Internet

One Medium to Change the World

A long-term study of mass communication in Germany has also been taking the Internet into account since 2000. One question asked respondents was the following: if they could only keep one medium, which one would they choose? Within just 10 years, the Internet has overtaken all other mass media to become the favorite. Particularly dramatic is the proportion for those under 30 years of age: 70 percent favor the Internet, with TV coming in second with only 16 percent (as of 2010).

Technically speaking, the Internet is a virtual network of millions of computers for the global exchange of data. Its size and its value stem from the interconnection of many subnetworks: the denser and more comprehensive this is, the greater its potential usefulness for participants. In 2015 every month will see more than 100,000 times more data transmitted over the Internet than is found in all the books ever written. In everyday speech the World Wide Web (www) is often referred to as the “Internet”; however, this is just one of its several faces. On a practical level the Internet might usefully be compared to a genie in a bottle, making life easier and richer, but also with its own agenda, endlessly surprising society with tricky problems (uncontrolled spread of spam and adult content, compromised privacy, breaches of copyright).

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