"When Google announced a 10-year, $200 million plan to digitize the literary world, invoking the assistance of Harvard, Stanford, Oxford, Michigan University, and the New York Public Library, France's National Library president Jean-Noel Jeanneney spun around in his chair and called up President Chirac.

In protest to what the French press soon called "omnigooglization," and what Jeanneney called a decidedly "Anglo-Saxon" affront, the national librarian wrote a scathing letter to Chirac. In the letter, though he didn't condemn the effort, Jeanneney voiced his fear of what that meant for the representation of France and Europe.'The real issue is elsewhere. And it is immense. It is confirmation of the risk of a crushing American domination in the definition of how future generations conceive the world.... [T]heir criteria for selection will be profoundly marked by the Anglo-Saxon outlook.' "

The 'Global Voice' of the internet is often hailed as being the first true reflection of human culture on Earth. All members of society can find their voice in the endlessly multiplicating hyper-realities of the WWW.

Is this a foolish standpoint? A question on the lips of the online community. With the many more online, independent companies becoming globally dominating household brands (such as Google) the freedom of the internet is more frequently being turned over to the hands of the corporate world. And as many of these companies reside on American soil the ownership of internet commodity is also becoming an American one.

Read the full article quoted above here at WebProNews.

Another recent move against a slightly different kind of homogenisation came from the Global Voices Online project. This community blog resource sets itself the goal of representing the massive cross section of the global blogsphere on one website. Many believe that blogging could free journalism from the hands of corporate and media control, but as this map (formulated by Ethan Zuckerman) shows the freedom of the blogsphere has yet to transpire:

"Countries in red were better represented in the blogosphere than in Google news (which last year was mainly mainstream media news sources) Countries in blue, were less well represented in the blogosphere than in the mainstream media."

Are we in a self perpetuating cycle of public-awareness/response/public-awareness/response? If this map is to be believed then the blogging community is better representing countries for which American policy has vested interest. America itself, Iraq and other Middle Eastern countries are being given the blogsphere's democratic media treatment, but those countries outside of the America's direct media gaze are the ones which in fact are better represented by the increasingly corporate owned media.

Corporate homogeny by over replication? If recent figures are anything to go by then over the next decade or so we will see the internet separate into two distinct voices. Although China has the world's largest population, compared to Western countries it has, at present, a relatively small percentage of internet users . The next internet boom is scheduled to be in Chinese and companies such as Google and Yahoo are already preparing to cash in on this opportunity.

If the internet is as an important part of our future as many believe it is then we must be prepared to except an American and Chinese future. And if Google's digitising of the literary world goes ahead unopposed, then the corporate US has a control of our past as well. And of course where there is future and history, there is always present:

"Those who control the past, control the future; Those who control the future, control the present; Those who control the present, control the past." - George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four

Categories: Weblog, Blogging, History, News, Politics, Business, Democracy, Media, Globalisation, Internet