Commercialization of the Internet

Patelis (1999) contends, however, that commercialism and overt regulation of the Internet are crippling the promise of the Internet in its infancy even for those people who want to use the medium to improve society and themselves. Commercialization of the Internet leads to control of information, a crowding out of non-commercial information and information that is not controlled by commercial interests, and access costs that exclude millions of potential users of the Internet (DiMaggio, Hargittai, Neuman, & Robinson, 2001). Overt regulation of the Internet can lead to a stifling of public dissent, allow governmental misconduct to be hidden behind a veil of secrecy, and grant power to control the functioning of the Internet to favored corporate interests (Townsend, 2001).

Other critics of the evolution of the Internet perceive access disparities within the con

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n, & Robinson, 2001). The term ôdigital divideö has almost as many meanings as there are people who use the term. Essentially, however, the terms means that some members of society gain advantages over other members of society because they (a) have greater access to information technology tools, (b) become more proficient in the use of such tools, and (c) develop a greater sense of self-efficacy in their ability to apply such tools to problem solving (Van Horn, 2003). Within this broad context, the term ôdigital divideö refers to all information technology tools, as opposed simply to access to the internet, to ability to extract information from a CD-ROM data base in a school library, the ability to access a database as a part of oneÆs work responsibilities, the ability to write a term paper using a computer-based word processor, or any one of a myriad other activities (Van Horn, 2003). Bainbridge (2002) wrote that the digital divide grows larger every day. The meaning of this statement, however, is not that an increasing number of people in the United States are entering the classification of computer illiterates. Rather, the meaning of the statement is that each day that passes increases the gap in the capacity to use inform
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Some common words found in the essay are:
Worldwide Web, Methodology Findings, Internet Students, Van Horn, Neuman Robinson, Interview Questions, Department Commerce, Digital Divideö, Internet Internet, Explorer Additional, digital divide, promise internet, research questions, so-called digital divide, fulfillment promise internet, fulfillment promise, information technology, so-called digital, commercialization internet, homeless children, knowledge base, access computers home, research questions investigated, questions investigated, 3 so-called digital,
Approximate Word count = 2469
Approximate Pages = 10 (250 words per page)