Notes

The digital revolution has been decades in the making, but it first started to truly impact journalism in 1992 when the United States government began to relinquish control of the Internet. The Internet was developed in the 1950s by a branch of the U.S. government known as DARPA5 (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) in response to the Soviet launch of the Sputnik satellite. The Soviets defeated the United States in what was known as the Space Race, in which the two nations competed to be the first to launch exploratory vessels into outer space. With the launch of Sputnik, the U.S. government worried that the Soviets had gained the ability to project bombs into space and drop them anywhere on Earth. Panicked government officials called for the creation of an agency that would jump-start American research and reclaim the U.S.’s technological lead from the Soviets. DARPA was created in 1957, and one of its first missions was to establish a countrywide communications network. What developed was the earliest known prototype of the Internet.

By the 1980s, an effective national communications system was in place and regulated by the government. In 1992, however, the United States government loosened its grip on the Internet and began allowing companies to use the network. Companies such as AOL began offering Internet access to the general public for the very first time. Computers that in previous decades had cost tens of millions of dollars and were used only by scientists were redesigned for personal use and made affordable to the average citizen. Internet use exploded across the globe, shifting from an American communications system to the global phenomenon it is today: the World Wide Web. For the very first time, people had a wealth of information about the world at their fingertips. It was no longer a matter of knowing only what journalists reported in the Sunday paper, morning radiobroadcast, or even the six o’clock news. Now, people could actively search for information and stories that interested them. In years past, it was the job of newspaper editors and television and radio producers to determine what was ‘newsworthy’ and should be presented to the public every day. The digital revolution took that power out of their hands.