Statutory Interpretation and Alternative Dispute Resolution - Assignment Example

MEDIA AND POLITICS Customer Inserts His/her Name Customer Inserts Grade Course Customer Inserts Tutor’s Name 01/06/ 2011 Brief history of the internet and the rise of the internet usage over the last 20 years Over the past 20 years, there have seen significant changes in information technology, from the earliest personal computers and dial-up modems to increasingly powerful and portable systems, outfitted with “always-on” broadband Internet connections (Segaller, 1998). A major revolution in the way the world uses computers and networking technologies occurred when broadband Internet connections became available to the masses and began replacing dial-up connections in homes, universities and offices (Segaller, 1998). It was at this point that the Internet began enabling the average person to access content beyond text and simple images, making computers and the Internet even bigger parts of our lives than they had ever been before (Albert & Bradley, 1997). As we have interacted with computers more and more, primarily due to the fact that we have been able to connect with each other faster than ever, the Internet has come into its own as we know it today (Segaller, 1998). Alongside the Internet revolution, another significant revolution was taking place: the rise of mobile phones. Mobile phones also find their roots in the early 1980s, when the first handheld cellular radio devices became available (Segaller, 1998). While the technology has changed quite a bit over the past 20 to 30 years, this preliminary revolution in mobility gave us a taste for what our computers could become, even if most people did not instantly realize exactly what was happening (Albert & Bradley, 1997). Over the past few years, we have seen wireless proliferation continue with the rise of Local Area Networking (LAN) technologies (Segaller, 1998). At present, the most notable of these technologies is WiFi, which is the commonplace name for the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 802 a/b/g/n standards, respectively (Segaller, 1998). More recently, other personal area networking technologies have emerged, such as Bluetooth (IEEE 802) and Zigbee (IEEE 802 standard) (Segaller, 1998). But despite the increased mobility and ease of use that such networking technologies afford many members of society, by no means is the wireless revolution in computing complete (Albert & Bradley, 1997). In fact, one could argue that it is just now starting and with this in mind, long-range Broadband Wireless Access (BWA) technologies are some of the most important things for societies to consider as we move into the future (Segaller, 1998). Technologies such as WiMAX (IEEE 802.16 standard) and WiBro, the Korean standard of the technology, promise faster network connection speeds than most people have ever used, and as the technology continues to be developed, increased mobility with our networked devices (Segaller, 1998). Ultimately, this heightened mobility will allow societies to be even more connected on internal as well as global levels (Segaller, 1998). In essence, the move toward BWA technologies represents the fusion of the world’s two major technological revolutions of the last two decades: phones are becoming computers, computers are becoming phones, and the opportunities that our networked devices will present to us in the future are many (Segaller, 1998). Of course, while there are many opportunities this type of technology presents, questions about how BWA technologies (and which technologies, specifically) will develop and eventually be integrated into society remain (Segaller, 1998). The Internet came into being due visionary thinking by people in the early 1960s who saw great potential value in allowing computers to share information on research and development in scientific and military fields. J.C.R. Licklider of MIT, first proposed a global network of computers in 1962, and moved over to the Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in late 1962 to head the work to develop it. Leonard Kleinrock of MIT and later UCLA developed the theory of packet switching, which was to form the basis of Internet connections. Lawrence Roberts of MIT connected a Massachusetts computer with a California computer in 1965 over dial-up telephone lines. It showed the feasibility of wide area networking (Segaller, 1998). The Internet, then known as ARPANET, came online in 1969 under a contract let by the renamed Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) which initially connected four major computers at universities in the southwestern US (UCLA, Stanford Research Institute, UCSB, and the University of Utah). The Internet was designed in part to provide a communications network that would work even if some of the sites were destroyed by nuclear attack. If the most direct route was not available, routers would direct traffic around the network via alternate routes, (Segaller, 1998). E-mail was adapted for ARPANET by Ray Tomlinson of BBN in 1972. The telnet protocol, enabling logging on to a remote computer, was published as a Request for Comments (RFC) in 1972. RFC's are a means of sharing developmental work throughout community. The ftp protocol, enabling file transfers between Internet sites, was published as an RFC in 1973Libraries began automating and networking their catalogs in the late 1960s independent from ARPA. The Internet matured in the 70's as a result of the TCP/IP architecture first proposed by Bob Kahn at BBN and further developed by Kahn and Vint Cerf at Stanford and others throughout the 70's. It was adopted by the Defense Department in 1980 replacing the earlier Network Control Protocol (NCP) and universally adopted by 1983. Similarly, BITNET (Because It's Time Network) connected IBM mainframes around the educational community and the world to provide mail services beginning in 1981. Gateways were developed to connect BITNET with the Internet and allowed exchange of e-mail, particularly for e-mail discussion lists, (Segaller, 1998). In 1985, the National Science Foundation (NSF), an American research organization, created NSFNET, a series of networks for research and education communication. Based on ARPANET protocols, the NSFNET created a national backbone service, provided free to any American research and educational institution. At the same time, regional networks were created to link individual institutions with the national backbone service, (Segaller, 1998). NSFNET grew rapidly as people discovered its potential and as new software applications were created to make access easier. Corporations such as Sprint and MCI began to build their own networks that they then linked to NSFNET. When commercial firms and other regional network providers took over the operation of the major Internet arteries, NSF withdrew from the backbone business, (Segaller, 1998). NSF also coordinated a service called InterNIC that registered all addresses on the Internet so that data could be routed to the right system. This service has now been taken over by Network Solutions, Inc. and other Internet registration services in cooperation with NSF In 1989 two organizations were founded which boast the development on TCP/IP and the internet. The Internet Engineering Task force (IETF) and the Internet Research Task Force (IRTF). The invention of the World Wide Web (WWW) in 1991 had the most important impact to the Internet growth and development. It was created by Tim Berner Lee, A MIT graduate, working for the CERN in Switzerland. In 1993, the first web browser, Mosaic (created by NCSA), is released. Mosaic later becomes the Netscape browser which was the most popular browser in the mid 1990's. NSF contracts out their access to four internet providers in 1995 and sold their domains for a $50 annual fee and later goes public with 3rd largest ever Nasdaq ipo share value. The WWW browser wars are waged mainly between Microsoft and Netscape. New versions are released quarterly with the aid of internet users eager to test new (beta) versions, (Segaller, 1998). In 2008, NASA successfully tests the first deep space communications network modelled on the Internet. Using software called Disruption-Tolerant Networking, or DTN, dozens of space images are transmitted to and from a NASA science spacecraft located about more than 32 million kilometres from Earth. The Internet of today consists of large international, national and regional backbone networks, which allow local and campus networks and individuals access to global resources. Use of the Internet has grown exponentially over the last three years, especially with the consumer market adopting it,(Segaller, 1998). A key to the rapid growth of the Internet has been the free and open access to the basic documents, especially the specifications of the protocols. The beginnings of the ARPANET and the Internet in the university research community promoted the academic tradition of open publication of ideas and results. However, the normal cycle of traditional academic publication was too formal and too slow for the dynamic exchange of ideas essential to creating networks. The open access to the RFCs (for free, if you have any kind of a connection to the Internet) promotes the growth of the Internet because it allows the actual specifications to be used for examples in college classes and by entrepreneurs developing new systems. Email has been a significant factor in all areas of the Internet, and that is certainly true in the development of protocol specifications, technical standards, and Internet engineering. The very early RFCs often presented a set of ideas developed by the researchers at one location to the rest of the community. The use of specialized email mailing lists has been long used in the development of protocol specifications, and continues to be an important tool. As the current rapid expansion of the Internet is fuelled by the realization of its capability to promote information sharing, and both satisfying basic community needs as well as utilizing the community in an effective way to push the infrastructure forward. In addition the past 20 years have witnessed a meteoric rise of the Internet as a primary source of information, entertainment, business and communication for many students around the world. Today, TCP/IP provides the ability for corporations to merge differing physical networks while giving users a common suite of functions. It allows interoperability between equipment supplied by multiple vendors on multiple platforms, and it provides access to the Internet, (Segaller, 1998). The developments of the internet as a tool that people in both the developed and developing world organise gather and communicate, examples including use of specialised news sites, forums, social media The internet use has been synergistic with other forms of interactions to help to maintain and arrange contacts in between physical interactions. People use multiple information and communication media to gather information about political issues and to voice their opinions and concerns about these issues, which will affect their political participation. Before the advent of internet people were generally limited in terms of access to news by what is available in their local media markets and network news, (Katz &Rice, 2002) . The next ten years could open up a huge opportunity to create a new generation of civic organizations and campaigns based on the way the “social web” – the tools, software and business models, including social networking, known as Web 2.0 – allows people to find new ways to organize themselves at scale, (Katz &Rice,2002). That could breathe new life into civic activism, third sector organizations and our flagging public domain. The tools associated with the “social web” do four main things which could together transform our capacity for civic activism. First, they allow many more people to participate. Tools to create publish and distribute content – video, pictures, music, text – through blogs and websites are within reach of the average computer user. More people than ever, in theory at least, can contribute to public debate and civic life. Second, the social web allows people with like interests to find one another and connect much more easily, through social networking sites such as MySpace, Facebook and Bebo, but also through search tools and systems for collaborative tagging of information and ideas. Third, under the right circumstances, people can collaborate and coordinate their activities at scale, without requiring much of the top down hierarchy of large organizations: they can raise petitions, organize fundraising and mobilize campaigns, (Katz &Rice,2002). As a result, fourth, large scale collaborations can create quite reliable, robust and complex products ranging from open source computer programmes such as Linux, massively multi player games such as World of Warcraft and compendiums of knowledge such as Wikipedia, the free online encyclopaedia. Similar collaborations could emerge in civic life: in the US Move.on.org, which has spawned sibling organizations around the world, is one example of what might be possible. The rubric of the social web is: contribute, connect, collaborate, and create. Usually that is only possible with a fifth ingredient: a core. Most successful social web collaborations develop around a core that has been put in place by an organisation or a small band of pioneers who get a community going. The emergence of the social web as a way for people to organise, campaign and debate comes at a critical time for the public domain in developed economies. Older forms of political engagement and campaigning are degenerating; new and energetic forms are emerging. The social web will only revive the public domain by unsettling it and many of its inhabitants. That is because the incumbent players of the public domain – political parties and traditional civic organisations – are themselves creatures of the industrial media era – broadcast, print, newspapers – which are being disrupted by the rise of Web 2.0,(Katz &Rice,2002). How the internet differs from traditional media in allowing subordinate groups that are not traditionally heard to be heard Communication is an integrated part of our society. Communication tasks in a society include sharing of knowledge, socializing new members, entertaining people, and gaining consensus through persuasion or control (Schramm, 1977). The Internet represents a fantastic world of opportunity for children and young people, filled with both good and bad consequence. Considerable attention and concern are now focused on how the young consumers use the Internet because they are seen as the ‘digital generation,’ at the vanguard of new skills and technologies, yet also vulnerable and at risk, (Stacks & Salwen, 2008) The Internet, no longer merely an e-mail and file-sharing system, but it has emerged as a dominant interactive medium. Having been enhanced by the technology of the World Wide Web, it has become an integral part of the ever-expanding global media system, moving into centre stage of media politics alongside traditional broadcast media (television and radio). Enthusiasts of the “new medium” have heralded it as a democratizing force that will give voice to diverse social, economic and cultural groups, to members of society not frequently heard in the public sphere, (Winett, 1986) Internet has been seen as away to revamp commerce and the practice of business. Also new sources of information would make citizens more informed about politics. New forms of internet organizing would help recruit inactive citizens into political participation. Internet‘s challenge to traditional media is real and that the medium will give new voice to people who’ve felt voiceless, (Gillmor, 2004). The ability and authority to distribute text is now truly democratized and provides the citizens a degree of empowerment they never heard before, moreover the power of the elites to determine what the news via a tightly controlled dissemination system has been shattered, (Hewitt, 2005). Internet has ostenably promoted; the redistribution of political influence, broadening of public figure, increasing political participation and involving citizens in political activities that were previously closed to them and challenging the monopoly of traditional elites. Small, marginal interests and minor political parties were considered particularly likely to be advantaged by the open architecture of the internet. It will empower the traditionally disempowered, giving them access both to typically unreachable nodes of power and previously inaccessible troves of information, (Stacks & Salwen, 2008) Moreover, the Internet is said to be inherently democratic, levelling traditional distinctions of social status and creating opportunities for less powerful individuals and groups to participate on a par with members of more powerful group. Also, as a dynamic, rapidly expanding technology, the Internet has created abundant opportunities for new forms of communication and commerce, from which both men and women have benefited. Women, as well as men, participate in computer-mediated communication, start discussion groups, create Web pages, and engage in entrepreneurial activity online. (Stacks & Salwen, 2008) The Internet plays a prominent role among the young people in most part of the world than all other technological innovations (Roberts &Foehr, 2004), as a preferred media choice for information driven activities. This was crucial as it enables commercial and social marketers to fully understand the role of mass mediated messages in the lives of the youth Interpersonal information sources gave way to the Internet for obtaining information about sensitive issues. Many people make active choices of the media they use according to their personalities, socialization needs, and personal identification needs (Arnett, 1995). Two examples of subordinate groups living under in authoritarian regimes have successfully used the internet to organise. (Recent example of social media in the Middle East would be useful) The end of the Cold War posed a fundamental challenge to authoritarian regimes. Single-party and military dictatorships collapsed throughout Africa and post-communist Eurasia, and in much of Asia and Latin America, during the late 1980s and early 1990s, (Kalathil &Boas, 2001). At the same time, the formal architecture of democracy—particularly multiparty elections—diffused widely across the globe. In the Middle East, authoritarian regimes such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab emirates are controlling the political and social impact of internet ambitious censorship schemes, (Kalathil & Boas, 2001). Authoritarian regimes are finding ways to control and counter the political impact of internet use. In Singapore, along-standing semi-authoritarian regime is implementing an ambitious yet carefully planned ICT strategy using a combination of legal, technical and social measure to shape the development of internet use The various organizations groups included; labour groups, youth organizations, bloggers, political parties and islamist movements. (Kalathil & Boas, 2001). Civil society organizations may use the internet to support their activities in a variety of ways including logistical organization and the public dissemination of information, (Kalathil &Boas, 2001). It undermines authoritarian regimes by either pressing for an initial opening or trigger scandals that delegitimize authoritarian rule. Transnational advocacy networks of civil society organization, social movements, the media with international community are involve in mounting campaigns against this regimes, (Kalathil &Boas,2001).Short message services, blogging, twitter and other media platforms are frequently employed by citizens in authoritarian regimes to share information, voice alternative opinions and circumvent censorship. New media created significant opportunities for advancing freedom by expanding the space for free expression and facilitated civil activism, (Kalathil &Boas,2001). The impact of digital media on authoritarian regimes was evident in Iran following the rigged presidential election of June 12. Digital media made important contributions to the “Green Movement” of post-election protests by able to get information of the Movement’s leader, Mir-Hossein Mousavi, communicating to Iranians primarily through his blog and Facebook and images of police crackdowns and of defiance by protestors often are transmitted across Iran and to the outside world through Facebook and Twitter with the help of anti-censorship technology. Moreover in the technological architecture of the internet ensured that it would remain the control-frustrating technology it was initially designed to be, (Kalathil &Boas, 2001). Internet has been a good tool but it includes many people in developing countries that have authoritarian regimes. This may have contributed due to many people are poor and do not have access to the internet or cannot afford to use the net. In other instance, authoritarian regimes have control and counter the political impact of internet use to its people. (Kalathil &Boas, 2001). For this reason, only certain groups who are well off to express theirs views. But potential challenges to the state may arise from internet use in several ways areas: the mass public, civil society, the economy and the international community. However they respond via a variety of reactive measures: restricting internet access, filtering content and monitoring on-line behaviour, (Ferdinand, 2000). The internet and online communication thrive on freedom and open access. Therefore improving access to the internet and online communication in developing countries and countries with authoritarian or repressive regimes is of strategic developmental importance. It increases the ability of people to build greater connections to outside world and fosters in the long run the chances for political pluralism to take root in society. As consequence, it increases the chance of geopolitical stability and peace (Kalathil &Boas,2001). The entire American for example broadcast media, and most of the print media as well, are owned primarily by wealthy individuals. Direct ties to the biggest of big businesses are almost unbelievably extensive and, we believe, these ties cannot help but seriously bias and compromise news coverage. Moreover, the media empires are, first and foremost, profit-making corporations that conduct themselves like other corporations when it comes to corrupting politics (Kalathil &Boas,2001).. That is, the parent corporations of many make so-called "campaign contributions" and also act against the public interest in other ways. As big winners in the corruption game, they show no signs of serious interest in political reform. As large corporations themselves, the mass media want the same preferential treatment, and have the same desire to grow without bounds, as all other corporations (Kalathil &Boas,2001).. Allegations of political bias in the media are common, although there is considerable controversy concerning the nature of this bias: neither liberals nor conservatives are pleased. Conservatives allege that the media exhibit a liberal bias. On the other hand, liberals allege that the media exhibit a pro-corporate, plutocratic bias (Kalathil &Boas,2001).. However, we believe such charges rely on a faulty and simplistic analysis of the American political and economic spectrum for a better understanding of that spectrum, see the linked diagrams, politics and economics (Kalathil &Boas,2001).. The truth is that the apparent liberalism of some of the mass media is primarily cultural, and rarely economic. In effect, and like most other American institutions, the mass media advance the economics interest of the wealth few at the cost of the interests, and values, of the majority; and the self-indulgent, empire-building interests of the wealthy few are not those of either liberals or cultural conservatives (Kalathil &Boas,2001).. At the heart of media pseudo liberalism is a shallow but highly serviceable relativism ethics. We say "serviceable" because the fundamental corporate ethical premise, "if it's profitable it's good," is fully compatible. In some ways, the personification of this "liberalism" is Howard Stern, who represents nothing in the end but cynical profiteering. The similarly corrupt music industry thinks nothing of merchandising utterly debased music to children. This form of "liberalism" nicely advances the corporate profit agenda (Kalathil &Boas,2001). No matter how low the least common denominator, executives need feel no moral qualms. The media is being entirely consistent when it also manifests pro-corporate, economic "conservatism’ (Kalathil &Boas,2001).. Though the names and the products are different, the underlying ethos is not: the corporate culture that brings us, say, Eminem also brings us Enron, offshore tax havens, media corporations that bribe politicians—and the nightly news (Kalathil &Boas,2001). References Chingching Chang, Asian Media Information and Communication Centre, (2007).Internet vs. traditional media: influences on political attitudes and behaviours, Asian journal of communication. Ven-Huei Lo, Taylor & Francis. Dan Gillmor, (2006).We the media: grassroots journalism by the people, for the people.O'Reilly Series.O'Reilly Media, Inc. Don W. Stacks, Michael Brian Salwen, (2008).An integrated approach to communication theory and research.Routledge Communication Series Communication series: Communication theory and methodology. Don W. Stacks, Michael Brian Salwen, Edition2, .Taylor & Francis Judith L. Gibbons, Deborah A. Stiles, (2004).The thoughts of youth: an international perspective on adolescents' ideal .illustrated IAP. Richard Allen Winett, (1986). Information and behavior: systems of influence Monographs in Communication. Monographs in Communication-Bryant-Zillmann Communication (Hillsdale, N.J.) .Routledge. James Everett Katz, Ronald E. Rice, (2002).Social consequences of Internet use: access, involvement, and interaction.MIT Press Shanthi Kalathil, Taylor C. Boas, Information Revolution and World Politics Project (2001).The Internet and state control in authoritarian regimes: China, Cuba, and the counter revolution Issue 21 of Working papers, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Peter Ferdinand, (2000).The Internet, democracy, and democratizationVolume 3 of Democratization studies.Routledge. Read More