Dictionary of Media and Communication Studies, 8th edition

Internet: denial of service (DoS)

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a fund earmarked for new school computers and

broadband facilities.

Th e overall picture off ered by Internet prac-

tices and development is dichotomy typical of

public perspectives on new technologies – the

optimistic versus the pessimistic. E.M. Uslander

in ‘Trust, civic engagement and the Internet’

published in Political Communication (No. 21,

2004) believes the Net is ‘neither the tool of the

Devil nor the new Jerusalem’. Where particular

attention might be concentrated is on the online

habits of the younger generation, where there

is evidence that the Net is used for purposes of

entertainment and social interaction without the

compensating grace of online (or offl ine) seeking

of information and debate.

Th e Internet Society’s Brief History concludes:

‘Th e most pressing question for the future of the

Internet is not how the technology will change,

but how the process of change and evolution

itself will be managed ... With the success of the

Internet has come a proliferation of stakehold-

ers – stakeholders now with an economic as well

as an intellectual investment in the network.

We now see ... a struggle to fi nd the next social

structure that will guide the Internet in the

future.

‘The form of that structure will be harder

to find, given the large number of concerned

stake-holders. At the same time, the industry

struggles to fi nd the economic rationale for the

large investment needed for the future growth

... If the Internet stumbles, it will not be because

we lack for technology, vision, or motivation. It

will be because we cannot set a direction and

march collectively into the future.’ See digital

natives, digital immigrants; plasticity:

neuroplasticity and the internet; mobi-

lization.

▶Lucy Kung, Robert G. Picard and Ruth Towse,

eds, Th e Internet and the Mass Media (Sage, 2008);

James C. Witte and Susan E. Mannon, Th e Internet

and Social Inequalities (Routledge, 2010); Tim Wu,

Th e Master Switch: Th e Rise and Fall of Information

Empires (Borzoi Books, 2011).

Internet: denial of service (DoS) Internet

service providers have the power to censor, and

indeed they are often under a legal requirement

to do so (see regulation of investigatory

powers act (ripa)(uk), 2000). When in

2010–11 wikileaks made public sensational

documents produced by US ambassadorial staff

around the world, a number of Net platforms

‘denied’ Wikileaks access, and more critically for

the survival of the organization, use of its funds;

in other words they froze its assets or refused

fi rewalls – blocking of messages, surveillance
and repressive legislation which in some coun-
tries, such as China, condemns those whose
online comments are considered dissident to
lengthy terms of imprisonment.
Naturally crime has taken to the Internet with
relish, prompting in 2001 the European Council
to draw up a cybercrime treaty. Few countries
have resisted bringing in legislation attempting
to exercise control over Net use (see internet:
monitoring of content; regulation of
investigatory powers act (ripa), uk).
A regular focus of research is the issue of how
far the Internet is a leveller; that is, through the
ease of exchange, helping to level up opportuni-
ties for peoples of diff erent economic, cultural
and political status. Does the Net help the
poor – individuals, communities and nations

• or does it somehow threaten to increase the
  information gap (or digital gap) between
  them and better-off individuals, communities
  and nations?
  In ‘Th e Internet and knowledge gaps: a theo-
  retical and empirical investigation’ (European
  Journal of Communication, March 2002),
  Heinz Bonfadelli focuses on the digital divide,
  identifying four barriers preventing people from
  benefiting fully from the information society.
  Th ese Bonfadelli lists as (1) a continuing lack of
  basic computer skills ‘and connected fears and
  negative attitudes especially among older and
  less educated people’; (2) restrictions on access
  to the necessary hardware and software – in
  short, expense; (3) the lack of user-friendliness;
  and (4) the actual use of the Net. Bonfadelli
  quotes research that suggests the ‘higher the
  educational background [of the user], the more
  people use the Internet in an instrumental way,
  and the lower the educational background, the
  more people seem to use the Internet only for
  entertainment purposes’.
  A UK report in 2010 by the charity Thee-
  Learning Foundation confi rmed an increasing
  gap between the educational performance of
  rich and poor pupils in Britain, a million chil-
  dren from poorer families having no access to a
  computer at home and two million with no Net
  access. Th e Chief Executive of the Foundation,
  Valerie Th ompson, said that ‘without the use of
  a computer and the ability to go online at home,
  the attainment gap that characterizes children
  from low-income homes is simply going to get
  worse’. The findings were made public at the
  same time as Michael Gove, Minister of Educa-
  tion of the UK Conservative-Liberal Democrat
  coalition government, had cut 100 million from