Intersection 05: Internet irony

At the ongoing TED Global (Techonology, Entertainment, and Design) conference in Oxford, UK, Harvard dude Ethan Zuckerman said that the internet has not lived up to its promise, that of being the great leveller (for the full article, go to the BBC Technology section). Intriguing proposition, but hardly surprising. From my perspective anyway.

Zuckerman said that the internet promised everything was within reach (just a click away). In the area of mass communication, this means that, with the power of the internet, news and information from another part of the world becomes far more accessible these days than those of days past. And with such access, a greater, wider appreciation of the world emerges.

In the real world, however, media consumers have not fully exploited such power, and instead created online communities that cater to their common, usually “local” interests. This means that internet media consumers access a limited number of news and information, and exchange views about it with people within their own social (virtual and real) spheres. What happens in these online communities is a sharing and reinforcement of common worldviews. As such, the internet has not really widened, but actually contributed to narrowing already existing worldviews.

During my graduate studies, and even earlier during my active years as a true blue (true red?) tibak, I remember discussions in which the irony of the internet, as propounded by Zuckerman, is on all fours with the irony of globalization (or whatever synonym they use these days to refer to it). You can look at globalization, as we discussed (read: fought over) it, as the world expanding or the world shrinking. The world equalizing or the world tilting to the whims of the First World. The world liberated or the world enslaved.

Zuckerman’s take on the internet and its promise, same banana. The internet connects us, indeed, faster than any previous media had ever did—to the very people within our own existing or dormant, and actual social networks.

The internet still has the potential to revolutionize access to information, but it apparently will not revolutionize it on its own. As Zuckerman advocates, we media consumers should exploit the internet to bring about a new appreciation of our world. Until we do so, the internet remains a vessel for the perpetuation of existing and erstwhile dominant (maybe even prejudiced) worldviews. And in the process, we foster a homogenous existence. In small pockets all over the world.

Maybe we should call it the intranet instead.

-- William G. Ragamat