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60 The Nation.
July 12
1993
they have a social duty,he subject might t least move higher
up on their own agendas.
Broadcasters should payor their franchises. Since the early
days of radio, it
has
been periodically proposedhat broad-
cast channels should be auctioned offo the highest bidder,
with the proceeds
going
into the public treasury and some sub-
stantial percentage of he money allotted to strengthen
public
broadcasting.
This
reasonable idea
as
rarely been seriously
discussed either in Congress or in the press. Affirming the
principle that public goods should be paidor need not mean
putting the present broadcasting systemp for grabs, which
would create haos and be unacceptable to the ublic. How-
ever, in a time of transition like the present, it is
important
to have this principle in place.
Communications channels should be recognized as pub-
lic utilities, nd their ownership and ontrol should be sepa-
rated fromcontrol of programming. By strict logic, thisrule
would force newspaper ownerso divest themselves of heir
printing plants and radio stations of their transmitting
tow-
ers-not likely or politically feasible. However, he
principle
of
separation can and should apply to all wire-transmitted
programmingand information-by cable, telephoneor even
over the electric power grid-and it should apply to micro-
wave
direct
broadcastingby satelliteaswell. Why issuch sep-
aration desirable? Because it would keep the powerfulonop
oly utility, he carrier, from lso determining what ideasnd
imagesare fed into the cultural mainstream.
modest fund should
e
created to stimulate researchnto
aspects of massommunications echnology that are not re-
sponsive to market forces.
An
example mightbe the develop-
ment of new low-budget ways to distribute newspapers to
match the much lower cost of producing them inhe computer
era. This would make it easier for new papers to start up in
a
time of constricted advertising revenues nd would
restore
competitive energyo
l o c a l
journalism.
Will
the development
of suchechnology emerge from he newspaper industry itself?
Not likely from a businesshat has been investing
.2
percent
of its revenues in research and development and that lives
comfortably with its local monopolies.
Funding
for
public broadcasting shoulde increased, and
its governance system safeguardedo protect it from political
interference. The nations
otal
investment in public broadcast-
ing represents only percent of the annual spending on tele-
vision and cable. Britain spends thirty-six timess much per
capita on public
broadcasting
Japan seventeen
times
asmuch.
Most important, media policy should be seen
s
social pol-
icy, not just as the legal administrationof technical
complex-
ities. Broadcasting frequencies must be allocated to avoid
chaos on the airwaves, but the F.C.C.s rulings have conse-
quences for every aspect ofnational life. Educational policy
is made by educators, not left to lawyers. Why should the
F.C.C. bea lawyers preserve? The public acceptsnormous
expenditures on schoolsasanecessary social obligation. Tele-
vision is no less a formative influencehan the classroom and
deserves to be taken far more seriously s an educational re-
source.
(In many school istricts, t
is
just a commercial oppor-
tunity for Channel One, a venture ofTime Warner affiliate
Whittle Communications.)
Education isa matter of public concern, atoth the comm
nity and national levels; but mass media policy has not
a matter of widespread interest.As it deals with ever more
complex technicalmatters, it becomes increasingly inacce
sible to general debate. Vigorous discussion,nd not just by
experts
is precisely what media policy needs
s
we enter an
erafowerful new communicationsechnology.
THE INTERNET
The
Whole World
Is Tal-
KEVIN
COOKE AND DAN LEHRER
E
lfway around the world, Warn Kat files daily
ports on life in Zagreb, Croatia.
I
just stood
about half an hour in the supermarket dow
watching
a
firmly builtman
.
He
was
shouting
at everybody in the shop, he wroteon May
24.
From wha
I could understand, he said hat when Croatiawas under th
Serbs (in ormer Yugoslavia), the price of breadwas at leas
half of what it is now.ust a few days ago I heard somebo
say that under the communists we had our problems, but no
under the capitalists we have our problems too. What is he
difference if you work or the communist or capitalist elite
Kats bulletins, which he calls Zagreb Diary, dont p
pear inYugoslav papers or on television. They existn cyber
space. Kat types them on his own computer in Zagreb and
sends them y modem to an electronic bulletin board iner
many. From there,
is
storiesare relayed to computers around
the world
via
the global mega-information stream calledhe
Internet.
Electronic
mail
is the onlylink between me nd the outsid
world, saysKat,writing by e-mail. The Croatian governme
owns
all the major media in the country and is prosecutin
a group of journalists for treason.
Kat is onlyone of the millions of peopleparticipating in
this community without
walls
During other recent cataclys
the Internet providedn instant, unfiltered linko the world
In Russia, during the coup attempt, people were provid
ing live reports on Russian Internet about what was really
going
on.
They
were widely circulated n the Net,
says
Mitch
ell Kapor, founder of Lotus Development Corporation and
now chairmanof the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a
advocating electroniccivil liberties, primarily freedom
speech and privacy, During Tiananmen Square, student
were getting the news out and were fundraising throughnter
net, adds Tom Mandel,
a
futurist with SRI International
a
Silicon Valley-based consultingirm. There were a bunch
Kevin Cooke and Dan Lehrer are students
at the
Graduat
School of Journalism at the Universityf Cal~ornicsBerkeley
Although t h q claim they am
not
computer
WeenieJ:
hq can b
reached by e-mail
at
[email protected]
and
lehrer
@wJberkelq.edu TimZiegler also contributedo this articl
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July
12 1993 The
Nation.
6
of us hungrily reading newsgroups,tuff we werent getting
from
reporters. (Newsgroups are open discussion groups
where people can post their views.)
But the Net is changing morehan just theflow of infor-
mation; its changing he way we relate to one another. The
advent
of
global networking is fragmenting and re-sorting
society into what one author calls virtual communities.
nstcad of being bound y location, groups of peopleannow
meet
in cyberspace, the noncorporeal world existing between
two linked computers. There they can look for colleagues,
friends, romance
or
sex. John Hoag, communications coor-
dinator for BARRNet, he Bay Area Regional Research Net-
work
who began computer networking in
1986,
says, I
met more people on-line inside a month than I met in the
past ten years.
Have modem, will travel.
The Internet is the most powerful computer networkn the
planet simply because itshe biggest. It encompasses1.3 mil-
lion computers with Internet addresses that are used by up
to 30 million people in morehan forty countries.The number
of computers linked to the Internet has doubled everyyear
between
1988
and
1992;
this year the rate of increase slowed
slightly to 80 percent. To reach it, one needs only
computer,
modem and password. Dan Van Belleghem, who helps on-
nect organizations to the Internet
for
the National Science
Foundation, says, Nobody has ver dropped off he network.
Once they get on they get hooked. Its like selling drugs.
While Internet experts deridehe term information super-
highway as an empty soundbite, the concept works
as
an
analogy to understand how the Internet functions. Think of
it
as
a massive road system, complete with freeways, feeders
and local routes.
At
every intersection sits computer, which
has to be passed through to get to the next computer until
youve reached your estination.
Any
computer on the Inter-
net system an connect with anyther computer through the
road system. And if the route to your destination is closed,
you will automatically take a detour to get there.
The difference between the Internet and the Interstate is
that you can go to Finland as quicklyasyou can go
down
the
block. ncethere, you can remotely manipulatehe computer
to do nything your owncan do.
You
can retrieve
a
file from
it in the blink of an eye.
Today, userscan talk to one another, send e-mail backnd
forth, join arcane discussion groups,ap into libraries n
uni-
versities from Berkeleyo Bern and exchange almost any sort
of data, including pictures, sound and text. Recently, a
cult
movie called
Wau
was broadcast to Internet sites all around
the country. While it
as
black and white and only two frames
per second, it was an mportant first step toward the
computer
equivalent
of
cable broadcasting.Also, a radio program isal-
ready broadcastweekly on the Net, complete with technology
news and a Geek of the Week segment.
But its not all smooth sailing on the sea of information.
On most computers, the Internet is hard
to
use. The arcane
commands that run t make little senseo many average users,
who can find themselves lost in cyberspace without a map.
The Internet todays still for computer weenies, saysapor.
But the problem will take care of itself, he adds, because
easier to use software tools will appear
as
the Net grows.
To make matters more confusing, because the Internet
a network of networks, no one group
or
person is in char
Kapor describes t as anarchy. Mandel says, Its all ver
ad hoc. And R.U. Sinus, editor in chief of the cyberpun
magazineMondo
2000,
says, Its definitely out
of
control.
Ironically, the anarchy began n the bowels of theDefen
Department. Back in
1969,
the Pentagons Advanced R
search
Projects
Agency created ARPANET,
a
computer ne
working project, o transmit packets of military ata secure
and efficiently around the world. In 1984, the National Sc
ence Foundation began building five supercomputersroun
the country for conducting scientific research. When D
Department researchers wanted accesso the supercompute
as well, the N.S.F. linked them up with
ARPANET.
The pop
ularity of computer access, especially o collaborate on-lin
has steadily expandedever since.
It was just a bunch of computer scientists alking to on
another, says Van Belleghem. Then educators and peop
involved in researchor administrationallwanted to talk to on
another, get files, get to libraries on the network. Its bee
opening up and getting more open every year. Over he pa
decade, tens ofhousands of nonmilitary networksave be
c~nnected
o the Internets electronic
eb
including
th
Libra
of Congress, mostU.S.universities and libraries, and priva
companies from General Electric to the Bank
of
Bermud
Of course, notall the sites are publicly accessible. Most
r
vate sites require special passwords for entry, which o
istered users nd an occasional hacker can get. However, th
amount
of
information available to the on-line public is
ta
gering. Getting information off the Internet is like takin
a drink from a fire hydrant, saysK a p o r . Everything
fromh
complete works of Shakespeareo the number
of
sodas in
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62 The Nation. July 12,199
Coke machine at Carnegie-Mellon University s accessible.
The primary use of he Net is for communication, however.
Half the traffic on the Internet is e-mail at this point,
says
Mandel. The number of topics on the newsgroups can be
daunting. Therearemore than
2,500
different subjects,
ang
ing from ne for fans of The
Simpsons,
to classified and per-
sonal ads, to Bay Area politics.
There
are also
naturally, many roups dedicated to differ-
ent computer systems and languages,
as
computer scientists
and hackers are still the main users
of
the Internet. One re-
searcher at Cornell who studied the way scientists use the
newsgroups discoveredhat realresearch isnt furthered much
by reading them. Bruce Lewenstein, assistant professor
of
communication and science and technology studies, found
that during the cold fusion controversy, newsgroupsid little
to aid scientists assessing the phenomenon. In fact, most of
the newsgroup postings onstituted what he calls irrelevant
chatter. Indeed, in
a
two-week period in April, the two most
active posterswere sending erotic images. The White House
came in hird, with transcripts of press briefings, speeches
and
press releases.
But some peoplereusing newsgroupso disseminate infor-
mation from a different perspective. Hare1 Barzilai, Cornell
graduate student in math, has created a group for progres-
sive activists, nd he claimshat 23 000 people read hisost-
ingsregularly. His group (misc.activism.progressive in
Internetspeak) posts articles from leftist magazines and
al-
ternative campus publications, aswell as action bulletins on
issues ofconcern. Youre not going to find anything to the
left
of
the Democratic Party
nTV or in
newspapers, he says.
And for those of us who have accesso the nternet, its free
to use it nd post information. his is
our
chance to be heard.
Like many Netheads, Barzilai thinks of the Internet as a
new communication model, allowing for unfiltered, many-
to-many publishing, rather than the raditional hierarchical
one-to-many approach. This is a situation where money, or
capital, does not have a monopoly on access, he says.
R U Siriusagrees. The role ofcapital as an editor is being
removed, he says. Sirius, like many, feels sense of libera-
tion on the Net. The metaphor
of
the highway Fits, he says.
Like Jack Kerouacs
n he Road,
from
a
tight little com-
munity out onto theide open road. Everybodys out there;
its not a small elite system.
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Howard Rheingold, whose ook The Virtual Com munit
is being published in October by Addison-Wesley, says, I
you have
a
computer,
you
have the power to broadcast. Itgiv
the power to individuals that used to be only that of the
priv
ileged few. And, he adds, the direct access to informatio
the Internet provides is inherently politically subversive.
These Internet activists want o make sure hat this powe
stays
with individuals. Right now debate is raging in Wa
ington on how to transform the Internet into a faster, bigg
network, called NREN, the National Research and Educa
tion Network. Funding for NREN began with hen-Senato
Al Gore in
1991.
This year, Congressman Rick Boucher is
sponsoring legislationo add on to
Gores
brainchild, providi
1.5 billion in funding to hook libraries, schools nd medic
facilities to
new
high-speed computers. Telecommunicatio
and computer companies, including NYNEX nd Cray R
search, have lined p in favorand a Clinton Administratio
spokesperson has said that thePresident isprepared to sig
the legislation, which is expectedo pass through oth house
of Congress this summer.
Megacorporations could
determinehow muchpeople will
have topayfor access.
But one of the main aims of Bouchers billhas alarme
many longtime Net users. t alsoencourages the NREN com
puters to use private networks, insteadf publicly subsidiz
ones. Boucher, chairman of the House Science Subcomm
tee, has suggested that the government should turn over a
areas
of
the Internet to private orporations whenever pos
ble. He says, The Internet has grown without a clear pla
or organization. Theres no government for the Internet. On
of the great challenges
s
to establish some means of pr
ing order and giving markers along the way.
By
itself, the first move toward privatization means littl
Another Boucher-sponsored bill would
rant
antitrust exem
tions For telephone companies, allowingsingle company t
own both phoneand cable lines. Boucherhinks thiswill pr
vide the financial incentive for the private sector o upgrad
the communications links between the Internet and priva
homes. But critics ear that the end result could e the expa
sion of local cable and telephone monopolies into monop
lies controlling all electronic access nto the home.
By giving the private sector unregulated and monopolist
control over the Nets electronic connections,he governme
would in effect allowmegacorporations like AT&T and Tim
Warner, who own the cable lines and manage what flow
through them, to call the shots in the future. They could d
termine how much anyone, rom a single individual to a un
versity, will have o pay for access. Some phone companie
for example, are already discussing charging usersither b
the amount of time they log
on
to the Internet or by th
amount of data they send over it-despite the fact that the
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July 22, 1993 The Nation.
network operating costs are fixed no matter how many peo-
ple use it orhow much data flows through it. Changing the
funding structure means the eventual extinction ofhe smdl,
mom-and-pop computer networks, which could find them-
selves victimsof predictable market forces. And that means
that isolated users nd cash-strapped colleges could beut off
from their virtual communities.
Not everyone predicts suchscenario, however. John Hoag
from BARRNet hinks virtual communities will survive even
if commercial interests ominate the data superhighway. The
Internet culture has its roots so deep, I dont think its
going
to disappear, he says. Even if local monopoly restricts ac-
cess to the Net, the culture will exist around it.
Net users have reacted fiercelyo Bouchers proposals, with
e-mail flying from Berkeleyo Bangladesh. The specter of cen-
sorship,
as
on commercial systems like Prodigy, where system
administrators routinely delete objectionable messages,
looms. Communities, whether virtual or physical, should
be self-determining, rather than determined by megacorpo-
rations; adds the Electronic Frontier Foundations Kapor.
The usersof he Net shoulddetermine its uses and content.
In a worst-case scenario, Rheingold says,orporations would
not only monitor whats on the Internet, they wouldmonitor
you. If, as some predict, the information superhighway be-
comes primarily
a
conduit for watching movies,banking at
home and shopping, the same omputers that we use to lessen
the burden of our daily errands could also be usedby the
cor-
porations that provide those services to destroy our
personal
privacy. The Net could be used by marketing wizards-the
same ones who flood us with annoying junk mail-to keep
tabs on us all in Orwellian fashion, automatically recording
our interests and habits.
Hackers have already developed a few defenses, which
could be the seeds for preserving the right to free communi-
cation. Free software to encode all electronic transmissions
is now widely available, with codeshat even the fastest
super-
computers would ave a tough time cracking.This means that
nobody but the person you send something to-whether an
e-mail note or
a
piece of software-can read it.
And anonymity is also possible-networks have been set
up in such disparate places as Helsinki and San Diego to en-
able completely nonymous speech. The Finnish operator de-
clared that he will never allow anyone to find out the true
names of his users without a court order.
Internet activists are also not happy with the Clinton Ad-
ministrations effort to impose a standard encoding scheme
for data, whether e-mailr a movie, that only the government
can break. The machinery of oppression has weak spots,
Rheingold says, noting the spread of encryption techniques
that even the National Security Agency may not be able to
crack. But the powers that be in the N.S.A. have convinced
Clinton that they have o close the doorsbefore all he cows
get out.
Whether its he government
or
private corporations, what
everyone wants is ontrol of a new form of communication,
one that currently cannot be controlled. Given the stakes
and
the power of the interests now seeking to shape and profit
from this new technology, the end result maynot be a happy
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6 The Nation.
July
12,
199
one for the average citizen-user. The key questions of ccess
pricing, censorship nd redress
of
grievances
wiU
be
answered
in practice, in law, in executive order r legislative action,
over
the next five years, Rheingold writes, and will thus deter-
mine the political and economic structure of the Net for
dec-
ades to come.
But for the time being, the activities of people likeWam
Kat seem to prove
an
old hacker adage:
ll
information
wants to be free.
= HE
INFORMATION
HIGHWAY
Public Wav
or
Private Road?
HERBERT I . SCHILLER
A
entirely new electronic environment-indubtrial
and individual, factory and household-is being
created at anstonishing speed.Who
will
own it?
Who will direct it? Who will utilize t? Who
w i l l
benefit from it? Theevidence
of
the construction scaffold-
ing is everywhere. The answers to these questions
re less
easy
to find.
Information technology has penetrated every corner of
theU S conomy,
Business Week
ecently concluded, adding
that throughout the
198Os U S
usiness invested stagger-
ing
1
trillion in information technology. These xpenditures
increased productivity in manufacturing, services and retail
activity.
The electronics, film, TV, cable and information industries
have now decided hat it
is
time for the general public o
ex-
perience firsthand-at our own expense, to be sure-the
new electronics. President Clinton and Vice President
Gore
view the coming efforts to hook up homes as well aswork-
places electronically
as a
historical turning point in the
capability to move ideas, ata and imagesaround the coun-
try and around the world. Gore sees this development
as
by all odds the most important and lucrative marketplace
of the 21st century.
Another booster is Apple Computers chairman, John
Sculley. He estimates that the revenue that will be
generated
by the merging of television, telecommunications, comput-
ers, consumer electronics, publishingand information serv-
ices into
a
singie interactivenformation industry could reach
3.5
trillion worldwide by the year 2001.
The almost daily reports of gigantic deals, mergers, in-
dustry crossover combinations and announcements of gov-
ernment approval confirm that a social transformation of
truly epic proportions is under way. Promoted by a variety
of high-tech electronic interests, it is being thrust, want
it
Herbert
I .
Schiller is autho r
of
an updated edition
of Mass
Communications and American Empire
Wesfview)and co-
author wifhGeorge Gerber
and
Hamid Mawanu
ofTkiumph
of the Image: The Medias
War
in the Persian Gulf
WZiew).
or not, need it or not,
on
he people and the economy.
This
development represents far ore than routine corpo
rate restructuring, ndustrial realignment or familiar
pattern
of industrial concentration, though all this is happening a
well. What is rapidly taking shape beyond this is an
electron
ically organizedotal environment that encompasses indiv
ual, household, business and work practices in their totalit
Its major components will be the information highway an
the new electronic gadgets hat will
feed
into it. Some featu
of this electronically administered social space are alread
discernible.
It
will
be an almost exclusively privatized social landsca
The public and the publics interest, if not entirely exclude
from consideration, will at best be given marginalttention
In
fact,
what was once the public sector is on theway to ex
tinction. The deals
are
between giant companies. Governm
intervention, when present, occurs
nly
to reconcile diverge
corporate interests or to provide subsidies for projectsot
ye
commercially viable. With respect o high definition telev
sion, for example, the Federal Communications Commissio
has been prodding the rivals to bury their differences an
form
an
alliance, according o a report by Edmund Andrew
in
The New York Times.
The privatization of the electronic economy is well unde
way. The Clinton Administrations 994budget bill includ
an unprecedented proposal to sell frequencies of the radi
spectrum,
a
unique natural (and national) resource. Today
Democrats and Republicans alike stronglyupport selling par
of the spectrum, justifying it as a fundraiser and estimatin
that
as
much
as 7.2
billion may be
ealized
from the auction
Under this reasoning, why not put the Great Lakes, the Rock
Mountains and the national parks on the block?
The proposed sell-off of ublic property is being extend
to the existing national electronic network.
n
important pa
of the Clinton Administrationsprogram has been to call fo
a
National Information Infrastructure, which is intended
link every business, home, chool and college in commun
cations network. Such a network, at least in partial form,
operating as the Internet [see Kevin Cooke and Dan Lehre
The Internet, established with government funds in
196
and now serving, at minimal cost, up to
0
million compute
hands,
s
performing some of the work that the Administra
tion claims it wants to have expanded. The Net is currentl
handling scientific communication, some data transmission
bibliographic material and electronic mail.
An
upgraded na
tional electronic network will have the capacity to transm
far greater amounts
of
material (including televisionnd
film
more rapidly nd
with
interactiveservice allowing the receiv
viewers to make choices and selections.
The Internet could be he basisof a free socialnformatio
facility in the electronic era, yet it is being divested
of
its pub
lic character. Administration-approved proposalso privatiz
the Internet are moving through Congress. Some see priva
zation of the Internet
as
a threat to the ontinued availabilit
of the network at reasonable cost o educational users.
A
vic
president of EDUCOM
(a
communications consortium o
colleges and universities) observes: Theres entirelyoo muc
page
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