PowerPoint Presentation Slide 1

Ideology of the Internet

• Electronic Freedom Foundation
• Neo liberal/New Media
• Free
• Egalitarian
• Decentralized
• Ad Hoc
• Open and peer to peer
• Experimental
• Autonomous
• Anarchic

• Media Oligopolies ( Incumbent Media)
• Social Responsibility model: but self not government regulation
• For Profit
• Hierarchical
• Systematized and Centralized
• Planned
• Proprietary
• Pragmatic
• Accountable
• Organized
• Reliable
• Source: Richard Campbell, Media and Culture, 41.

The Business Case for On line Start Ups

• Sector characterised by rapidly falling costs
• Transistorization etc.
• Costs for average computer falling 30% per year ( just 0.01% of costs in 1970)
• E commerce applications growing, but still less than 5% of retail( slower than supposed)
• Personal messaging ( email) very high
• Use for Information /Research high: but rise of subscription media ( eg. Newspaper on line, growing only among global travel segment)
• Drive to get video downloadable for entertainment (video cell phones banned in washrooms)
• Still largest volume of business is porn worldwide

Globalization of the Internet

• US has privatized domain names but retained control over their allocation
• This is a sore point for Europe and other powerful economic regions
• Internet content providers are estimated to be 98% English, 87% commercial, and dominantly US in origin
• Other foreign governments now trying to:
• Invest in promotion of infrastructure
• Offer government services on line
• Promote the development of indigenous services
• ( eg. Canada: New Media Content Fund at Telefilm and the Canadian Television Fund)

Canadian Shape of Convergence

• Links telecom and broadcast and news
• No computer sector
• Does link portals and so on
• First impacts of convergence have been to de-localize news and media production
• Consolidation of media production
• Centralization in a few cities