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globalization & the internet
some ranting & some food for thought..
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Date: Mon, 22 Dec 1997 02:36:59 -0800
From: "J. Orlin Grabbe" <[email protected]>
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Subject: SNET: [Fwd: [OT] Information Highway: CLOSED?]
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From: Bill Nalty <[email protected]>
Newsgroups: alt.current-events.clinton.whitewater
Subject: [OT] Information Highway: CLOSED?
Date: Sun, 21 Dec 1997 13:59:27 -0600
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For education and discussion. Not for commercial use.
tf mag
January 1998
A Not So Hidden Agenda ...
Closing the Information Highway
By Richard K. Moore
Domination of cyberspace is mission-critical for the masters
of globalization
By RICHARD K. MOORE
Propaganda is an essential mechanism in democracy. It's the primary
means by which the elite insure that their interests aren't overwhelmed
by the "excesses of democracy" and "mob rule."
In the see-saw struggle for power, ownership of media - to influence
opinion and government policies - has always been used to advantage by
economic elites. Popular movements also have effectively used the media,
from time to time, but in today's concentrated media industry, elite
control over public opinion is, essentially, total. So total that just
as a fish isn't aware of water, it's easy to forget how constrained the
scope of public debate has become.
Even opposition to the status quo is channeled and deflected by media
emphasis, as with the US militia movements, the Perot and Buchanan
candidacies, and European nationalist movements. All these are used to
"define" anti-globalist sentiment as reactionary, isolationist, Luddite,
and racist.
Demonization of government and politicians - in fact, blaming government
for problems caused by globalism and excessive corporate influence - is
perhaps the single most potent coup of mind-control media in undermining
democratic institutions and promoting globalism.
REVISION BY OMISSION
Globalization itself exemplifies media propaganda's potency. The
rhetoric of neoliberalism, with its "reforms," "market forces," and
"smaller government," isn't just a "position" within public debate.
It frames debate. Politicians rarely question whether to embrace
globalization, but compete to espouse national policies
accommodating it.
As media is globalized and concentrated, it's no surprise that
globalization propaganda is one of its primary products. Whether
the vehicle is a feature film, network news, advertisement, panel
discussion, or sit-com, the presumed inevitability of the
market- forces system and the bankruptcy of existing political
arrangements comes through - even when the future's dark side
is portrayed.
The barrage's success is especially amazing given the utter bankruptcy
of the neoliberal philosophy. The experience of the robber-baron era is
simply forgotten in public memory. In true Orwellian fashion, we're
told that market forces and deregulation are "modern" efficiencies,
the brilliant result of state-of-the-art economic genius.
As a consequence of this historical revision by omission, we rarely
hear that these policies have been tried before and found sorely
wanting - that they prompted economic instability, monopolized markets,
cyclical depressions, political corruption, worker exploitation, and
social depravity. Nor do we hear about how generations of reform were
required to re-introduce competition into markets, stabilize the
financial system, and institute more equitable employer/employee
relations.
In fact, regulatory regimes created a generally reasonable
accommodation between interests of the elite and the people. But,
because of media propaganda, everyone now "knows" that regulations
are just the counter-productive ego-trips of well- or ill-meaning
politico-bureaucrats with nothing better to do than interfere in
other people's business. Today's "reforms" dismantle reforms which
moderated decades of market abuse. Yet, old wine can be presented
in new vessels. As long as the message is repeated enough and facts
that don't fit are never aired, the public can swallow it.
IMAGE CONTROL
The mass media is the front line of corporate globalist control.
This adds extra urgency to the pace of global media concentration.
The central importance of corporate-dominated mass media to the
globalization process, and to elite control generally, must be
remembered when predicting the Internet culture's fate once
commercial cyberspace comes online.
The mass media's treatment of cyberspace and the Internet to date
lends some portending insights. Two quite different images are
typically presented, one commercially-oriented and the other not.
The first, frequently seen in fiction or futuristic documentaries,
focuses on the excitement of cyber adventures, the thrill of virtual
reality, and the promise of myriad online enterprises. This
commercially- oriented image has a positive spin. Suddenly every
product and organization on the block has a www.My.Logo.com, often
with only symbolic utility. Madison Avenue is selling cyberspace,
pre-establishing a mass-market demand for its future commercial
version.
The other image presents sinister hackers, wacko bomb conspirators,
and luring pedophiles. Those who use the Net daily find such stories
ludicrous and unrepresentative, but because we dismiss them, we may
not realize that's about all the general population hears about
today's Internet.
The infamous Time article on cyberporn, for example, was pure
demonization propaganda, and standard procedures were surreptitiously
violated to get it printed. The effect wasn't undone by subsequent
mild apologies. A recent US regulatory initiative (actually a
censorship attempt), whose passage was assisted by that well-timed
article, was fortunately rejected by the US Supreme Court. But the
defamation campaign continues.
The relationship between cyberspace and democracy is complex. Internet
culture enables a renaissance of open public discussion - a peek at more
open democratic process. But a tiny minority of the world's population
experiences this phenomenon, which may not survive the commercial
onslaught.
On the contrary, as universal transport for mass media products,
cyberspace may deliver even more sophisticated manipulation of public
opinion. Rather than the realization of the democratic dream,
cyberspace may become the ultimate Big Brother nightmare.
When most significant events involve online transactions, and backdoors
are built into encryption algorithms and communications switches,
everyone's every move will be an open book to those holding the keys
to the net's nervous system. From the accounting records alone, there
would be a complete trail of activity, and the privacy of this
information (from government, police, credit bureaus, advertisers,
direct mailers, political strategists, etc.) is far from guaranteed.
Systematic massive surveillance by government agencies would be easy.
There's even the possibility of surreptitiously gathering audio and
video signals from home sets presumed to be "off," and remote
overriding of home security systems or automobile functions.
Mandatory chip- based ID cards or implants may sound fanciful, but
the number of initiatives in those directions worldwide is alarming.
In short, cyberspace could become the ideal instrument of power for the
globalist elite, giving precise scientific control over what gets
distributed to whom, and full monitoring of everything everyone does.
Some may insist, "It can't happen here." I would ask, "What is there
to stop it?" Corporate domination of information flows is inherent to
the globalization process.
UTOPIA FOR THE FEW
You can think of digitial cyberspace as an utopian realm, where all
communication wishes can be granted. But who will run it? Net users
tend to assume we'll use it for our creative purposes, just as with
the Internet. But others have designs on it, too.
We're willing to pay a few cents per hour, while complaining about usage
charges, and our need for really high per-user bandwidth is unproven.
The media industry, in contrast, can bring a huge existing traffic into
cyberspace, with much higher value-per-transaction than e-mail, and
bandwidth-gobbling web. We want to pay commodity prices, while the
media industry willingly pays whatever it takes - passing on costs
to consumers.
>From a purely economic perspective, the media's interests could be
expected to dominate the rules of the road. But economic considerations
may not decide cyberspace rules. Continued mass media domination of
information distribution is necessary for the media to play its
accustomed role as shepherd of public opinion. This is mission-critical
to the globalization process and elite societal control.
The mechanisms of domination include concentrated infrastructure
ownership, licensing bureaucracies, information property rights,
libel laws, pricing structures, creation of artificial distribution
scarcity, and "public interest" censorship rules. These tactics have
been refined throughout the life of electronic media technology,
starting with radio, and their use can be expected as part of
cyberspace commercialization.
Signs of these tactics are already evident. The US Internet backbone
has been privatized; consolidation of ownership is beginning in
Telecom and in ISP services; WIPO (World Information Property
Organization) is setting down overly-restrictive global copyright
rules, which the US is embellishing with draconian criminal penalties;
content restrictions are cropping up, boosted by anti-Internet
propaganda; pricing is being turned over increasingly to "market
forces" (where traditional predatory practices can operate);
chilling libel precedents are being set; and moves are afoot
to centralize domain-name registration, beginning what appears
to be a slippery slide toward ISP licensing. And these are
still early days in commercialization.
Consider the US Telecom Reform Bill of 1996. Theoretically, it
encourages "increased competition." But consolidation is permitted
both horizontally and vertically: A telco can expand its territory,
and be sold/merged with content (media) companies. Prices and the
definition of services are determined by "the market." There's also
a transition period, during which it must be determined that
"competition is occurring." After that, it becomes a more or less
laissez-faire ball game, in a climate of deregulation and lack
of anti-trust enforcement. There's no going back, no guarantee
that if competition fades, regulation will return.
Just as the media industry is vertically integrated (owning its own
distribution infrastructure), so it will seek telecom acquisitions
as the digital network nears implementation.
Following awesome merger wars among huge conglomerates, a single
media-communications mega-industry, dominated by a clique of
vertically-integrated majors, is likely to emerge. Regulation will
indeed govern cyberspace but - in accordance with the globalist
paradigm - it will be regulation by and for the cartel.
CONTROL OF DISTRIBUTION
Monopolization is about creating an all-the-traffic- will-bear
marketplace. This operates today, for example, in cinemas and video
rentals. Films compete on the basis of consumer interest, not price.
So, cyberspace majors will compete, but in content acquisition -
seeking the most successful offerings and coverage - and in extending
market territories. This competition may bring consumers ever more
titillating entertainment, but the scope and "message" of their
entertainment (and information) will be molded by corporations.
International regulations being created for libel, copyright, and
pornography combine to make Internet culture ultimately untenable.
A bulletin board, for example, would not be run in open mode;
in essence, staff would have to filter submissions to avoid
prosecution liability. List owners would be forced to become
censors, verifying contributor's statements like newspaper
editors. The open universe of today's Internet seems destined
for marginalization, just like CB-radio or public-interest
broadcasting, thus completing the commercial domination of
cyberspace and corporate domination of society.
The ability to distribute media products at reasonable rates to large
audiences translates into the ability to start up a competing media
company, with production costs as the only major capitalization
required.
This is exactly what media cartels wish to avoid; discouraging start-ups
is what "control over distribution" is all about. In the case of TV,
scarce
bandwidth translated into expensive licenses, and the cartel was easily
maintained.
In cyberspace, the cartel can maintain distribution control by defining
services and setting prices, so that media distribution is artificially
expensive and cost-effective only on a massive scale, requiring massive
capitalization.
What will it cost to send a message to one person in commercial
cyberspace? My guess is that the "traffic will bear" about as much for
a one-page message as a first-class letter. This may seem over-priced,
but so what? I consider my voice phone service (and CDs) over-priced -
c'est la vie under monopoly market forces. The advertising brochure
will boast, "Get your message instantly to anyone in the world - for
one flat rate less than a domestic postage stamp."
At 25 cents per recipient, a 500-person Internet mailing-list carries a
$125 posting fee direct from the poster to the telco. You can play with
the numbers, talk about receiver-pays, and note that corporate users
will insist on affordable networking, but monopoly-controlled pricing
could totally change Internet usage patterns.
The media-com industry will make plenty of money from 1-1 e-mail
messaging, and plenty more from their own commercial products. Whether
they want to encourage widespread citizen networking is entirely up
to them, according to their own sovereign cost/benefit analysis.
If they don't favor it, it won't happen - except in the same
marginalized way of HAM radio.
There likely will be some kind of commercial chat- room/discussion-group
industry, but monopolized by online versions of talk radio, presided
over by an Oprah Winfrey and Larry King - with inset screens for
"randomly selected" guests. "Online discussion" will thus be a new
kind of media product, its distribution economics structured to
favor the cartel.
The prospects surely seem dim for both democracy and cyberspace, and
cyberspace itself may be more a part of the problem than a part of
the solution.
Following a career in computer software with Xerox, PARC, Apple, and
others, RICHARD K. MOORE moved to Ireland, where he is developing a
book, a documentary, and a grant-funded website.
- ---------------------------------
A Not So Hidden Agenda ...
Date: Sun, 21 Dec 97 19:07:24 +0000
From: Brenda Jinkins <[email protected]>
From: [www.FreeRepublic.com]
Posted by: Boyd () *
12/21/97 10:37:09 PST
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