The Internet Does Not Represent A Democratisation Of The Media

Imagine getting online, only to find out that you can 't access your favorite website. It could be Instagram, Tumblr, or even Youtube, a website for uploading videos. After getting off the phone with your internet provider, they tell you that you need to pay to access your favorite website. Internet providers want it to be set up that way. Their has been an ongoing debate about net neutrality between the Federal Communication Commission (FCC) and internet providers. Net neutrality is fighting again internet providers blocking content.

Kearl, Michael C. "Explorations in Social Inequality." A Sociological Tour Through Cyberspace. Abstract. February 1, 1996. (http://www.trinity.edu/mkearl/strat.html)

Attention Getter: When you go online you have certain expectations. You expect to be connected to whatever website you want. You expect that your cable or phone company isn’t messing with the data and is connecting you to all websites, applications and content you choose. You expect to be in control of your internet experience. When you use the internet you expect Net Neutrality.

Over the past few decades our generation has witnessed a communication revolution no generation has ever witnessed before. The Internet was fully commercialized in the U.S. by mid-1990s and instant communication including the World Wide Web, email, and instant messaging have all played part of an enormous impact on media, commerce, and politics during that time and up until now. U.S. scholar and activist Robert McChesney has spent the past twenty years studying and documenting the effects of this Internet revolution and its relationship with capitalism and democracy. In his 2013 work “Digital Disconnect: How Capitalism is Turning the Internet Against Democracy,” McChesney addresses the relationship between the economic power and the digital

Should the media play a role in American democracy? The media has a big role in informing people about what is going on in the world. I believe that the media shouldn’t play a role in American democracy. The media has the power to influence voters and candidates, but that is dangerous. If the media were to still play a role in American democracy, it would be a limited one.

In almost any known economic system, there are going to be imbalances of power. Someone, or a group of people, is eventually going to be more well off than another. An early attempt to fix these imbalances was to implement a laissez faire type system, a hands-off approach with very little regulation on the market. This eventually backfired as the imbalances between the rich and the poor only became even more extreme since, with little regulation, the rich companies were able to take advantage of the poor by providing them low working wages and kept most of the profits to themselves. Not too long afterwards, antitrust laws and commission regulation was implemented in some systems in order to provide equal, yet aggressive, competition. However, even though it succeeds in its goal to provide equal, yet aggressive, competition, it does not necessarily protect the better

I wrote an opinion article about a relationship between two different social groups for the “Humans of New York” website, the goal of which, is to attract masses to lives and problems of different classes. It was written in a invocatory tone as for the citizens of New York as for those who accidentally got on to a website.

I am Aric See and I am a senior in the Weidner School of Inquiry at Plymouth High School in Plymouth Indiana. Net Neutrality is a very important issue facing the United States, with many Republican members of Congress opposing the FCC’s Open Internet Order and the reclassifying of broadband to Telecommunication Services from Information Services. The members of the GOP who are completely against the Federal Communication Commission’s (FCC) reclassification, and attempts to keep the internet free, give many reasons that are simply not true, such as the FCC’s regulations will destroy the free nature of the internet. Because of the attempts by Congressmen with the GOP to fight the regulations, many Americans, especially small business owners that use the web as a base, feel that their equality and freedoms on the internet will be

Net neutrality is an internet service provider (ISP) which requires treating all data equally. It is important to have net neutrality because rules and regulations have to be upheld. If there was no net neutrality, providers could do whatever they want because there would be no one consequences. Therefore, neutrality laws give businesses the chance to stand as equals. It affects companies and customers. In particular, when the customer pays for services such as T-Mobile, Bright House, and TECO they want fast and uninterrupted services as well as customer service ready to discuss concerns. Customers do not want to pay for services that do not deliver on its promise. Organizations have to make a profit to stay in business, and they need their

Furthermore, some posit that ISPs could charge for site specific access which could further limit open access to certain demographics of the population (Cook, 2014). There are some that even argue net neutrality should also be considered in light of human rights. The 1948 UN Declaration of Human Rights stated that all humans have a right to “education and cultural life” (Long live net neutrality, 2015). As more and more information is accessed via the internet, lack of internet access (tiered plans, blocked sites, throttled access, fast lanes) could infringe on those

With the increased access for individuals to allow their messages and ideas to be heard on a larger scale (e.g. Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, etc.), more and more individuals are becoming more aware of the major events and milestones behind Network Neutrality. Large companies have invested a lot of money on the infrastructure that makes up the basis of what we know to be as the internet, and it makes sense that they should have some sort of say in what goes on. With the complexity and vastness of the internet, it is hard to create legislation that effectively protects the internet in what it is today, and not offend others in the process. The events in the most recent years have brought forth an increased amount of public and media attention on the subject, and has been the center of a large number of debates. Throughout all of these debates, the general public opinion has been that “Public opinion was overwhelming pro net neutrality” (KnightFoundation, 5). What this meant was that the general public was beginning to catch onto the general idea of Network Neutrality, and were starting to side with those much more for rather than

The concept of network neutrality (more commonly referred to as net neutrality) has been a fixture of debates over United States telecommunications policy throughout the first decade of the twenty-first century. Based upon the principle that internet access should not be altered or restricted by the Internet Service Provider (ISP) one chooses to use, it has come to represent the hopes of those who believe that the internet still has the potential to radically transform the way in which we interact with both people and information, in the face of the commercial interests of ISPs, who argue that in order to sustain a competitive marketplace for internet provision, they must be allowed to differentiate their services. Whilst this debate has

Throughout the last decade, the idea of Net Neutrality has been the topic of many debates. Net Neutrality is the idea that Internet service providers should not be allowed to block their users from any content regardless of its source. The Debate is still continuing in 2017 with the F.C.C planning to repeal Net Neutrality and allow internet providers to completely regulate what their users can see and charge the users extra for “luxuries” such as social media, messaging, email, and music. There are two sides of this argument, one side believes that Net Neutrality should be taken away, while others believe that it is unfair for the Internet providers to have the right to take away the access to any content. Internet providers should not be allowed to control what content one can view when surfing the internet.

In this field, competition refers to network owners (ISP). Their differential in pricing and control of information alters the competition. Anti-competitive acts by network owners would be barred due to the impact of net neutrality (St. Petersburg). The major companies (telecom and cable) could enforce a fee for faster Internet or prefer content that is associated with their partnered conglomerates. The cause would be a halt in innovation and end up giving larger companies the power to nudge aside the smaller start-ups from expanding (Linux Journal). Also, net neutrality saves the internet as an ideal marketplace. For the previous 10 years, the Internet has been a public marketplace where privatized companies are able to expand and grow, and this reputation will continue to serve (Opposing Views). More importantly, without net neutrality in affect, price discrimination risks start-ups from emerging out of their cocoons. Net neutrality once paved the concept of free market endeavors. Without these regulations, innovators are at the hands of network owners and building new online entrepreneurships or

How much does your vote really count? As a voter, does your choice really matter? How much influence does the media have on your vote? How many choices does the media actually make when it comes to our nation's leadership? These are questions pondered by both political scientists and the average American citizen each year as the second Tuesday in November approaches. Though we know that the framers founded this nation on the principles of representing it's citizens, and on the ideals of a nation for the people and by the people; it is obvious that the people feel that their vote doesn't always count. In this paper I plan to expand on these questions and the justifications behind asking them, and I plan to follow up with a specific