David F. Donnelly
“It is inconceivable that we should allow so great a possibility for service, for news, for entertainment, for education, to be drowned in advertising chatter.” So spoke Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover in 1922 commenting upon the uses to which the new broadcasting medium radio might be put. Today computer-mediated communication similarly is in its early stages of development and much the same thing is being said by early users of the Internet, that global interconnection of networks that offers great promise for the future. The onslaught of commercial activity threatens the vitality and nature of this new mode of communication. Given the momentum behind such commercialization, and the enormous public benefits at risk, the implications of current and future commercialization demand immediate exploration. The way a new communication medium develops and evolves is a complex process that includes technological, social, economic, and regulatory forces. These forces interact, pushing and pulling an innovation into obsolescence or maturity. In the United States, this interaction is strongly influenced by a media philosophy which favors private ownership and commercial exploitation. The development of U.S. media, therefore, is not completely unpredictable, as the process is controlled by profit-driven entities with predictable objectives and desires. Although individual media are unique and their fate not ultimately predetermined, this reliance upon commercialization and privatization helps direct U.S. media down a very specific path. Computer-mediated communication is the latest communication medium to enter this process of development. In the United States, the Internet is no longer the sole domain of an elite group of researchers and scientists. The Internet has attracted great interest in the private sector. It is now widely employed by profit-driven organizations as yet another tool of commerce. The commercial applications of the Internet continue to multiply as corporations and individuals in the pursuit of profits have found new ways to sell, market, promote and advertise goods and services via the Internet. Given the rapid expansion and significance of this recent commercialization, there are some important issues that require immediate exploration: What might be the effect of this growing commercialization? How will it impact the development and direction of the Internet? Can the Internet be protected against the possible negative effects of excessive commercialization? Will computer-mediated communication follow the well-traveled path of previous media or is it somehow inherently or fundamentally different? If overcommercialization refers to a situation where the primary usage of a medium heavily favors the private interests of profit-driven corporations, to what degree will that situation obtain for the Internet? This article addresses these questions and finds both reason for concern and cause for action. If proactive measures are taken fairly soon, many of the negative consequences of over-commercialization may be avoided. This essay concludes with a set of suggested policies and safeguards which would alleviate some of the negative impacts. These safeguards would serve to protect the integrity of the online communications, and help ensure that unprofitable yet important and beneficial uses of this new form of communication do not get “drowned in advertising chatter.” Unlike many nations, the media philosophy in the United States reflects a long standing belief that “the media” and “the government” should remain distinct. Moreover, private ownership of media outlets is reflective of an economic philosophy favoring free enterprise. Although there exists a system of public broadcasting, it is fragile, constantly under attack, and increasingly dependent upon private-sector funding. Thus media in the United States are almost exclusively privately owned and controlled. This reliance upon private ownership and free enterprise is also based upon a belief that competition in the media industries will produce a diversity of resources and information – a marketplace of ideas. This objective is frequently compromised, however, as media organizations tend to eliminate competition through consolidation and mergers to achieve greater economic efficiency. When a medium is young, there are many small, independent players. As it matures, there is increasing consolidation. Historically, such concentration has been followed by government antitrust action aimed at stemming such monopolization or oligopolization. (For example: the Motion Pictures Patent Corporation or “the Trust” case, the Paramount decision, the splitting up of NBC and of the creation of ABC, the Modified Final Judgment and the split up of AT&T.) Recently, concentration of ownership has increased with considerable consolidation within and across media industries. Through horizontal and vertical integration, mergers, joint ventures, and buyouts, media behemoths are growing to unprecedented proportions not merely in the United States but worldwide. Ironically, while consolidation has been on the rise, antitrust intervention has receded. There has been a shift toward encouraging competition on a global rather than a national scale, and toward promoting large, strong and secure U.S.-based companies. As the Internet represents new unconquered territory for these expanding entities, corporate consolidation and government deregulation are important contextual factors that promise to have a major influence on the development of the Internet within the U.S. and elsewhere. Big or small, owners of U.S. media for the most part are permitted to employ whatever strategy they choose to generate revenue. The sale of “space and time” to other companies for advertising purposes has proven to be an effective means of generating generous profit margins for owners. Though not all U.S. media are supported by advertising, many are. Indeed, the line between those few media that are and those that are not has become blurred. Even the book publishing industry has sometimes resorted to an occasional advertising insert. The motion picture industry has also turned to nontraditional ways of supplementing the revenue generated by individual ticket sales. Commercials have made their way into U.S. theaters; on occasion they precede a feature released on a videotape. Indirectly, they appear in the subtle guise of take-home toys accompanying children's fast food. The history of U.S. media illustrates a parallel growth and increasing interdependence of the media and advertising industries. Newspapers in early Colonial America were produced by printers, not journalists, and many even acknowledged the predominance of advertising by including the word in their names. (Hiebert, Ungurait, and Bohn, 1991, pp. 220-221) Even the text of the Declaration of Independence, published in the July 6, 1776 edition of the Pennsylvania Evening Post, appeared alongside advertisements. (Hiebert, Ungurait, and Bohn, 1991, p. 185). The Penny Press in the 1830s, an idea that made newspapers an affordable mass medium, was driven by the then innovative strategy to increase circulation to attract sufficient advertising dollars to replace the money lost through the lower individual sales costs. In the early days of broadcasting, the radio industry relied upon sales of radio receivers as a primary source of revenue. As receiver penetration levels increased, this source of revenue began to dissipate. At the same time, audiences became more discerning, leading to increased production costs. The debate over radio advertising alluded to in the opening passage was short-lived. Advertising quickly became the accepted means of financial support for radio stations and networks. By the time television arrived, broadcasting had been heavily commercialized and the same organizations that had profited handsomely in radio quickly moved into television, bringing with them their established system of commercial support. The pervasive commercial interruption became a staple of broadcasting content. The rhetoric that surrounded the expansion of cable television in the 1970's promised a transformation of television, and was based upon the belief that it would provide an electronic forum that was both diverse and open to the public. Such optimism proved to be unwarranted. Public access channels have sat underfunded, underutilized, and generally unwatched, and the new channel capacity did more to increase the quantity of television than it did to improve the quality. From an advertising perspective, however, cable offered a clear advantage: it delivered targeted and prepackaged audiences. How has this reliance upon advertising revenue affected the direction, development and uses of existing media? Though it would be impossible to answer this question precisely, several broad generalizations can be offered. It should be conceded that advertising has affected U.S. media in several positive ways. For example, the sale of advertising time and space has helped to lower or eliminate the direct cost of information and entertainment to the consumer. By subsidizing costs, advertising has helped make the media more accessible. For example, “free” (advertiser-supported television) is universally available to all who own a television set. The U.S. system of advertising also supports an economic system which is based upon the promotion of competing goods in a marketplace. The money generated by advertising revenues has also benefited the media by enabling the production of high quality content. Ironically, it can also be argued that the increasing reliance upon advertising has lowered the quality of media-delivered information and entertainment in several ways. In a hierarchy of artistic value, media that are dependent upon advertising are placed several notches below those that are not advertising-dependent, i.e., film and literature. With most advertiser-supported media, the emphasis traditionally has been placed on quantity of audience rather than quality of product, and these two do not always go hand-in-hand. In serving two sets of masters, advertisers and consumers, media organizations often have placed their own interest in profits over the public interest. By providing a supportive environment conducive to the insertion of sales pitches, owners repeatedly have compromised the quality of media content. Perhaps the most concise and compelling summation was offered by Gloria Steinem in explaining the decision to hike the individual copy costs of MS. magazine and publish sans advertisements (Steinem, 1990). In sum, the optimism that has surrounded the early years of all U.S. media has been quashed by the negative influence of commercialism. The origins of the Internet have been recorded in many places by many people. (See, for example, Gopher://gopher.isoc.org/11/internet/history) These historical of a that began as a system by and for a group of early as a to and information for and it was not long applications were found for this new of It is to the very time the Internet was to a or commercial as of Internet In two and a advertising their services for the U.S. government the The is a of electronic It is available through the Internet, sometimes with the Internet but merely an on the Internet. 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