Summary
Robert McChesney: Digital Exclusion
How capitalism turns the Internet against democracy
What does the Internet represent today and what is its role in social changes?
From the promise of radical democratization of the public sphere, true media pluralism, decentralization of social power, the disappearance of censorship, the decommercialization of culture and markets without monopoly, we got a completely different situation. The communication space of the Internet is concentrated in the "clouds" of a few monopolistic corporations, advertising based on user tracking has become the dominant business model, electronic communications are under constant surveillance by intelligence services, and the news media is in an unprecedented crisis. The author finds the reasons for the broken promises in the commercialization of the Internet due to changes in public policies during the 1990s and the consequent effect of capitalist forces on its further development.
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