Global democracy, companies, control
The objectives of this lecture were:
• When the internet started there was much talk of enhanced democracy and a global village, how have things worked out?
The Internet is not controlled by a democracy, it is controlled by a private company but I suppose what is available on the World Wide Web is has users all over are continuously contributing to the worlds knowledge. The Internet has made is possible for ‘news’ to travel the world within minutes. For the first time, users with Internet access could address a ‘global’ audience. With the use of social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter that user can have direct communication with that global audience.
• Who is in control of the internet and does this matter?
The most popular and famous domain names are those that end ".com", ".org" and ".edu". These are all looked after by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or ICANN. ICANN is a private company, based in California.
In the UK, Nominet, a private company, operates as the recognised registry for all web addresses that end ".uk".
I wasn’t aware of this control over the Internet and only discovered this information through creating the PowerPoint on who should be in control.
• As with other aspects of technology we might ask whether the technology is bringing about a revolutionary change or keeping things as they are.
I believe that technology is brining about a revolutionary change. The amount of valued reliable data that is available through the World Wide Web has never been so in demand. With www.google.com user can search the endless number of web page for the information they require from their home or work computer. In the past students would have to go to libraries and trawl through ancient texts to find answers, now they can find this data as well as more update information in a few short clicks of the mouse.
Stewart Fraser and I were asked to create a PowerPoint presentation using GoogleDocs about who should control the Internet. I thought this task was extremely useful as I had never thought about it before.
