Media in the 21st Century – The Internet

Whilst it is easiest to look at the internet from a technological determinist perspective, it can quite readily be seen from a ‘Whig’ (or Liberal) or Market perspective.

Using a technological determinist approach, the internet was invented in the 1970s and was initially used as a way for scientists to share resources and data. As the internet developed, people began to use it for subcultural proto-commercial purposes and, by the late 1980s, people had begun to use it as a research tool as well, giving way to increasing commercial use. Then, by the mid-90s it had developed to allow companies to sell directly to us and advertise on most sites as well as be used for cultural and civil discourse, though this is far less prominent.

Alternatively, you could suggest that the internet was developed to suit the needs of society to be able to communicate instantly with one another and research things quickly and easily. I could also be argued that the internet developed more and more commercially due to the amount of money invested into it both by companies trying to use the internet to expand their business and by those manufacturing the equipment to use it.

Since then, there have been many attempts to try and control the internet’s content by both government and companies but, generally, these plans fall through due to public protests that the internet is meant to be a place for free expression and a gathering of the world’s accumulated knowledge.