Internet is no Media by Dominique Wolton

In conversation with Catherine Mallaval (Liberation, 20/21March 1999)
After his "Eloge du grand public" (In praise of mass audiences), in 1990,and "Penser la communication" ((Re)thinking Communication) in 1997,Dominique Wolton closes of his trilogy with "Internet et apres? Une theoriecritique des nouveaux medias" (Internet, and then what? A critical theoryof the new media).

Exerpts:Catherine Mallaval (DM): Your take is that the Net is not a true media.Aren't you being bellicose here?Dominique Wolton (DW): Not at all. A pipe, however performing, is not amedia. A true media stems from the supply side, as is the case with a newspaper, a radio station, a television channel. They offer their servicesto a public, which may or may not 'buy' them. Conversely, the Net standson the demand side: the users come and take whatever they want, wheneverthey want. That's one. Second, a true media is build upon a conceived, oreven pre-conceived idea of an audience. Whereas the Net is targeted to anyand everybody, to a "world citizen" that does not exist, but titilates the imagination. Finally, there is no media without a pre-constructedprogramme, a grid of references that is not a jail-house, but on thecontrary, a statement of ambition, a desire to organise an incrediblenumber of despatches according to a certain conception of one's audienceand of what one wishes to tell it. Here again, the Net does not fit thebill.

All this would not be problematic at all, but for the fact that thistype of communication is being bandied as a big step forward, particularlyin contrasting passive potato couches in front of their TV sets and active,intelligent internauts behind their keyboards! Direct, unmediatedcommunication, as a mere technical performance. It caters to dreams ofindividual freedom, but it is illusory. The Net may well give access to amass of informations, but nobody is a world citizen wanting to knoweverything about the entire world. The more information there is, thegreater the need for intermediaries - journalists, archivers, editors, etc- who filter, organise, prioritise. Nobody wants to play for cheif editorevery morning. The equality of access opportunity to information does notcreate equality of competence in handling information. Mistaking the onefor the other is techno-ideology (ideologie technique).
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"The changes for the better that may be expected from the development of these self-media are numerous: a catharsis, and thus a civilisatory effect, which stems from being able to handle a mean of expression as a remedy against social violence; a mending of the gap between generation,> and more specifically between the school system (which is largelly text-based) and the youth (the Lego, zapping generation); development of new forms of knowledge which enable a better understanding of the rational and the relational; dissemination of a world-wide culture and language that for once, would be a collective creation, and not that of one caste."


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