Cyberspace and the Public Sphere

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Cyberspace and the Public Sphere

• By
• Dr. Oliver Boyd-Barrett
• Cal Poly Pomona

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Points of Departure

• Of 6 billion people on Earth, 3 billion subsist
  on less than 2 a day.
  
• 60 of the world population lives in rural
  areas.
  
• Over 80 of the worlds main telephone lines
  serve urban areas.
  
• Few have ever made a telephone call.
• Over 50 of Indias 600,000 villages lack a
  working telephone.
  
• Teledensity in India is 1.5 and narrow band in
  most places it does not serve the Internet.
  
• 78.3 of language used on Internet web pages in
  1999 was English (Spanish 1.7, Chinese 0.6).
  
  
• Worldwide less than one in ten people speak
  English.
  
• Illiteracy is high in most developing countries.

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Points of Departure

• About 50 of Internet users are in the U.S., 25
  in Europe, 12-13 in Asia.
  
• By the year 2004, only 12 countries will account
  for 89 of global ecommerce sales. (US leading)
  
• In the U.S., households earning 75,000 are more
  than 20 times more likely to have Internet access
  than those at lowest income levels, and more than
  9 times as likely to have a computer at home.
• 39 of rural Indian land has basic phone service.
  15 rural Native American households have
  computers and Internet access.
  
• Three million of the 119 million items of the
  Library of Congress are digitized.
  
• One in eight U.S. households have emailed a
  government official in the past 18 months 24
  have visited city, or federal government
  websites 12 have visited a candidates web
  site.

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Transnational Corporations

• Approximately 50 of the worlds 1000 largest
  corporations are in the US
  
• Three countries (U.S., Britain, Japan) control
  942 of the worlds 1000 largest corporations.
  
• 62 of the worlds largest 100 corporations are
  U.S. (Europe had 32, Japan had 4).
  
• There are 60,000 TNCs, with 500,000 foreign
  affiliates. 85 are based in developed (OECD)
  countries.
  
• TNCs account for two thirds of total world
  exports (of which one third are intrafirm).
  
• TNCs typically employ 2/3 of their workforce and
  produce more than 2/3 of their output in their
  home country.
  
• In the OECD, knowledge based industries account
  for over half of business output in the mid-1990s.

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Transnational Corporations

• Of the worlds top 1000 companies in market value
  (1998), some 112 were communications companies.
  Communication companies accounted for one third
  of the top 100, and one half of the top 10
  
  .
• Of the top 100 best-performing public information
  technology companies in 1999, 74 were U.S.
  
• Annual growth rate of telecommunications and
  information sector in the United States is twice
  the rate of the overall economy. IT has
  accounted for a third of recent economic growth.

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Globalization and Communications

• Distinctive Features of Contemporary
• Globalization
• 1. Inclusivity
• 2. Importance of Transnational Corporations
• 3. Role of Communications Media
• Significance of Communications Media for
• Globalization
• 1. As sources of profit on global markets, for
  hardware and software sales
  
• 2. As vehicles for advertising of products on
  global markets
  
• 3. As increasingly essential facilitators of
  international trade and finance, above all for
  the transnational corporations
  
• 4. As vehicles for semiotic constructions of the
  world
  

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Telecommunications

• 1. Proliferation of new competitors
• emergence of one or two particularly strong
  enterprises in each market
  
• liberalization often jump-started (e.g. as
  condition for EU entry)
  
• 2. Convergence of fixed and mobile telephony,
  cable and Internet telephony
  
• 3. Alliances between erstwhile monopolies
• 4. Previous state monopolies retain strong market
  advantages
  
• 5. Governments retain an interest
• 6. Smaller competitors often dependent on
  previous state monopolies
  
• 7. Increasing competition in telephony
  enhancements issues of standardization
  
• 8. Regulation still accounts for market
  differentials
  
• 9. New competition comes from highly capitalized
  sectors of the economy
  
• 10. New competition goes for the cream
• 11. Issues of telecommunications, teledensity,
  democracy and prosperity.
  

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Global Trends in Communication

• Digitization
• De-regulation, privatization
• Convergence
• Concentration
• Commercialization
• Internationalization (Hamelink, 1995)
• To these we should now add .
• Competitivization
• New media compete with old
• New technologies spawn multiple innovators
• Market expansion (virtual, territorial)
• Democratization
• Decline of communism, fascism, apartheid
  increase in multi-party states, BUT
  
• Neo-liberal pressures on sovereignty and concerns
  about domestic/international internet
  surveillance.
  

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Implications for M.I. Theory

• M.I. should not be thought of simply in terms of
  the territorial metaphor
  
• But many forms of M.I. are still territorial in
  significant respects
  
• M.I. does not have to be a global phenomenon to
  be important
  
• M.I. does not have to be a contemporary
  phenomenon to be important
  
• The forms of M.I. may vary from one period to
  another
  
• The 1970s were a period of high M.I. visibility,
  particularly in terms of content (Japanese
  supremacy in audio-visual equipment has been
  succeeded by U.S. supremacy in computer
  equipment).

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Implications for M.I. Theory

• But M.I. has many different dimensions
• The new millenium may be characterized as a
  period of
  
• relatively low M.I. Visibility (e.g. IT
  infrastructure, advertising, values, genres,
  business practices)
  
• relatively high penetration
• strong likelihood of intensification
• but increasing opportunities for small-scale
  communication
  
• Internationalization of media ownership does not
  necessarily 'de-territorialize' content
  

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Convergence

• AOL (ISP) - Time Warner (Cable and Content
  Providers) - EMI (Content Provider)
  
• ATT (mainly fixed line telephony) TCI (Cable)
  MediaOne (Cable), includes Roadrunner
  (high-speed access) AOL/Time Warner (ISP, Cable
  and Content) _at_Home (high-speed access)
  British Telecom (mainly fixed-line telephony)
  Japan Telecom (mainly fixed-line telephony)
  Wireless interests (e.g. purchase of McCaw
  Communications, Telecorp PCS Inc, Tritel)
  Microsoft (computer software)
• News Corp (Content) - Yahoo (OL Portal and
  Content)(incl. Reuters) - Microsoft ??
  
• Vodafone (principally mobile) - Mannesmann
  (principally mobile, also fixed line telephony) -
  Bell-Atlantic (principally fixed-line telephony)
  

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Convergence

• Telefonica (fixed line and mobile telephony
  satellite TV, Internet, TV sports rights)
  
• MCI WorldCom (principally fixed line, incl.
  Internet backbone) and Sprint (principally fixed
  line, incl. Internet backbone)
  
• Deutsche Telekom One2One (mobile) T-Online
  International (ISP) Club Internet (Internet
  content)Cable Banking Network Qwest
  Communications (?) U.S.West

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State, Capital and the Public Sphere

• 1. The Jurgen Habermas Model
• focus on topics that are good for society as a
  whole
  
• equality of access
• independence of (civil society) from the state
  and from capital
  
• value of ideas assessed on the basis of reason
• media are not the public sphere, they facilitate
  the operation of a public sphere
  
• massification of media a threat to their role for
  the public sphere
  

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State, Capital and the Public Sphere

• 2. Key Problems with this Vision
• it wasnt accurate it ignored working class
  press, for example
  
• the press of the 18th century was not open to
  women, minorities, the working classes
  
• the 'rationality' of the public sphere was not
  independent of the exclusions of its membership
  who defines what is 'rational'? And maybe the
  'irrational' should be part of the debate?
• it tends to focus on the cognitive
• the modern press may have been a precondition for
  a public sphere
  

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State, Capital and the Public Sphere

• 3. Why did the concept of 'public sphere' take
  root?
  
• the transition from socialism / fascism /
  apartheid to (more) democratic systems has called
  out for some such concept
  
• pragmatic need for a concept that could be used
  by both pluralists and radicals in the wake of
  the Thatcher/Reagan era whose re-invigoration of
  capitalism made much classical left-wing thinking
  about the State decidedly passe.

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State, Capital and the Public Sphere

• 4. Applying the Concept State, Capital, Public
  Sphere and Media (Galtung, Winseck)
  
• Issues
• how far are any of these three points of the
  triangle monolithic entities
  
• model is best applied to specific contexts, and
  perhaps with respect to particular media
  
• some form of operationalization of the distance
  between media and the three points of the
  triangle is required, but in practice it is
  difficult to weigh

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State, Capital and the Public Sphere

• 5. Does the Press Contribute to a Public Sphere
  today? (James Curran)
  
• (i) Watchdog Argument
• It is difficult to set up public watchdogs that
  are truly free of state intervention (e.g.BBC).
  
• In the case of private watchdogs information and
  opinion is not necessarily as important as
  entertainment and diversion
  
• Private watchdogs are not free from external
  sources of influence (they are sometimes owned by
  large corporations) and they are often
  politically partisan
• The 'watchdog' concept gives primacy to the
  State, not to Capital, but we should also be
  mindful of relative journalistic autonomy
  

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State, Capital and the Public Sphere

• (ii) Fourth Estate / Consumer Sovereignty
  Arguments
  
• Oligopolization of the media has reduced
  diversity, audience choice and public control It
  is ideologically constraining.
  
• Oligopolization is enhanced by privatization and
  de-regulation
  
• Rising capitalization of media business restricts
  ownership intensifies the positioning of
  audiences
  
• Issues of journalistic professionalization and
  routinization
  
• (iii) Media as Information Purveyors
• Informational role market failure limits
  diversity of ideas
  
• Information does not come from neutral sources

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State, Capital and the Public Sphere

• (iv) Media Governed by Professionally Responsible
  Journalists
  
• Journalists work within constrained cultures
• Ritualistic aspects of story construction
• Different ideas about 'professionalism' mean
• Internal hierarchies career considerations
• Information is not divorced from representation
  sources of information are not casual or neutral
  this perspective overstates rationality
  
• Should not others have direct access to mass
  markets, on their own terms or without 'mediation'

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State, Capital and the Public Sphere

• 6. Is there such a thing as Global Media? (Colin
  Sparkes)
  
• Despite novel means of delivery (e.g. satellite)
  most of these services are simply additions to
  the available national broadcast television
  offering
• There is little evidence that rights are being
  sold on a global basis
  
• Most of the content has a solidly national (CNN)
• Satellite systems are not independent of state
  constraints, but regulated by national
  governments.
  
• Some of the' global ' media have very small
  audiences CNNI--available to 113 million TV
  households, primarily in Europe. Actual reach is
  1.5 million main-income earners every day in
  Europe.
• Audiences for satellite TV are usually small.
• Some of this activity is government sponsored
• Newspaper circulations like those of the IHT, the
  WP are tiny, and reach only the very rich.
  

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State, Capital and the Public Sphere

• 7. How Far Does the Internet Constitute a Public
  Sphere?
  
• ARGUMENTS IN FAVOR
• it makes a great deal of information much more
  accessible, potentially, than before
  
• it gives the consumer greater choice over their
  construction of news
  
• it gives the consumer more direct access to
  primary source documents than was possible before
  (or at least not without a great deal of effort)
  
• it permits very easy access to a very wide range
  of discussion and chat lists, involving people
  from all over the world, and these can be
  harnessed for the purposes of action
• it does broaden the range of voices that can be
  heard directly, even in on-going news situations
  
• it is less easy to censor than traditional print
  and broadcast media

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State, Capital and the Public Sphere

• 7. How Far Does the Internet Constitute a Public
  Sphere?
  
• ARGUMENTS AGAINST
• most people have only time to attend to secondary
  sources, and these secondary sources are often
  the same ones that already dominate the existing
  media, and which are responsible for
  constructions of nation and of the global.
• the costs of getting online are still relatively
  considerable for many people (hardware, ISP
  subscriptions, and in many countries telephone
  charges)
• the medium is U.S. dominated in content,
  language, hardware and software
  
• it is unlikely for some time to have a
  significant impact on the economics of the motion
  picture industry and moving image
  

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State, Capital and the Public Sphere

• 7. How Far Does the Internet Constitute a Public
  Sphere?
  
• ARGUMENTS AGAINST (cont)
• portals need to attract clients and to hold
  clients, and they need to do this principally to
  sell their audiences to advertisers hence the
  system is increasingly going the same way as
  broadcast media
• governments and private corporations are finding
  it easier to censor and to survey usage of the
  Internet nor can software developers be trusted
  
• the forum is almost too democratic such a
  cacophony of voices, unstructured, is unlikely to
  carry status
  
• not clear that there is much merit of talking
  about the Internet as a single medium
  
• getting to a mass audience over the web requires
  the same scale of resources that are
  characteristic of the mainstream, traditional
  media.

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State, Capital and the Public Sphere

• 8. Impediments to the Development of Media as a
  Truly Public Sphere
  
• ownership concentration in the case of large
  audience news media
  
• news values news-as-entertainment,
  news-as-agitprop, discursive news
  
• media professionalization
• political restrictions
• inequalities of access
• literacy restrictions

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