By Salim Muwakkil
January 25, 2000
Remember when the Internet was hailed as the information superhighway and cyberspace was envisioned as the new portal through which information would flow freely in a new model of media democracy?
That was how things looked in the old days of the 20th Century, but it's a view that seems increasingly naive these days. Instead of providing a space for sprawling diversity, grass-roots innovations and entrepreneurial bustle, the wild and woolly Internet seems more likely to wind up as an interactive global mall.
Although the Internet remains a realm of vibrant dynamism and creativity at its edges, it is being colonized rapidly by huge transnational corporations. That process was accelerated by the Jan. 10 announcement that AOL, the nation's largest Internet company, intended to acquire Time Warner, the world's leading media companies.
The AOL-Time Warner merger is just the latest, and largest, in a long list of media consolidations. But because this is the first time a "new media" company has engulfed an "old media" giant, the AOL-Time Warner union is unique and perhaps emblematic of the coming era.
Indeed, much of the news coverage focused on the gargantuan scope of the $165 billion transaction. And the story of the AOL-Time Warner hookup is newsworthy for that reason alone. It brings together the resources and expertise of a company with global holdings in all aspects of media and entertainment with one that has mastered the newfangled intricacies of the Internet, especially those of on-line commerce--the new Holy Grail.
But other aspects of the awesome wedding deserve greater focus.
The headlong commercialization of the Internet threatens the promise of cyberspace as a leveling medium where even the quirkiest media voices can gain access to the public. If profit-hungry conglomerates become the net's primary gatekeepers, marketing products and services will have a much higher priority than maintaining open roads on the information superhighway. The media's increasing fixation on "e-commerce" reflects corporate America's growing preoccupation with its profit potential. Ominously, the narrowing range of ownership severely threatens the independence of those journalists who work for both the new and old media.
Potential for conflict of interest abounds in a media world in which The Washington Post and Newsweek have joined in "strategic alliances" with NBC, which is owned by General Electric. And when Microsoft Corp., helps pay the salaries of reporters for the all-news cable station MSNBC, or AOL helps capitalize CNN, how well can journalists in their employ report on news that may affect the bottom lines of these far-flung corporations.
Several media watchdog groups have warned that these media megamergers threaten democratic values and freedom of expression since only a handful of corporations are controlling both the content and delivery systems of information.
"The only thing certain at present is that the eventual course of the Internet will be determined by where the most money can be made, regardless of social and political implications," says Robert McChesney, professor of communications at the University of Illinois and author of the book, "Rich Media, Poor Democracy."
The AOL-Time Warner deal also threatens to hurt the struggle for "open-access" policies that would allow competing Internet service providers to offer their services over cable systems' high-speed connections, called "broadband." This method of transmission is as much as 100 times speedier than the fastest modems and can seamlessly deliver all manner of data--including text, audio, photographs, video, film--to various kinds of electronic devices.
Before its marriage to Time Warner, AOL was a leader in the fight for open access to broadband. The giant ISP's 20 million subscribers mostly are limited to the slow speeds and interminable waits that are a part of the Internet experience for modem users. So AOL joined a group called the OpenNet Coalition and fought to guarantee access to cable connections with broadband capacity, most of which are owned by telecommunications giant AT&T.
But with its purchase of Time Warner, the second largest cable operator in the country, AOL gained its own broadband capacity. Media activists are watching closely to see if AOL changes its tune now that it pays the piper.
The Internet is a computer-based system of communication created, nurtured and subsidized by the government for three decades before corporations figured out how to exploit it. American taxpayers provided the venture capital and assumed all the risks of incubation.
Now that the net has proven to be a commercial bonanza, the private sector has moved in with a vengeance and American citizens are left bemoaning the squandered opportunities for true media democracy
FAIR USE NOTICE: This page contains copyrighted material the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. Global Policy Forum distributes this material without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. We believe this constitutes a fair use of any such copyrighted material as provided for in 17 U.S.C íŸ 107. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond fair use, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.
