Yochai Benkler has a good strategy in this chapter. He addresses the criticisms that are most frequently levied at the claim that the internet democratizes by suggesting that we compare our contemporary networked public sphere with the previous, mass-media dominated one, not some idyllic world in which everyone can speak and everyone will be heard. Benkler argues, “There has never been a complex, modern democracy in which everyone could speak and be heard by everyone else. The correct baseline is the one-way structure of the commercial mass media” (¶ 61). This move allows Benkler to assert that the networked public sphere does democratize; Benkler takes a position best characterized as “It’s not perfect, but it’s better than what we had.” I like this claim and even agree with it, but I want to look at it in closer detail. I’m just not sure about the dichotomy of “networked public sphere” vs. “mass media.”
Buttressing Benkler’s “ better than what we had” claim is his suggestion that more people have the ability to produce and publish in the networked public sphere than in the old, mass-mediated model: “Computer literacy and skills, while far from universal, are much more widely distributed than the skills and instruments of mass-media production” (¶ 42). I think this is an important point. Certainly it’s much easier for average people to voice their opinions online than to get them in television, radio, or a newspaper. But, as Benkler acknowledges, the ability to voice your opinions online is “far from universal.” This whole accessibility issue is a big concern of mine, and it’s related to my questioning of the dichotomy.
Benkler tries to be fair here, but he’s too hasty. The "networked public sphere" leaves many people out: those who can’t afford computer technology or internet access and those who aren’t computer savvy. In addition, one problem I have with Benkler’s approach is that he’s so focused on people creating information that he forgets about people receiving it—the community of readers. Anybody with grade-school reading skills and thirty-five cents can read a newspaper. Even less, perhaps, is necessary to watch television or listen to the radio. The community for these media seems large and heterogeneous. The networked community, on the other hand, might be smaller and more exclusive. Some people don’t access the internet at all. Some are only casual users. It just seems inevitable that, at least for now, the networked community is not as large and inclusive as what we typically imagine as the public sphere at large. This is part of why I question Benkler’s suggestion that the “networked public sphere” is an altogether distinct—and superior—public sphere in itself.
I want to respond to Benkler’s “better than what we had” reorientation with a reorientation of my own. Benkler always assumes that the internet has its own public sphere—what the calls the networked public sphere—but it seems to me that instead the internet is simply another medium alongside radio, television, newspapers, and so on. Why would its community be a necessarily distinct “public sphere”? Benkler’s dichotomy of new, networked public sphere vs. old, mass-media model suggests that the internet isn’t a part of mass media. But that’s hardly true. For instance, look at the extent to which radio, film, television, and news overlap with the internet: Youtube, movies online, news websites, television shows online, radio shows online, commercials archived, etc. If anything, the internet seems like an especially indistinct medium considering how much it borrows from and overlaps with other media. I think the internet is a medium rather than a public sphere in itself, and the characteristics that Benkler discusses could simply be conventions of a medium or genre rather than indications of a distinct public sphere.
Buttressing Benkler’s “ better than what we had” claim is his suggestion that more people have the ability to produce and publish in the networked public sphere than in the old, mass-mediated model: “Computer literacy and skills, while far from universal, are much more widely distributed than the skills and instruments of mass-media production” (¶ 42). I think this is an important point. Certainly it’s much easier for average people to voice their opinions online than to get them in television, radio, or a newspaper. But, as Benkler acknowledges, the ability to voice your opinions online is “far from universal.” This whole accessibility issue is a big concern of mine, and it’s related to my questioning of the dichotomy.
Benkler tries to be fair here, but he’s too hasty. The "networked public sphere" leaves many people out: those who can’t afford computer technology or internet access and those who aren’t computer savvy. In addition, one problem I have with Benkler’s approach is that he’s so focused on people creating information that he forgets about people receiving it—the community of readers. Anybody with grade-school reading skills and thirty-five cents can read a newspaper. Even less, perhaps, is necessary to watch television or listen to the radio. The community for these media seems large and heterogeneous. The networked community, on the other hand, might be smaller and more exclusive. Some people don’t access the internet at all. Some are only casual users. It just seems inevitable that, at least for now, the networked community is not as large and inclusive as what we typically imagine as the public sphere at large. This is part of why I question Benkler’s suggestion that the “networked public sphere” is an altogether distinct—and superior—public sphere in itself.
I want to respond to Benkler’s “better than what we had” reorientation with a reorientation of my own. Benkler always assumes that the internet has its own public sphere—what the calls the networked public sphere—but it seems to me that instead the internet is simply another medium alongside radio, television, newspapers, and so on. Why would its community be a necessarily distinct “public sphere”? Benkler’s dichotomy of new, networked public sphere vs. old, mass-media model suggests that the internet isn’t a part of mass media. But that’s hardly true. For instance, look at the extent to which radio, film, television, and news overlap with the internet: Youtube, movies online, news websites, television shows online, radio shows online, commercials archived, etc. If anything, the internet seems like an especially indistinct medium considering how much it borrows from and overlaps with other media. I think the internet is a medium rather than a public sphere in itself, and the characteristics that Benkler discusses could simply be conventions of a medium or genre rather than indications of a distinct public sphere.
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