The Internet has become more embracing and powerful than any media in history

There was a time when a message could be disseminated by banging drums. Then followed town criers, then print matter, then radio and finally TV. As each of these forms of media began to wane in favor of the next big trend, people wanting to put out propaganda or news spun to favor a point of view, could only get away with these lies in a closed system, a finite audience dependent on that one source. The cost of these dissemination systems ranged from a pair of drums to many billions of dollars to own and control the television airwaves. We have laws in America designed to prevent media moguls from controlling the airwaves, city by city, for precisely the reason to allow free speech and prevent a completely closed system. Those laws were circumvented by many corporations in the past decade and, according to one conservative watch group, there is little likelihood we will ever break them up. This is part of the reason that the merger between T-Mobile and AT&T was denied by the government — it would have reduced that diverse suppliers’ choice and allowed a narrowing of the access by the public — especially for Internet access, which could be monitored and censored (don’t think this doesn’t happen in America — Verizon and Comcast were scolded last year for doing exactly that). Many countries have controlled their TV airwaves for decades; Burma, Iran and North Korea to name a few. And they block foreign radio as well. As for the Internet, they control it completely (as does China). What are they afraid of? It is simple: For them the message from “outside” does not fit the propaganda they are disseminating from within. If you control access to information, you can control people’s minds.But the world has a media virus, an unstoppable virus: the Internet. Traditional media, even in Britain, Greece, Spain and New York, has to obtain licenses (to broadcast, set up trucks by Wall Street, file taxes, etc.). Even though we may hope they cover all the news, there is always that caveat “that’s fit to print.” Fit? Says who? Their advertisers, their stockholders, their regulators. With the Internet virus underway, the voice of the individual, like those primitive drums, can be heard loud and clear. Sometimes the drumbeat may be misleading, sometimes it will carry a message you do not agree with. But you will never be able to doubt its veracity of intent: one man or woman speaks. They will be heard. And if they network via social media as that street vendor did in Tunisia — people will find out, they will listen and form their own opinion. The result there was an Arab Spring revolt.In Egypt during the riots in Tahrir Square people were listening to Egyptian Radio on pocket transistors. Waves of laughter broke out when they heard “people are going home...” smart phones replayed the radio official broadcast while the video camera broadcast the truth on Facebook and other social media platforms. The truth could not be hidden without shutting down the entire country, all commerce, all communication, all government. The Internet is that important to the infrastructure of every country. Similarly, during riots in Iran and the carnage in Syria, some Internet traffic sneaks out with the truth, images and personal voices carrying a message contradicting the propaganda of failed regimes. In America we still believe in our mass media, we cannot believe newscasters would ever spin the truth. And indeed they mostly do not. On the other hand they do not tell the whole truth either. The demonstrators on Wall Street were joined by forced bussing of vagrants every night by the police. See that on the news? Nope. See that on the Internet? Yes, and so much more. In the end, the problem for the mass media of today is that once the news leaks out, their credibility erodes to the point of being useless. If you look at the Neilson ratings of the evening news of ABC, NBC, CBS and Fox — the trend is already there — downwards. So what do they do? They try and set up equivalent channels on the Internet or an app for your smartphone. They are still working on a principle of the 20th century: To be a part of society we will want to belong, we will give up a bit of individuality to belong. In the near past, to achieve anything we had to club together and form a critical mass. All their news is based on this model: keep the public informed as we want. The problem is, the public is now made up of individuals, aware not all news is true or complete.What the mass media have not realized is that the Internet allows a critical mass of one. Today if you want to achieve something, you can use the Internet to reach out and tell someone — indeed, everyone. That’s more powerful than any time in history (except for the drums, of course).Peter Riva, a former resident of Amenia Union, now lives in New Mexico.