portions of the radio in the 1930's as did the television in the 1950's. Through newer modes of communication, people, government and groups will be able to discuss and effectively enrich democracy. But instead, it is the repeated privatization of these technologies that impede any constructive advancement of democracy. Today, in a hypermedia society, like the U.S., democracy is best defined "as applied to organizing our lives together, it means greater popular control over the terms and conditions of that life, and greater social justice inscribed in those terms." (3) Our hypermedia society does exactly the opposite. We have no popular control over our media technologies, and because we lack control over our media, we cannot enrich and advance our lives. Since media has slipped into the private sector, the values of democracy that are inherent in its essence are substituted for the capitalist value of profit. The modes of capitalism are much different than the modes of democracy. The private sector has one primary objective: profit maximization. It is this single view of the world and the extremities that the private sector controls, that will lead to the demise of democracy. Currently both of these opposing systems are existing together, but one is winning. Capitalism is that victor. Because of their [capitalists] control of a public institution they place a democratic institution within the narrow framework of capitalism. This, is clearly against the essence of democracy. Historically, media has taken many forms. It started with the mouth as a version of debate or lecture in a public setting, print in newspapers and magazines, the radio, where a voice can be received over vast distances, the television where like the radio a voice can be heard but now that voice can also be seen. On the internet one can communicate by letters, print, audio and even video. All of this is done instantaneously, where there can even be instantaneous reply and debate. The internet to some extent is an electronic version of the soap box, where an individuals computer is their soap box and the location is the world wide web. Douglas Rushkoff writes:
Needless to say, the internet is a social anarchy. There is no governing body for the system. Scientists share the network with hobbyists and hacker who share the system with writers, artists, researchers, corporations, and, of course, activists. The internet is inherently threatening to anyone in a position of power because no one - at least not yet - can regulate the tremendous flow of information. The real observations of millions of people, shared through the networks, create an undeniable, high resolution portrait of our current state of affairs...By far the greatest power of the overall computer network is its ability to change public perception. More than affecting any particular issue, the net changes the way private citizens perceive their ability to understand and effect the global system. Anyone cruising the internet soon learns that from his own laptop he has the ability to reach into anything from the Library of congress or a database in Tel Aviv to an activist's alert or the White House archives. (4)
This picture of the internet as a extension of an informed citizenry - while exaggerated some - describes what the internet can do and has done for communication in the world, or at least the rich world. The internet will allow communication between workgroups, but more importantly it will merge people from all schools of thought, and selected disciplines. This information melting pot - as opposed to a racial one - is where the internet becomes the engine behind democracy. The internet effectively pushes and energizes a democratic society. Where the radio and tv have failed, there is a good outlook for the future of the internet remaining as a public tool. This is the essence of the internet. The internet has been highly regarded as the saving technology that will allow users to become a more informed citizen. "Democracy is not about voting for our leaders Democracy is about citizens who have the communication they need to govern themselves...The more we know about the kind of literacy citizens are granted by the internet, the better our chances of using that literacy to strengthen democracy." (5) The user will be able to actively communicate with people(s) over vast distances allowing debate. The internet began as user directed technology, but now with programs like web browsers and "portals" is more company directed. For instance, if AOL, the country's largest internet service provider, makes a deal with Amazon.com that AOL will link to Amazon.com's website for royalties on any sale coming from the AOL link, one can clearly see the role of capitalism, media and internet privatization. Chances are that since these programs have everything already set up chances are people will not navigate off the portal list. "Cyberspace itself is being rapidly colonized by the familiar workings of the market system. Across their breadth and depth, computer networks link with existing capitalism to massively broaden the effective reach of the market place. Indeed, the internet compromises nothing less than the central production and control apparatus of an increasingly supranational market system." (6) The main problem is that the internet can and has effectively proven its success in a capitalist framework, while also becoming a very successful communication tool for gathering and spreading information. The internet successfully works in both the capitalist and democratic systems. Unfortunately, capitalism and democracy do not. The ideals and motives of each system cannot exist together, to have one is to not have the other. It is no surprise that businesses have always appreciated media because of their audiences. It is advertising that links capitalism and media, its that simple. (This is also very connected to the "manufacturing consent" seen earlier) What better way to advertise than by the use of media, since media's intended use is for the masses to consume. It is in this chimera of media and advertisement where many detrimental effects on the development of media has taken a turn for the worse. Since the amount of subjects to these advertisements was so vast, private industry saw that the profit maximization from controlling these media technologies would be exponential. A capitalists main function within society is to maximize their profits and within a truly free market system nothing can stop a capitalist from securing a strangle hold on various types of media and various other avenues of profit maximization. Luckily, the world has never seen a truly "free market" economy, and in the hopes of the future of the world we never will. A free market economy is free from governmental regulation and social impediments. This means that within a free market the capitalist - not the citizen or the consumer - are the kings and they and their system are truly above the law. Governmental regulation serves two main purposes: the prevention of monopolies and the means to effectively debate current economic proposals within that society. This, I believe, creates an open system where both the citizen and the capitalist are in check. But today businesses have reached a point where their accumulation of capital has created an entourage of large oligopolies where democracy is powerless. Albert Einstein explains:
"Private capital tends to become concentrated in few hands, partly because of competition among the capitalists, and partly because technological development and the increasing division of labor encourage the formation of larger units of production at the expense of the smaller ones. The result of these developments is an oligarchy of private capital, the enormous power of which cannot be effectively checked even by a democratically organized political society." (7)(emphasis added)
Today, unfortunately we are at the doorstep of complete private control of our newest media
technology, the internet. The internet is tightrope walker in a capitalists circus, it is on the cusp of
a market driven, e-commerce role of the internet, versus a public, debate and information oriented
communication technology. Private control is anti-democratic, public control is democratic. The
path we choose to take will forever be reverberated throughout our society for years to come. It is
today and tomorrow where decisions will be made on the future of social control or private control
of the internet; it is here on the internet where we must articulate our desires and concerns.
Expression and ideas from individuals within society are what make democracy; if the internet
becomes privatized our hopes for the internet as the saving technology are lost.
1. http://www.zmag.org/chomsky/rab/rab-8.html
2. Douglas Rushkoff, Media Virus. Ballantine books, New York, 1996. p. 22
3. Joel Rodgers, "Turning to the Cities," In These Times, Oct. 18, 1998, p.14
4. Douglas Rushkoff, Media Virus. Ballantine books, New York, 1996. p.238-9
5. Howard Rheingold "How Will The Internet Influence Democracy?" www.edge.org
6. Dan Shiller, Digital Capitalism: Networking the Global Market
System. MIT Press, Boston, 2000.
7. Albert Einstein "Why Socialism?" Monthly Review May 1949.