The previous two posts on freedom of speech and media congloms are useful segues into a rather frightening thought: just how far is the Internet from a fate akin to the likes of other media such as radio and television?
When Howard Stern first shook up the radio scene, he was bending rules, taking chances, pissing people off and creating a huge following. Stern's listeners have proven through and through that in spite of polity, human decency and intelligence, the conversation two men would have in a bar over a few beers is what guys (and some girls) really want to hear. He started bit by bit: one day asking his co-host about her sex life, the next day eating breakfast while on the air. Eventually "I was pretty out of control but I didn’t care. I just wanted to do great radio," Stern describes in his autobiography, Private Parts. It was revolutionary. It was genius. It was awesome. And to some, it was still despicable. But then we all got used to it.
Ten years later, what Stern had been doing all this time was suddenly not PC anymore. After a passionate war with the FCC, Stern was forced to leave FM to continue his raunch in what Jossip describes as a "happy ending, sorta: Stern gets big bucks to have a potty mouth on satellite radio."
"Sorta" is the key word here. Media congloms are turning the clocks back for many of our revolutions in radio, and they are starting to affect the TV waves as well. (Clear Channel owns over 1200 radio stations; five major congloms own 60% of TV channels.) The safe haven has been the Internet--profanity, nudity, prejudice and virtually every other obscenity has found a niche in the World Wide Web. There is a place for everyone on the Internet: from grandma's house to the local strip joint.
This can't last forever. The freedom and freebies are only there until a larger hand or hands can get a grip on the goods. There are the upsides of centralization (organization, focus, clarity), and then there are the downsides. On this one I have to agree with Dante Chinni, who asked Should this be happening? No..
Ivan Pereira @ Sun, 02/19/2006 - 8:06pm
I have to disagree. While media conglomeration will continue to make its to the internet, I do not believe that they will dominate the internet. There are only so many television and radio stations, but there are tens of millions of websites. I don't think any corporation is large enough to centralize a huge chunk of those sites for its own goals.
Also another thing to remember is that running a web venture is a lot riskier than a restaurant, and I believe that many corporations want to go to the web, especially after the AOL-Time Warner fiasco.