Digital Media and the Public Information Environment: A Retrospective Assessment

Abstract

Ten years after the emergence of the World Wide Web, the implications of new digital technologies for the news and public information function of the media are still a topic of vigorous debate. This paper, which is merely a preliminary report on an unfinished review of the literature pre-dating that event, revisits some of the critical analyses that had been articulated about the new digital media when the Web emerged. The intent of this larger, not-yet-completed project is to evaluate some major tendencies, already mapped a decade ago by research in the political economy of telecommunication, against the actual outcomes of the intervening decade of development and use of the new digital technologies of information and communication. Where the early predictions are confirmed, this re-evaluation may provide a simple means to distinguish persistent structural distortions in the public information environment from transitory or local effects, superficial influences, and alarmist predictions. Where the early results are refuted or less clearly confirmed, it may provide insight into the limits of political-economic methods of analysis.