Showing posts with label At Issue Series. Show all posts
Showing posts with label At Issue Series. Show all posts

Sunday, July 11, 2010

New "Free Internet" Overview Gives You the Ammo – You Ask the Questions.

Consider the discussion I occasionally address as not only an Internet user but as a marketer and ad-guy: the anti-consumerist demonization of Internet users. I first mentioned it in the post about “Data Hogs” here.

Cruising for books at the county library, I picked up a new volume for Young Adults, Should the Internet Be Free? Now that I've absorbed it, I recommend it to you for background reading.

I wasn't aware of the series from Greenhaven Press (which is part of Gale). This volume delivers just what the At Issue series is supposed to deliver:

...a wide range of opinion on a single controversial subject. Each volume includes primary and secondary sources from a variety of perspectives ― eyewitnesses, scientific journals, government officials and many others.

I presume you have opinions on the subject of Internet access and usage, just like I do. But I hadn't made a study of the subject myself; well, since Big Media's propaganda effort landed in front of me, I'm trying to catch up. Should the Internet Be Free? Is a good place to start and it's punchy quick reading.

Now a word about the time span of the articles selected by Book Editor Roman Espejo. Though this volume has been published this year, some of the articles go back a bit: 2007, 2003, even 2000. In the life of the Internet, a decade's a century so several of the articles are dated. Some companies mentioned haven't been in business for quite a while, having be eaten up by larger outfits. Government initiatives have come and gone.

Nevertheless, historical perspective is a key strength. So I am (age-wise, at least) way beyond high school but it's never too late IMO to learn more. Especially about a socio-technical phenomenon that's grown into an essential attribute of civil society ― and marketing in the 21st Century.

BTW, Gale books of any type are expensive. You can order this book on Amazon but better yet see if your library has a copy. Mine did.