Newcomb’s ABX model of communication, 1953A B C D E F G H IJKL M N O P R S T U VXYZWmonths of coming into power; in November
2010, Communications Minister Ed Vaisey
announced a ‘two-speed’ Internet on the basis
of the more you pay, the quicker you transmit.
In response to the announcement Open Rights
Group director Jim Killock protested that
‘removing Net neutrality is likely to reduce inno-
vation’ and curtail ‘people’s ability to exercise
their freedom of speech’. See conglomerates:
media conglomerates; paywall.
▶Tim Wu, Th e Master Switch: Th e Rise and Fall of
Information Empires (Borzoi Books, 2011).
★Newcomb’s ABX model of communication,
1953 In contrast to the linear structure of the
shannon and weaver’s model of commu-
nication, 1949, Theodore H. Newcomb’s
model is triangular in shape, and is the fi rst to
introduce as a factor the role of communication
in a society or a social relationship. A and B are
communicators and X is the situation or social
context in which the communication takes place.
Both the individuals are orientated to each other
and to X, and communication is conceived of
as the process that supports this orientational
structure. Symmetry or balance is maintained
between the three elements by the transmission
of information about any change in circum-
stance or relationship, thus allowing adjustment
to take place.
For Newcomb, the process of communication
is one of the interdependent factors maintaining
equilibrium, or as Newcomb himself puts it in
‘An approach to the study of communicative acts’
in Psychological Review, 60 (1953), ‘communica-
tion among human beings performs the essential
functions of enabling two or more individuals to
maintain simultaneous orientation to each other
and towards objects of an external environ-
ment’. See congruence theory; dissonance;
mccombs and shaw’s agenda-setting
model of media effects, 1976; mcleod and
chaffee’s ‘kite’ model, 1973; wesley and
maclean’s model of communication, 1957.and equal in terms of access; in short, all Net
postings, whether corporate or personal, must
be treated alike and move at the same speed over
the network. ‘No tolls on the Internet’ was the
headline of a Washingtonpost.com article (13
June 2006) by Lawrence Lessig and Robert W.
McChesney, in which they ask whether network
neutrality can be preserved, ‘Or will we let it
die at the hands of network owners itching to
become content gatekeepers?’ Th e authors argue
that the ‘implications of permanently losing
network neutrality could not be more serious’.
On 14 January 2007, in an article entitled
‘Protecting Internet democracy’, the New
York Times asserted that ‘on the information
superhighway, net neutrality should be a basic
rule of the road’, echoing what has become the
battlecry of millions of Net users across America- that Net neutrality is the equivalent of the First
Amendment guaranteeing freedom of speech for
all.
Th e struggle to preserve network neutrality
against corporate ambitions to introduce a fi rst
class/second class post-style realignment of
network content continues. ‘Backroom corpo-
rate deals won’t protect Net Neutrality’ was the
title of an August 2010 posting by the Free Press
website, calling on the Federal Communications
Commission of the US to act before ‘Industry
players carve up the Open Internet’.
Aparna Sridhar feared that ‘Industry titans
will propose rules that serve only their own
interests ... it’s time for the FCC to take back its
role as a policymaking body and act quickly to
re-establish its authority over broadband and to
adopt meaningful rules to protect the openness
of the Internet for all Americans’.
As feared, Google and the Verizon Internet
service provider came to a private agreement
which threatened to terminate the once-sacred
tenet that no form of content is favoured over
others. In the UK the Conservative-Liberal
coalition government breached the dam within
Newcomb’s ABX model of communication, 1953