The Future of the Internet: Competing Viewpoints Explored
This essay examines six contrasting viewpoints on the present and future of the internet, drawing on authors who argue both for and against its democratizing potential. Topics covered include the internet's role as an information equalizer (compared to Gutenberg's printing press), predictions about communications revolutions, corporate consolidation of digital media, the struggles of online retail, the transition from telephone to internet-based calling, and concerns about privacy and identity theft. The author synthesizes these perspectives and offers personal conclusions about human nature, cultural dominance, and the uneven distribution of the internet's benefits, ultimately characterizing the internet's future as a "mixed blessing."
- Introduction: The Internet's Transformative Impact: Overview of the internet's broad societal changes
- Democratization of Knowledge and the Information Divide: Debate over who gains access to internet information
- Corporate Control Versus Communication Revolution: Tension between corporate dominance and open communication
- Online Commerce and Shifting Consumer Behavior: Why e-commerce hasn't fully changed consumer habits
- Internet Telephony and the Future of Communication: Slow transition from phones to internet-based calling
- Human Nature, Privacy, and the Internet's Mixed Promise: Privacy risks and unequal benefits of the internet
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What makes this paper effective
- The essay systematically engages multiple opposing viewpoints, acknowledging the merits and limitations of each before drawing its own conclusions — a strong model for source-synthesis writing.
- The author moves beyond simple summary by integrating personal opinion in a clearly signaled way, distinguishing their voice from those of the sources.
- The final section introduces an original angle — internet privacy and identity theft — that none of the six sources addressed, demonstrating critical independent thinking within a structured assignment.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper demonstrates comparative source synthesis: rather than discussing each article in isolation, the author groups sources around shared themes (democratization, commerce, technology) and contrasts them directly. This technique produces a more coherent argument than a sequential article-by-article summary would allow.
Structure breakdown
The essay opens with a framing introduction about the internet's broad impact, then moves through thematic clusters: the democratization debate, corporate versus grassroots control, e-commerce challenges, and telephony. A personal-opinion section follows, where the student aligns with specific authors and explains why. The essay closes with an independently developed argument about privacy risks — a section not prompted by any single source — before a synthesizing conclusion that frames the internet's future as unevenly distributed promise.
Introduction: The Internet's Transformative Impact
The internet has changed, and in many ways revolutionized, communication, commerce, and the daily activities and processes of individuals worldwide in the early twenty-first century. The changes brought about by the internet and its widespread use are arguably positive, negative, or both, depending on one's own perspective. As six articles offering conflicting viewpoints about the internet indicate, moreover, the internet itself presents — and will continue to present in the future — both good and bad realities, capabilities, and possibilities in areas such as information access, marketing, and communication. This essay explores the multiple viewpoints about the present and future of the internet as expressed by these six "opposing viewpoints" authors, while also offering personal conclusions about where the internet is headed.
Democratization of Knowledge and the Information Divide
Arguably, at least to some, the future of the internet represents the "democratization" of knowledge — that everyone worldwide, or at least those who can afford it (which is actually a relative few, as Dixit notes in "The World Will Serve the Internet's Elite"), will have access to information and advertising. However, as Estabrook argues in "Individuals Will Become Empowered by the Internet," the internet in today's world is actually tantamount to Gutenberg's printing press and therefore a positive force: it makes information that would otherwise reach only a small audience available instead to a great many people.
Corporate Control Versus Communication Revolution
Schenker, in "The Internet Will Spark a Communications Revolution," predicts that "follow me anywhere" services (p. 170) — such as on-demand car repair services available at any location — and "buddy system" communications (p. 171), which alert people when their friends and relatives are online and ready to chat, along with various other internet-based technologies, will revolutionize the way people, groups, businesses, and other entities communicate day-to-day.
McChesney, on the other hand, in "Media Conglomerates Will Control the Internet," contends that such future technological advancements will not be used democratically. Instead, McChesney warns that huge global corporate entities like Disney and AOL will simply come to dominate digital technologies — including the internet — just as they dominate most other media today. This concern about media consolidation remains as relevant now as when it was first raised.
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