TECHNOLOGY: MICHAEL FOLEYreviews Misunderstanding the Internet By James Curran, Natalie Fenton and Des Freedman Routledge, 194pp. £80 hardback, £22.99 paperback

IN 1981, James Curran, with Jean Seaton, wrote Power Without Responsibility: The Press and Broadcasting in Britain. Now in its seventh edition, with new media added to press and broadcasting, it is a classic of media history and analysis. Power Without Responsibility more or less brought an end to that trend in media history concerned with listing every editor of obscure newspapers and retelling the Whig view of history that saw newspapers as moving from government-controlled propaganda sheets to fearless, independent champions of democracy.

The story told by Curran’s previous book was of a radical press of the early 19th century being eclipsed and destroyed by a commercial press; independence came at a price, and that price was capitalist control and monopoly.

Misunderstanding the Internet tells a similar story, but one that spans 20 years, not 200. Early press history, says Curran, “genuflected before the altar of technology”. Internet history is still in pioneering mode and continues to chronicle, in a celebratory way, technology and progress.

So what does this work bring to the table? It effectively debunks most of the early promises of the internet. The internet did not bring greater democracy, or global understanding. Nor did it transform the economy or inaugurate a renaissance of journalism. The internet reflects inequalities and divisions that already exist, whether to do with access, language or values. As Natalie Fenton says in one of her essays: “Research on the digital divide notes that internet users are younger, more highly educated and richer than non-users, more likely to be men than women and more likely to live in cities. In short, digital activists are likely to be prosperous.”

Corporate concentration was not overturned by a new creativity of smaller enterprises. Some of the corporations might be new – Google and even Apple, for example – but they are corporations just the same. As for journalism, well, the statistics show the favoured places for online news and opinion are sites run by old media, whether it is the BBC, the New York Times, this newspaper’s online presence or RTÉ.

Initially, the perception of the internet was shaped by the manner of its formation: its conception by the US military, its scientific development for nonmilitary use, its counterculture image and the idea that it would have a public-service role.

All was changed, however, by commercialism and, in some instances, state censorship – so resonant of the history of the press.

Freeman writes of libertarian capitalism, whereby friendship is privatised and one’s creativity is turned into an object to be repackaged for the market. We seem to be in awe of the potential of social media, for example, without asking who is communicating what to whom. For instance, 10 per cent of those with Twitter accounts generate 90 per cent of the content. Most of us only ever tweet once. The top 10 per cent of tweets are dominated by celebrities and mainstream media. Ninety-seven per cent of us have fewer than 100 followers; Britney Spears, however, has 16 million, which suggests participation is the preserve of the few and that it is more about eavesdropping on the thoughts of celebrities than it is about political change.

The authors question the impact social media has had on politics and power, suggesting that it is highly individualised and consumerist and more likely to be about social agendas shaped by elites and corporate power than about changing society.

A central theme is that there is too great an emphasis on the technology of the internet, which leads to the misunderstanding of the title of this book. It was not the technology that changed the way people are increasingly viewing politics, or the way events unfolded in north Africa, but events themselves. What the authors call internet-assisted protest had underlying causes that precipitated events.

As with all previous technologies, the internet’s use, control, ownership and development depend on context. If the dream of the founders is to be realised then that context needs to be challenged. What is necessary is a set of proposals that empower public oversight of and participation in the internet.

The authors propose a manifesto for resurrecting public-interest regulation and reversing the relationship with markets and states that has accrued power to corporations and governments but rarely to the public. They suggest a tax on private communications businesses to fund open networks and public-service content; a whole range of changes in intellectual-property rights; new ways of funding and regulating the internet. What is being proposed is that the internet be viewed as a public utility to be available to all, just like water and electricity.

The impact of the internet may have been exaggerated, but there is little doubt that it must be protected and valued, and that it should be run for the benefit of the public without discrimination by the markets or states.

The research is impressive and the arguments are persuasive; the real issue is whether, in an age in thrall to the markets and private interests, where few seem to have taken heed of the dangers of light-touch regulation, anyone will note the warnings in this book or be persuaded that the internet must be more than a shopping opportunity.

Michael Foley lectures in journalism at Dublin Institute of Technology