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 htmlhttp:// 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?

Interregional Internet Bandwidth, 2001

Africa Internet connectivity htmhttp://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 n00.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?