Robert McChesney is a professor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign-Communication Department
Robert McChesney, author of Digital Disconnect: How Capitalism is Turning the Internet Against Democracy and a professor of communications, talked by remote video about how the Internet has had a dramatic impact on journalism, and how the Internet itself has been transformed over the last 20 years. He said that the Internet started out being a place where citizens could go to become empowered, without advertising or commercialism. But the Internet was now dominated by some of the largest companies in the U.S. economy and that these companies collect information about Americans that strips away privacy. The Internet, he said, had become undemocratic, with large consequences.
to watch the 27-min video from CSPAN April 30, 2013, click on
http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/312446-1