Introduction
The Internet, otherwise referred to as the cyberspace, stands out as the most welcomed technological advancement ever to happen. Virtually every person uses it either directly or indirectly. As a result, it has become popular and a key driver of economic systems in the world mainly through globalization.
According to Heilbroner and Bottke (2007, p.67), âAn economic system is an organized way that a state allocates various resources apportioning services and goods in the stateâs communityâ.
Thus, an economic system comprises of institutions, people, relationships and rules that govern how each carries out economic practices. The main objective of an efficient economic system is to provide liberty, equality, efficiency and liberty (Conklin, 1992, p.1). In the new economic system, everyone has many opportunities of becoming a budding entrepreneur.
The only requirements are for one to embrace technology, become innovative and manifest a fair deal of determination. The world has experienced unprecedented adoption of Internet into economic systems for the past few decades (Boyle, 2003, p.39).
The Internet has enabled the achievement of new and more egalitarian economic systems thus providing many opportunities to the current generation that make it independent, happy, and wealthy.
Supporters of this technology claim that, the Internet provides equality that results into a more democratic society (Cooke, 2002, p. 208). While many new things have come based on the advent of the Internet, the paper provides a critical analysis of how the Internet has brought forth the aforementioned new and more egalitarian economic systems.
Internet and the Egalitarian economic System
The Internet has uniquely influenced religion, politics, and economy by providing distinct benefits in everyday activities. During the technological revolution, the global music industry experienced losses. However, it has now recovered. In fact, it is reaping huge returns from the Internet (Marshall & Fiore, 1994, p. 26).
Consequently, the Internet has resulted into the emergence of innovative economy, coupled with a shift of power to individuals. In addition, utilization of the Internet represents an effective medium of political activism communication, particularly media control by states, which has resulted to an increase in citizen journalism (Goldsmith & Tim, 2006, p, 82).
Moreover, through Internet, dissemination and sharing of religious beliefs and messages is fast and effective. Thus, the Internet aids in shaping the unique construction of peopleâs identity, community, economy, and power in remarkable manners.
Internet has provided a revolution on how people, from all walks of life, work and live. Around the globe, innovative and motivated people have realized that the primitive ways of relaying on traditional economic systems to make a good living is unrealistic and are now living outside the cubicle by using Internet to find more secure, profitable, rewarding, and flexible opportunities.
Different researches have contextualized diverse roles played by the Internet in bringing about new developments in the economy, which provide remarkable benefits to the worldâs population and governments by advocating equal opportunities for all. The major economic benefits obtained from this technology revolve around democracy, identity, and empowerment (Mansell, 2004, p, 74).
The Internet has changed the way people carry out economic activities. Different economic activities have emerged replacing the old practices thereby improving efficiency. As Graeme (1999, p.164) posits, âThe new, egalitarian economic systems are not dominated by few, giant structuresâŠthey are fluid networks of smaller, efficient, and independent unitsâ.
This follows because the Internet has provided equal opportunities for all entrepreneurs to venture into the businesses of their choice. Millions of business opportunities traditionally considered as out of reach for small businesses are now easier to operate thanks to various services made available by the Internet.
For businesses to succeed in the old economic systems, every person worked in big and integrated corporations, as businesses required massive investments in terms of capital and the economies of scale (Humphreys, 2008, p.167). However, the Internet has changed all these. Businesses are no longer required to perform their functions in-house and or directly hire all the required resources.
Businesses now utilize outsourcing services because Internet technology has made it possible to get business work done anywhere and at anytime (Chan & Lau, 2006, p, 361). This comes in handy in information businesses such as media, financial, entertainment, and education where there is no production of physical commodities (Froomkin, 2000, p. 1508).
Internet has provided stiff competition in business, thus, ensuring that one gets high quality services, which commensurate with the amount paid. In the recent past, people communicated manually using messengers, traditional gadgets and letters, to state but a few. However, with the advent of Internet, communication sector has had a tremendous boost.
Benefits in the communication sector
The quality of communication among community members has increased at a tremendous rate thanks to the Internet. Factors such as low connection costs, low entry barriers, high speeds, and distance elimination have resulted into enormous adoption of diverse technologies in communication (Leeder, 2007.p. 23).
Various technological discourses encouraging adoption of communication technology has centered on the potential of economic systems to accelerate efforts of national development, opening up various free public spheres and equal democratic discourse, and bring about effective changes in socio-cultural aspects (Laura, 2008, p.16).
On the other hand, religious devotions have improved through effective communication, which include music, words, and symbols. Consequently, different religious organizations utilize online religious messages and teachings. For instance, the Vatican uses Internet to disseminate church messages to its global members, as it views this technology as a marvelous invention and very fast communication medium (Foley, 2002, p.4).
The Internet portrays different religious ideas and messages, which inspire millions of people all over the globe. Through the Internet, people stand a chance to tackle challenges such as poor communication, delayed payment, group discussions by people in different countries, amongst others in an amicable manner (Carolyn, 1998, p, 201).
In turn, this has resulted to the satisfaction of all stakeholders. Further, Internet has a fair share of applications in the economic sector.
Economic benefits
The Internet has improved the societyâs economy by providing effective medium of society construction in terms of economic and social welfare. The implications of the Internet to the global economic systems are myriad. The adoption of Internet into a platform of mass-market has influenced how businesspersons interact with each other (Hongladarom, 2002, p.244).
These economic states are creating many success stories every day, as they provide enormous opportunities, which are more rewarding and less strenuous.
The Internet has provided enormous change in the economy in both developed and developing countries all over the world. Huff (2001, p.44) reckons that, âThe presence of Internet in developing countries has provided a great transformation in commerce, and has a significant impact on governmentsâ conduct and development of economic affairsâ.
Apparently, the optimism expressed echoes the prevalent image portraying Internet as an empowering and egalitarian medium. The new, egalitarian economic systems are unique, as the biggest domination comes from millions of small business instead of mega corporations.
For instance, an image created by Shepard Fairey, a street artist in Los angles became ubiquitous and was spread all over the globe as it presented âhopeâ in 2008, during presidential campaigns for Barrack Obama (Behrens, 2010, p.74). This presented huge business venture for a single street artist.
Despite the fact that the Internet presents a huge challenge to many people who lack knowledge on its uses, it has tremendous rewards to those who adopt it and make it a paramount tool in managing their economic endeavors. The information provided by the Internet is vital to the success of many entrepreneurs who seize these opportunities and make a great fortune out of them.
Through the Internet, people from all over the world can involve in diverse economic activities especially thorough utilization of e-business and e-payments platforms (Murray, 2006, p.41). These services provide equal opportunities to all individuals who want to venture in various economic states all over the globe.
Many changes in business operations are occurring because of Internet. Politicians have benefited much based on the availability of the Internet, as they stand a chance, not only to carry out political activities, but also to share their political views with others.
Political benefits
The political arena has undergone many remarkable changes due to the utilization of Internet. Since 1990s, the Internet has had strong connections with emerging genres of the political activism (Flew, 2002, p 38). Internet provides pragmatic approaches of handling various challenges faced by the political systems in the world.
Morris (1999, p. 29) reckons that, Internet democracy has ignored national borders and paved effective ways of personal expression. Internet has diverse unique qualities that makes its presences in the global politics more profound and have many implications. The first quality is the Internet ability to mobilize users especially those who were not involved in politics thus increasing political activities in the world.
Using distinct means, Internet mobilizes people through distribution of vital “information to all corners of the world” (Campbell, 2009, p.23). For instance, 2008 presidential campaigns in the United States utilized Internet to reach millions of citizens situated all over the world.
Internet has great influence on the masses, as they stand a chance to share information easily across the globe, especially through social sites such as facebook. Another quality is the Internet ability to provide quick, high quality, and large quantity information concerning various political activities and ideologies.
The Internet also provides unbiased information on available political opportunities to everyone who accesses the online services. Moreover, the ability of the Internet to shrink distances existing between users has brought into existence new and more egalitarian political systems.
Internet has rendered convectional physical distance or geography irreverent by making communication between users fast and efficient (Antulio, 2008, p. 76). This has improved political identity and power of individuals all over the world.
Benefits in the music industry
The music industry globalization has increased the potential of this industry largely. This globalization has increased political, economic, social, and cultural connections (Flichy, 2008, p.57). Significant changes are evident in the music industry due to music digitization and Internet development.
Easy online access to music has enabled worldwide distribution of all music genres rendering intermediaries unnecessary (Shuker, 1998, p.23). There are a few challenges to this technology. As Andrew (2007, p.17) reckons, âcolonization of cultural identity and public space by the multi-national music corporations exists, which diminishes the power of small corporations in the same industryâ.
However, the power of the music industry on the sharing and dissemination of talent in music has changed to record labels and independent voices of the artists.
For instance, social networking sites such as MySpace and YouTube have undergone expansion illustrating paradigm shift from first media age to the second media age (Cavelty, 2008, p.68). This has made international distribution of different genres of music such as rap and hip-hop fast and effective.
Conclusion
Based on the expositions made in the paper, it suffices to declare Internet the backbone of every activity that is currently taking place around the globe, be it business, communication and or politics. The Internet has many benefits to everyday activities, as confirmed in the paper.
For individuals who are innovative, striving to create their own niches, Internet provides endless opportunity for them to market their ideas as well as receiving clients from all over the globe. Through Internet, it takes few seconds for information or an advertisement to reach every part of the world.
Thus, it is imperative to adopt this technology to reap maximum benefits it offers. Therefore, if the internet were to be put aside, the world would be in darkness with everything at a standstill.
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