Digital Divides

Summary of claims for online community

• Utopian views of community:– Create opportunities for education and

learning– Creat new opportunities for participatory

democracy– Create counter-cultures on an

unprecidented scale– Ensnarl legal matters relating privacy,

copyright and ethics– Restructure man-machine interaction

Community and Space

• A variety of communicators (a group)• A common space e.g. a website• Sustained membership• continuity of membership• Transition from ‘just message’ to

‘place’• (Jones)

New economy

• Globalisation• Networked forms of organisations• Flexibility and Fluidity• The aggressive development of new

markets• Deregulation• Uneven globalisation• (Castels)

Neo Liberalism

• Sees a market driven approach to organising the economy as capable of delivering benefits to society

• Associated with new technology• Antipathy towards regulation and state

intervention

Concensus on free trade

• The WEF advocates applying the economic concensus that exists amongst developed countries and associated with the world bank and the IMF to drive policies that aim to realise ‘digital opportunities’.

Information rich and poor

• From John Feather’s ‘The ‘Information Society’:

• Access to information is critical for economic success

• Information wealth and poverty appear at both global and sub-regional level

• Although the use of digital information has been associated with building economic development in countries like Singapore, Information poverty can exist even when access to information technology is widespread

Alan Toner on the World Summit on the

Information Society • Considers the World Summit on the

Information Society (WSIS) • Concerned with intellectual Property &

Information Society

• http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2003/07/274377.html

Toner

• Reversal the notional role of IP laws • No longer focussed on protection of cultural

production and scientific/technological innovation • Now concerned with to fixing relations between

advanced post-industrial states and the former ‘third world’s

• Copyright monopolies which drive concentration of ownership

• IP now pushes up costs of entry into markets

Divide or Opportunity

• Industrialised countries, with only 15% of the world's population are home to 88% of Internet users. Finland has more than Latin America.

• WEF says developed counties should coordinate their support

• WEF emphasises ‘opportunities’ over ‘divides’.

• In whose interest are these opportunities?

http://www3.sn.apc.org/africa/afrmain.htm

Interregional Internet Bandwidth, 2001

Africa Internet connectivity

• http://www3.sn.apc.org/africa/afrmain.htm

Africa One

Regional Digital Divides

• Recent american reports suggest that gaps are narrowing - however:

• Looks at patterns of access for disabled people and black and hispanic people

• Notes disparities in

• What the internet is used for• Where is it is used• Whether people have their own

computers or not

Digital Divides - continued

• Also considers the extent to which disparities are accounted for by economic factors

• Those without access want it to help to overcome their lack of access

• Actions to address digital divides centred on education• Concern that this alone is not enough - that the neo-liberal

approach will maintain divides because of the reliance on a commercial model for the provision of all content

• Content as the problem• http://www.ntia.doc.gov/ntiahome/digitaldivide/• http://www.ntia.doc.gov/ntiahome/digitaldivide/

execsumfttn00.htm

Regeneration

• For many years the poorest borough in England was located right next to the richest (Hackney and the City of London)

• Regeneration initiatives in the regions of Europe have focussed on developing information technology infrastructure and skills

Disability• Technology as something that can “make the blind see”• Technology - solving the problems of disability• Technology - making up for a deficit in disabled people• Model of correcting deficits in funding initiatives• Assistive technology could bring people into the

employment marketplace• The right to have access to technology versus the right have

deficits corrected• The case of web accessibility• Roustone, A (1993) “Access to New Technology in the

employment of disabled people” in Swain, J (1993) Disabling Barriers - Enabling Envvironments London; Sage

Bridging the divide?

• Home brew• Recycling• Social intervention• Education• Funding for non commercial content• Taking a critical approach to claims for digital

technology • … or Neo-liberalism?