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llustration by Dennis Dunleavy
A posting on the Democratic Media.org website called “The Internet: Democracy or Ad System?” raises some serious concerns over how the Internet is being taken over by mega-corporations run by people such as Rupert Murdoch.
Jeff Chester, Executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy contends: "The Internet's potential to serve as a diverse and democratic medium in the U.S. is now threatened by largely invisible, but powerful, political and economic forces. The nation's largest telephone and cable companies have lobbied the Bush Federal Communications Commission to eliminate the key federal rule that has enabled the Internet to flourish as a dynamic medium of expression and commerce."
For Mark Cooper, Director of research at the Consumer Federation of America, "There is a race to claim the soul of cyberspace between a democratic, public sphere inhabited by citizen journalists, independent artists, and open social networks, and the corporate mega-corporation websites streaming their product over exclusive high speed connections.”