JEvents

 

The richest commercial interests' technique probably will be similar to what some rich special interests tried to put forward as educational television shows that were shown on cable TV and close-circuit TV channels in the USA in the 1990s!  The precursors of these educational television shows had been produced "in good faith" by at least one of the major U.S. networks, CBS I believe, produced with "reasonably good production values" and USA high-school level content.  But executives and station managers forced these shows to be shown only in very early-a.m. and very late p.m. time slots.  And this went on in the name of nation-wide educational television in the USA in the 1950-1980s.

But here is one big problem with media giants controlling what is offered as "news" or as "educational material":

As the late Russian psychologist Vygotsky pointed out in the 1950s(?), those who control what is most often talked about and heard in their personal and professional lives, also control what is and is not thought about as well!  Most of us spend at least a few hours a day watching television or listening to the radio; now moments including this "content" received via a laptop, tablet computer, or smart phone.  The "impressions" and "choreographed perceptions" of what we see and hear influences us consciously and sub-consciously, for better and for worse.  And that well orchestrated effort to create consistent consumer-related or distorted political "messages for us" is in fact "thought control" -- whether it be 'benign' or 'malignant', intentional or unintentional.  What "messages" one receives and repeats daily -- without employing critical thinking -- controls what a very larger percent of "the public" can and cannot easily think about or change about their individual and community living circumstances.  And as educators -- and advertisers -- well know, very few adults or children in all living generations are good at "critical thinking".

So if nothing else changes soon on the Internet soon, in this observer's opinion we need the choice, the right, to accept or reject whether or not advertising will appear on all the web pages we view.  Then we also need the right of having "equal bandwidth" available for all Internet users, so called "Net Neutrality", for all web site content publishers, and for small business users; bandwidth not limited (or throttled downwards) for those whom the Internet data carriers and Internet Service Providers deem "less worthy", or less able to pay for the higher faster bandwidth (also called quality of service) for which the data carriers wish to charge higher usage fees. I.e. "they" want to put "toll charges" on Internet traffic.  But there are other issues, other "gotchas", that reduce the potential of the world-wide-web, the Internet, to better serve "humanity" at large.  I and other "education progressives" want the Internet to serve everyone free, easily accessible, high quality, scientifically accurate and philosophically diverse educational materials just-in-time, whenever a person wants them, including face-to-face and automated tutorial learning experiences.  I want "the Internet user world" to have them in the nearest possible future and not in the farthest possible distant future which fate certain commercial and governmental interests would impose upon the rest of us who are less powerful, rich, and privileged than will be their most highly favored, best paying users.