Internet as space-biased
(Sorry this is so late, I've felt like complete crap all day, but now decided that a fever-dreamish blog posting is better than no posting at all. My apologies.)
Even though Harold Innis, author of Bias of Communication, may be a bit confused about how to categorize the Internet at this point in time, I believe he would assume that the Internet is space-biased. Some have called the Internet a “series of tubes” (Sen. Ted Stevens), others believe it is a network whose infrastructure encompasses the entire world in a kind of “infinite space” (p. 111). It is mostly considered in the present tense, as opposed to printed written works that are considered to have a much longer history. Even though some Internet content is monitored and recorded by the U.S. government, most people do not record much of what they read on the Internet for a lengthy period of time. As such, the Internet is not very durable.
Also, despite the fact that many people today consider the Internet to be a democratic form of medium, we can see from the examples of other communication technologies discussed in this course (Douglas, Fischer) that the democratic potential of a new media form is often over-exaggerated. Congress has been making fervent attempts to regulate Internet content, and Internet access, especially that of broadband Internet, is still severely limited within and outside of the United States. Although it is possible that a more democratic medium will result than any we have seen in the past, historical precedent and current Congressional actions imply that the Internet will most likely stay in the hands of large telecommunications companies and state governments. This kind of elite control also points to what Innis would call a space-biased communication technology.