21 social networking sites including Google, facebook have been asked to block content. Recently the Bhanwri Devi case also raised the issue of media regulation. The media is under the scanner right now, with efforts to block
information. But, in this age of Internet is it possible to completely
block information from the media consumers, as internet changes the
way information is produced and it flows.
Information or content is a critical concept and relates sender &
receiver, message & medium, producer & consumer, relationship between
them, access & denial to access (including conditional denial to
access). In a democracy, information also relates powerful &
powerless, agency & citizen, sharing & controlling.
Internet is amalgamating all existing mass medium technologies onto a
single platform, of which it is the backbone. This virtual space is
growing continuously and is accommodating all other forms of media
content into it, for example text, images, sound and Audio Visual
content (radio, newspaper, TV, books, debate forum, face-to-face
discussions, and telephone). It is encouraging merger of different
kind of boundaries and is taking the shape of a global media for
information sharing.
The consumers of media, irrespective of their age, gender,
geographical location, today produce and share all kind of information
or media content. (For example a video or a blog entry on apples is
produced by fifty individuals in fifty countries spread across all
continents at the same time to be posted and shared on one medium that
is Internet.) Also it is structured in a way that “it interprets
censorship as damage and routes around it” [1], thus making it
difficult to completely deny access to information available on
Internet. Because of Internet, information today is available and
shared to an extent almost unimaginable even 10 years ago. It also
promotes unusual groupings of citizen organizing and using it in
pursuit of various activities, for instance achieving political
objectives, raising public causes, debates, lobbying and advocacy,
resource centres and many.
Internet was introduced in India in 1995.[2] Since then India has
registered rapid increase in Internet usage. Last year there were 81
million users which have been estimated to increase to 237 million by
2015.[3] With more and more people hooking to Internet, producing,
sharing and consuming content, the earlier relationship of
“information producer -> information consumer” stands challenged with
a new emerging relation of “information producer <=> information
consumer”. In addition to this, as this definition of producer and
consumer merges, possibilities of free speech (crossing the censor on
free speech, identity swapping being one of the benefits of the
medium) over this new medium also increases. “Technology does more
than just allow us to do things, it determines that we will ……
because we can.”[4]
The agencies till recently were largely the producers of
information[5], and thus in terms of relations of power vis-à-vis
information, had control over information production and
dissemination. The citizen was the receiver/consumer of information,
had little choice and little control over production and access to
information. With changing relations agencies are facing changes in
their consumers, who now, not only have access to huge information,
but also, have turned producers, impact dissemination and express
their own personal opinions.
With the consumer of information turning more information hungry and
also becoming a producer of information, with an opportunity to
publish information on a media, it is not possible to censor
information completely. Internet is paving way for a whole new
communications paradigm, which would say- “The Gutenberg era is over
and so is the centralized[6] production of content and unidirectional
bombardment of content[7]“, raising questions on information
production and control.
[1] John Gilmore as quoted in TIME magazine (6 December 1993),
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Gilmore
[2] Peter Wolcott, Is the Elephant Learning to Dance- The Diffusion
of Internet in The Republic of India, 2002, p.18 (Launched on 14
August 1995 in India)
[3] 237 mn Internet users in India by 2010: Report, Economic Times, 2
September 2010,
http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2010-09-02/news/27624281_1_internet-users-brici-digital-consumers-brici-countries
[4] Bramham Daphne, The medium is the message in today’s connected
world, The Vancouver Sun, 21-07-2011,
http://www.vancouversun.com/technology/medium+message+today+connected+
world/5136218/story.html#ixzz1T2xYOv6K
[5] “Direct government intervention and privatization have long been
the dominant institutional approaches to implementing information
policy. Policies pursued using these approaches have tended to result
in a centralized information production and exchange system.”, Yochai
Benkler, THE COMMONS AS A NEGLECTED FACTOR OF INFORMATION POLICY,
www.benkler.org/commons.pdf
[6] By centralized I refer to control, with inputs in form of
feedback from the consumer, which also is controlled because feedback
is asked only when the Producer wishes.
[7] Means production of content and its delivery which is more or
less is in one-direction.
