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by Norman Solomon
The vast Internet is many things to
many people. Accustomed to their own routes through cyberspace,
individuals may assume that what they see is fairly typical.
But in society as a whole, what are the Web's dominant
traffic patterns?
While some view it as an expansive
bastion of decentralized communication and democratic
discourse, the Internet now functions quite differently
overall. In total, the World Wide Web is scarcely more
civic-minded than your local bank.
Consider the flat-out judgment rendered
by America's leading organ of capitalism a few weeks ago.
The Wall Street Journal tilts toward the delusional on
its ideology-laden editorial pages, but its news reporting
is -- out of investor necessity -- right on the money.
And the paper was on target with a July 23 piece by reporter
Thomas E. Weber, who scrutinized the evolving role of
the Web.
Back in the summer of 1993, "cyberspace
had remained practically free of advertisements, but marketers
were beginning to eye the medium." Eight years later,
Weber wrote, "it's difficult to remember that quaint,
commercial-free Internet. Marketers didn't just eye the
medium -- they conquered it." He added: "The
Internet has been transformed largely into a place of
commerce."
But the Internet remains, for many,
an object of illusion.
As if looking backward through the
wrong end of a telescope, some observers are dazzled by
the virtues of their personal treks online. But whatever
cyber-stars are in the eyes of certain individuals, the
business calculations of hard-nosed number crunchers are
focused elsewhere. And the documented trends are enough
to make the most avaricious media tycoon grin.
Websites operated by just four corporations
account for 50.4 percent of the time that U.S. users of
the Web are now spending online, the authoritative Jupiter
Media Metrix research firm reported in early summer. At
the top of the heap were AOL Time Warner's sites, with
32 percent of all minutes spent online in the nation,
followed by Microsoft (7.5 percent) and Yahoo (7.2 percent).
Jupiter senior analyst Aram Sinnreich
said the figures "show an irrefutable trend toward
online media consolidation and indicate that the playing
field is anything but even." He cited the data as
refutation of the still-popular notion that "severe
market dominance is impossible on the Internet."
The most heavily trafficked sites are
overwhelmingly devoted to commercial activities in one
form or another, such as online shopping, financial services,
investment, corporate-screened entertainment, travel deals
and market research. Meanwhile, even on many nonprofit
sites, banner ads are bigger than ever. And intrusive
pop-up advertisements are spreading.
To make matters appreciably worse,
the owners of some key search engines are avidly prostituting
their services. (The most powerful search-scam offenders
include AltaVista, AOL, Microsoft and Lycos. For details,
visit www.commercialalert.org.) These days, if you use
one of the Internet's main search engines to find whatever,
the chances are good that the top results came from dollars
rather than relevance or quality.
"Search engine optimization is
the number one strategy for generating qualified traffic
to your site," said a recent sales pitch offering
prominence in search-engine listings. "Eighty-five
percent of all traffic is generated via search queries
and over 90 percent of that traffic is driven to the top
30 results. If you're not in the top 30, you're not in
a position to compete!"
But faith in the democratic character
of the Internet is resilient; a myth that will not die.
And the more that huge outfits ravage cyberspace, the
more useful the mythology becomes, laying a thick fog
over the realities of mega-media domination.
The spectacular dot-com plunge has
caused many corporate managers to sharpen their cost-cutting
knives, endangering just about any media content that
doesn't seem to directly correlate with boosting revenue.
Before the Los Angeles Times cancelled
his long-running and insightful column "Digital Nation"
in mid-July, scholar Gary Chapman gained many readers
as he tracked digital trends. Four months ago, he was
citing informed predictions that Web browsers will become
outdated within five years, giving way to "widespread
use of interactive TV networks managed by large media
companies."
The dot-com flameouts have sped up
the Net's commercialization -- as quests for cash-flow,
market share and multimedia synergy become more voracious.
"The idea that anyone with an
e-commerce Web site could sell anything under the sun
seems completely dead now," Chapman noted last spring.
"The alternative seems to be a move toward closed
networks, not unlike America Online, in which the user
experience is guided, shaped and far more controlled --
something advertisers and online retailers are demanding.
In other words, there is a growing sense in the high-tech
industry that consumer networks of the future will begin
to look more like television -- indeed, some believe interactive
digital TV is the true wave of the future."
For a time, the Internet seemed to
elude the profit-driven matrix squeezing media and public
life. Some illusions die hard. But hopefully we can move
forward with new resolve to fight against corporate power
-- and for truly democratic media.
Norman Solomon writes a syndicated
column on media and politics. His books include "The
Trouble With Dilbert: How Corporate Culture Gets the Last
Laugh."
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