Spender writes that:
If connected to cyberspace, then every user has the potential
to be an author, to put information on the net which can be transmitted
to the world. There will be no teacher, editor, publisher or bookseller
to vet or validate what goes public; it could soon mean the end of the
rejection slip and the demise of the gatekeeper.
(Nattering on the Net: Women, Power and Cyberspace, Spinifex Press,
Melbourne, 1995, p86)
However, although this is certainly true of the World Wide Web as it exists at present, it is possible that this will not be true in the future. For example, the cost of putting information on the Web could be made prohibitive, while readers, offered an almost infinite amount of information, could opt to search only those sections of cyberspace controlled by traditional publishers, who could maintain their "gatekeeping" system.
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