Below is an extract under Internet in Globalisation: The Key Concepts. (2007)
The ‘World Wide Web’ is what most people understand as the internet, and since its emergence in the mid 1990s it has grown at an unprecedented pace, spawning a system that we can neither control nor conceptualise.
However, the internet’s open architecture has proved problematic even for established industries, as the experience of the music, film and software industries demonstrate. Given the inevitability of media convergence (the collapse of separate media into a single digital medium), the ability to maintain ownership of content has become a prime objective. However, all attempts to centralise or regulate the internet carry the risk of sacrificing the very principle that make it such a unique medium, and so it is likely that it will remain an unpredictable technology for the foreseeable future.
As a global real-time information system, the internet is an integral component of globalisation, and it accelerates many of the trends of a network society. Its decentralisation provides a platform for marginalised groups to disseminate their views, and to challenge the orthodoxy of conventional media. Nevertheless, it should be borne in mind that a large percentage of the worlds population does not have access to this resource, resulting in a very real digital age.
Although this text states that the internets open architecture has proved problematic, and in some industries it may be argued that it is a bad thing and information can quite easily be taken without consent, it has also progressed so many businesses and given ordinary people a chance to share their business or work with the world who would never have been given a change to grow if it wasn’t for the web. There is no doubt about the fact that the internet has become a great way to network and a lot of businesses only exist and remain in business because of it. Most people rely on the internet in day to day life and it plays a large part in our society today. We use it everyday without even giving it a second thought yet, as it states in the extract above, there is still a large percentage of the worlds population that do not have access to it and this should always be kept in mind. Is it a good or bad thing that some parts of the world have no internet access? How would we have progressed the way we have without the internet? How would we network and gain more business? In my opinion, I think the internet is a great thing and although it has it’s flaws, like everything in life, without it a lot of people wouldn’t be where they are today.
I agree the Internet is a fantastic thing, connecting so many people around the globe that without the internet would have never met, as anything in the world these days it has been mistreated and with the point of 'some countries/ people not having internet access', even though it may seem unfair I feel that some measures need to be taken as there has been a rise in Internet crime and even having access to information like bomb making and other criminal activity. With the group 'Anonymous' accessing private information which people have allowed to be online, is a concern for the Internet users and has created this worry amongst the world.
ReplyDeleteThe internet is certainly an interesting construct. Even an idea of globalization on a national level. I am writting this in Sunderland and you guys may very well still be in cumbria. but on a global scale this would also work. I could easily be in Milan or San Fransisco and it would still work as well as people viewing it. (Hello readers over seas).
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