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... ave access through work, home, and school; others have multiple access through these same locations. Poorer Americans are denied access even though hardware costs have dropped dramatically. The same is true throughout the world. The Internet today remains the domain of those with the income to justify not only the initial investment, but also those who have the time to dedicate to maintaining an Internet presence. Long?
term, this division may result in strong class distinctions which are reinforced by the Internet its access (Classe 43). As already noted, there are costs associated with having access to the Internet even when those costs are paid for by companies or government agencies. In the United States, most Internet connections are provided by employers or government agencies (including schools). When there is access from the home, the access is nearly always in the homes of those in the middle and upper income brackets.
That's because access to the Internet requires an investment in hardware which poorer individuals simply cannot afford. Even innovations such as WebTV, which provide access to the World Wide Web without a personal computer, require an additional investment which is out of the reach of the poorest individuals (Beauprez 1). What is true within the borders of the United States extends to the rest of the world, as well. In the United Kingdom, for example, fewer than 10 percent of the population has an on? line connection; the figures are higher in Germany, and higher as a whole in Western Europe than in Africa (Classe 43).
The Internet does not provide universal access and may well never do so. The hundreds of thousands who are unemployed and who struggle to find enough to eat on a daily basis, or who suffer from not having healthy water, and the hundreds of thousands who do not even have access to electricity, let alone phones, are not likely to consider being connected to the Internet a high priority. The Internet does not connect the "have-nots" to the establishment, it connects the "haves" together with other "haves." As already mentioned, FedEx has an extensive Web site which enables customers to access information directly. This access has resulted in a decrease in the need for customer service representatives. Just as the automated teller machines resulted in a decrease in the need for tellers in bank branches, so the Internet has the potential to re-engineer entire corporations as fewer customer representatives (and others) are needed to handle inquiries and sales. Some analysts suggest that the reduction in workforce seen in one part of a company are compensated for in another part of the organization.
While telephone operators may be laid off, this argument goes, additional Web designers and MIS personnel will be hired to help maintain the hardware and software necessary to keep the Web site operational. There is some validity to this argument, but it overlooks the fact that the employees who are laid off, the telephone operators, are unlikely to have the skills to be hired back as Web designers. It is possible, although not guaranteed, that the overall job loss nearly balances out, but the individuals affected by the emphasis on the Web site are not likely to consider this a benefit. FedEx and e-mail asks the question of whether it is truly necessary to send any document with such speed. American business progressed well into the twentieth century relying on more traditional methods of communication and air mail was considered a significant advance. But the relative cost of air mail meant that it was used sensibly and companies (not to mention individuals) considered carefully whether the cost was justified given the content of the message.
With the beginning of overnight delivery services, even ordinary business communications began to take on importance that is not necessarily justified; this is made even more intense by the creation of the Internet. There are inherent costs in creating and sending messages across the Internet, but these costs are hidden from users so that the Internet appears to be free (Stoll 207). Even when individuals pay for access to the Internet through a service provider such as America On Line or CompuServe, they are not being charged for each action they complete on the network. Instead, they are charged for their connection time or, increasingly, a single charge for access to the service provider. Just as the price of air mail caused individuals to stop and consider whether a message truly required the expense, the apparently "free" Internet results in a lack of such consideration. Individuals and companies send thousands of messages, each arriving within seconds of when it was sent, each demanding to be acted on immediately, and each ranging in importance from news of a meeting being cancelled to the latest joke.
The relative ease with which information is dispersed on the Internet suggests that certainly the public is better off. However, information of questionable worth is also just as easily dispersed on the Internet. Readers of the Nation have come to understand publication's bias and are unlikely to expect the same sort of information in that publication as in the New Republic. On the Internet, determining the particular bias of a specific author, or even determining the author, can be difficult. So-called "urban myths" have gained particular popularity because they can be spread quickly, and many who access the Internet are not aware that they must be as careful in accepting any information from this source as they are from any other (Wetmore 6). Misinformation can be spread through any medium, print, broadcast, or the Internet.
Mainstream media companies put stories on the evening news and in the morning newspaper which apparently are objective, but which may well be influenced, even faintly, by the company's advertisers. Non mainstream media has had its market for years; sometimes called the "underground" media or press, this alternative source has flourished through the use of photocopier machines and desktop publishing. Before that technology was readily available, the underground media depended on typewriters and mimeographs. The ease with which information can be created and dispersed through the Internet means that consumers have considerably more filtering to do than in the past. Where the production values of a publication or broadcast could sometimes indicate the type of source putting out the information (public access cable channels versus network news, for example), these distinctions become more blurred on the Internet. Even amateurs can create sites, which have high "production value" and Usenet provides a soapbox for communicative alternative voices as well as noncommunicative types.
The rules for evaluating sources, or even identifying them, have changed, and the Internet actually makes it easy to camouflage who is promoting what ideas. Without being able to identify the source, it can become much more difficult to evaluate its argument (Lane, 1998, p. 19). Another negative impact of the Internet is its emphasis on current, even immediate, information. In part, this is due to the nearness of the technology itself. There is the potential that the value of historical data will be lost in favor of what is current. This emphasis means that much information is taken out of historical context and loses some value as a result (Stoll 187).
Some of the emphasis on the recent comes from the technology itself. In the early 1990 s, a 9600 baud modem was considered adequate; today, such a modem is considered exceedingly slow: 14, 400 is considered the minimum acceptable for Internet access with 28, 800 and 56, 000 baud included with most new computers. The same is true of hardware and software associated with computers. While an IBM PC built in the early 1980 s most likely functions exactly as its original specifications indicate, software is no longer available for it, few computers can read its files and it is largely considered obsolete for "real" use. Those who use computers have become accustomed to having access to the "newest; " in the on-line world, the old simply does not work. It is no wonder that they are willing to ignore old information, or distrust that information, merely because it is older than the computer they are using.
Attempts of Government to Control the Internet Governments around the world have struggled with the issue of how to control information on the Internet, with pornography generally being the most controversial issue. As legislators seek to protect children, there is increased debate about the role of parents and teachers, and what types of information is appropriate for the Internet (Kirchner 30). Of perhaps greater importance are the problems that arise when governments in one country try to regulate content originating in another. In one celebrated instance, Germany is pursuing a case against CompuServe, an American company, because so-called pornographic materials were available to Germans on the Internet (Strassel B 15 A).
CompuServe maintained that it was operating within the laws of the United States where it is based. The case is an interesting one because it points up that while Germany may object to some of the images which an American CompuServe subscriber puts on the Internet, does the German government have the right to prosecute? And does Germany have the right to dictate what someone in Japan has access to when data is distributed by an American? Another area of concern, with regard to government control of the Internet, includes the issue of privacy and concerns on? line voting. Privacy becomes a primary consideration when evaluating the proposal that the Internet could be used for on- line voting.
In this way, individuals could vote without leaving their home or office. Those who favor this approach suggest that this would increase voter turnout, which is precariously low in elections within the United States. With on-line voting, the argument goes, individuals could use the Internet to research issues and then vote at their convenience without having to take time off work or otherwise impact their schedule (Kay & Kay 37). The problem with using the Internet for on-line voting is how to protect against voter fraud without erasing the right to privacy and the sacredness of the secret ballot. Currently, voters sign-in at their polling place and receive a ballot which cannot be traced to their sign-in. There are no identifying numbers on the ballot corresponding to the sign-in sheet, and even positive identification is not required.
On-line voting would have to be able to ensure that voters vote only once, and on-line connections leave "footprints" regarding the activities performed on-line. There is currently no sufficient way to conduct on-line voting without the possibility that the actual votes could be discerned by the government. This is not to say that voter fraud does not currently exist, only that voting through the Internet would, in order to protect against fraud, have to sacrifice the privacy of the individuals who vote (Kay & Kay 37). Amid the big hype surrounding the Internet about its being the Great Equalizer, and providing voices to those who previously have not been heard, the negative effects of the Internet have been overlooked.
The very nature of the Internet increases isolation for individuals who may already lack social skills, and there is the very real possibility that individuals can become dependent on the Internet in much the same way that individuals become addicted to gambling. The Internet also encourages the acceptance of information without questioning sources, and may well lead to a greater wearing away of privacy by private companies than the government could ever have hoped to achieve. While the media has emphasized the so-called benefits of the Internet, few individuals have taken the time to question the validity of those claims, and the time may have already passed when the critics of the Internet can be heard among the sounds of praise. Allen, Robert E. "Business and the Information Superhighway. " Corporate Board (May/June 1994): 1 - 3. Beauprez, Jennifer. "Virtual Soapbox. " Crain's Cleveland Business (Apr 6, 1999): 1, 14. Classe, Alison. "Democracy Out of Action. " Computer Weekly (May 21, 2000): 43.
Dries, Mike. "E-mail Etiquette Traps Even Conscientious in Net. " Sacramento Business Journal (Sep 5, 1998): 20. Gonzalez, Sean. "Prodigy. " PC Magazine (Feb 21, 2000): 152, 175. Greene, R. W. "Internet Addiction. " Computerworld (Sep 21, 1998): 78. Kay, Alan F. and Roger L.
Kay. "The Promise and Perils of On-Line Voting. " Computerworld (Nov 6, 2000): 37. Kirchner, Jake. "Blow Up Your PC, Move to the Country. " PC Magazine (Oct 21, 1999): 30. L isanti, Tony. "There's More Than One Kind of Revolution Underway. " Discount Store News (May 15, 2000): 13. Rothschild, William E. "Intelligence for the Taking. " Across the Board (Apr 1999): 28 - 30. Stephen, Andrew. "An Internet Addict Confesses. " New Statesman (June 19, 1999): 26. Stoll, Clifford.
Silicon Snake Oil. NY: Doubleday, 1998. Strassel, Kimberly A. "CompuServe Trial Starts in Germany. " Wall Street Journal (May 13, 1998): B 15 A. "Virtual Shopping, Real Distribution. " American Shipper (Apr 1998): 31 - 32. Wetmore, John. "The Internet and Its Impact on People and Society. " CMA - the Management Accounting Magazine Bibliography:
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Research essay sample on Hundreds Of Thousands Access To The Internet
