Have such developments made the media more democratic, with more equal participation by more people?
Bill Gates said in an interview that 'The Web is remaking the world'. BBC's Virtual Revolution explores the impacts of technical achievements on the media. The programme describes new media as a Gutenberg-type or industrial revolution which connotes the rebellious and life-changing nature of digitalization.
It could be argued that the Internet provides everyone with the tools to make their voices heard. Anyone can be a reporter to some degree. People like spying on other people, that's one of the reasons why the Facebook newsfeed became quickly so popular after its launch in 2004. According to Bill Gates 'The Web should be a collaborative sharing experience.', which mostly is anyway. The culture of sharing shakes conventional beliefs of authorship. So did the Napster change the music industry and piracy influence to change the law. YouTube can make someone a star or ruin a carrier overnight. Today, anyone can post an article to the internet, and a great number of people can have access to it. How much do we pay for actually being seen on the most popular sites is another question.
The number of websites is so enormous that it its impossible for one person to know them all. Between 1995 and 2005 there was over 20 million registered and plenty ever since. Google worked out a fixed bidding system for advertisements where the price depends on the bidding and the quality of the ad. So again the bigger companies have a great advantage in display and advertisement, and the smaller ones are forced to fall out of competition. Some economists think that digitisation is only a reconstructed way to monopole capitalism, which could simply repeat the events of the 20th century. Others think that new media can create a world, which is more suitable for the individuals.
Recommendation engines can personalise everything for us automatically, which helps personalities to flourish. On the other hand, psychiatrists say, that this wouldn’t make a person more original, just a more ‘demographic type’.
For example, the new Nokia Lumia advert targets ‘individual’ people, described as such stereotypes as ‘the music lover’, the ‘film buff’, the ‘working mum’ etc. The slogan says 'We didn't create a phone for all of us, but one for each of us' As long as people don’t feel forced to buy it, it seems all democratic, however, the effect of interpellation is strongly sensible.In order explore how much more democratic the media is today than before, first and foremost we have to define what we consider 'democratic'. Democracy guarantees the human rights for everyone, however, it is not to be confused with financial equality. The utopian ideal world, in which everyone is completely equal, most commonly considered as an invention of Marx and Engels, is closer to a communist idea, however, it have never become reality despite several attempts. Let's just consider the examples of the 1789 French and the 1917 Russian revolution.
History proves the darwinist idea right, that 'humans are social animals', therefore we naturally build a hierarchical society. In case of a temporary anarchy the leader roles would be taken by those who are the most adaptable to the situation. Today the Internet creates a brand new platform and those who cannot cope with the new expectations will lose their power. This theory also suggests, that due to the mass use of internet, power shifts are not only possible but almost inevitable to prevent full chaos.
John Perry Barlow thinks that the Internet is challenge to authority. Governments overwhelmingly prefer secrecy, therefore the Internet, the most evolving information sharing system in the world, is a threat to them. For instance today anyone can add information to Wikileaks, which is the easiest way to reveal corruption or compromise powerful people. The Internet gives power to individuals, but the real strength is in publicity, the mass audience.
Arianna Huffington said: 'The Web is simply unequal because it mirrors the inequality in reality.' It is possible to assume, that interactivity serves democracy well, in the sense that people can review and comment events instantly, which could eliminate the usefulness of physical newspapers and magazines. So what should be the role of an online journalist? Reflect reality or create a simulacrum, where hyperreality and life are mixed together? There are many people who write or comment on sites such as YouTube concerning films, music and other forms of entertainment, some of them have nothing to do with reality. The Web slowly melts into a poststructuralist pulp where everyone adds to it and you decide what to take away.
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| Portable homeland? |
A political system, such as democracy, is unique to a country. We define country as a land with people and a government. However, the internet connects the whole world together. Facebook has as many members, as the third largest country in the world. The whole idea of ‘the portable homeland’ reflects a strongly americanised ideology, which makes governments with a different propaganda, such as China, to face some problems. Most countries have already worked out how to censor the internet, while other places, such as those in the third world don't even have enough users who are worth censoring. We must consider, that the Internet is highly a technical achievement, therefore the poorer countries can never compete with the richer. For example South Korea, the world's most wired country, where an average user spends 8 hours a week online, cannot be compared to places such as Uganda, where most people don't even own a computer.
Considering all, new media is still less costly than the old one, such as printing, so in a long term it could become more available for more people than ever before. Digital media could be a route for a new type of education worldwide, provide more jobs in the industry and serve commercial needs.
