Can you feel the hair rise on the back of your neck? For me, I’ve had that neck tickler going for almost three straight days. The merger of America Online and the Time Warner media conglomerate was announced Monday morning, and anyone even slightly interested in the future of media and the Internet has got to be a tad concerned.

What we have on our hands here is a major problem.

I understand the motivation for the move from a corporate perspective. AOL, with it’s more than 20 million subscribers, needs access to cable lines badly to facilitate the next big development in the Internet. Time Warner, being the biggest bully on the block when it comes to media content, needs a way into the information age.

In an economic climate so prone to mergers that we’ve become more desensitized to them than we have to Wile E. Coyote rocketing himself into canyon walls, this move needs to be scrutinized closely.

When did American businesses lose their initiative? Analysts say this merger was a perfect fit because both companies needed what the other was offering. Why is it when big business needs something, it opens the Wall Street Journal and goes shopping? If Time Warner wants to become a part of the “new media,” why can’t it build its own Internet subdivision? If AOL needs content and cable lines, what’s keeping it from making its own?

Putting these companies together helps no one outside the AOL Time Warner boardroom.

When AT&T and TCI merged, cable rates went up, and I guarantee this deal will do the same.

This integration is horizontal and vertical, allowing AOL Time Warner to not only control several different media, but also production, advertising and distribution in-house. The government will have its hands tied, as well.

Ever since the baby Bells were sent their separate ways in the 1980s, corporations have learned how to construct media/communication giants while slipping through the holes in the anti-trust laws.

An obvious concern is the enormous number of media outlets at the disposal of the new monolith. According to the Associated Press, AOL Time Warner will own not only AOL, CompuServe and Netscape, but CNN, Time, TBS, TNT, Cartoon Network, HBO, Warner Music Group, Fortune, Sports Illustrated, Entertainment Weekly and Looney Tunes.

For the love of God, no, not the Looney Tunes! Put down the bunny ,Steve Case!

Allowing one corporation to control this many magazines and networks slowly dilutes the voice of America. And what of conflict of interest? Will CNN be keen to report the trials and tribulations of AOL’s service? Many experts say it will get worse before it gets better. What about the truth? News judgment suffers under corporate control. The bigger the company in control of CNN, the lower the quality of journalistic integrity.

Aside from this merger’s effect on the involved companies and consumers, who’s to say it will even work?

“This merger will launch the next Internet revolution,” said new AOL Time Warner CEO Steve Case at Monday’s press conference (AP).

Exactly what kind of revolution is Mr. Spooky talking about? I’ll go out on a limb here and say the Internet is not a magic potion that will save every man, woman, child and business in the free world.

The Internet is different from previous technologies, and I might be alone here, but I don’t see people watching reruns of “The Jetsons” and line dancing on the Web.

The merger of AOL and Time Warner may not destroy American society or even affect the day-to-day life enough for anyone to notice. But it is a sign of things to come, and those things are not cheery.

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David Roepke is a junior in journalism and mass communication from Aurora. He is a news editor for the Daily.