When watching Nanook of the North, McLuhan’s quote about media and how it isn’t about the message but in fact has become the message, forced a consideration of the recent debate on net neutrality. One of the keys with regards to Nanook of the North’s pervasive message was that when it was originally created was there was no fact checking or opposing points of view to contrast the idea. The film industry at this time was in its infancy and had been around for just under thirty years, which is comparable to the current age of the operational internet, (operational meaning the general public was engaged in its consumption and operation). The real reason the two of these require a comparison, is because of two reasons:
- Nanook of the North, directly due to a lack of contrasting viewpoints (not many people had the means to produce film, the interest in Inuit culture/people beyond the romantic other) existing within of the space, incorrectly defined an entire generation’s understanding of Inuit practice and culture.
- The loss of internet neutrality would allow an active shaping of important and in this case, definitive information without any contrasting viewpoints and would be interpreted as authentic. The congealing of information and lack of discourse would allow the media, as an entity, to be exist as “truth” when in fact it is nothing but shaped opinion or propaganda.
The democratic nature of the internet has been both a boon for free speech and business, especially start ups. Reducing the fairness of the space would result in a boon for the neoliberal economic movement as right now government regulation forces ISP’s etc. and network infrastructure providers to share the space:
http://www.nber.org/chapters/c5302.pdf
Recently however there have been a number of attempts to reduce internet neutrality with the distinct focus in monopolizing the previously public space for private monetary gain.
http://cjc-online.ca/index.php/journal/article/view/1886/1963
A reduction in neutrality would directly reduce the authenticity of both the message and the validity of the medium as a valid source of information in the same way that television information has become dominated by spin. John Stewart simultaneously coins the lack of variety in television information and the problems inherent in media monopolization with his spot on the now defunct CNN Crossfire in 2004: