The diffusion of the Internet is one of the most rapid and extensive of any advanced technology in history. Like any widely adopted technology, the Internet is not just technical, but also involves social, political, and economic dimensions.” (Wolcott and Goodman, 2003; 1-2)
It was not long after Marshal McLuhan conceptualized of a ‘Global village’ (1964; 11-12) that the ARPANET was started on an experimental basis. “In 1969, the experimental ARPANET being developed by the Advanced Research Projects Agency of the U.S. Department of Defense consisted of four host computers, all located in the United States. England and Norway were added in the early 1970s. In 1980, 213 host computers in fewer than a half dozen NATO countries were connected. By 1989, only a few years after the ARPANET migrated out of the Department of Defense and became the Internet, connectivity jumped to more than 20 countries and 100,000 host computers” (Wolcott and Goodman, 2003; 1).
“During the 1990s, annual worldwide growth of both hosts and users was often in the neighborhood of 100 percent, and much higher in some countries. The millionth host was connected in 1992. Today over 200 countries enjoy full TCP/IP connectivity, and by some accounts, over 500 million users access the Internet regularly” [Cited by Wolcott and Goodman 2003; 1 from ‘Internet Domain Survey’, 2002).
The proliferation and adaptation of the Internet at an unprecedented speed is palpable. Take for instance, a relatively recent facet of the Internet – ‘Blogging’ or ‘Web logging’. What was, till recently a typing error, ‘Blogging’, the process of maintaining an online personal journal –(‘Blog’/ ‘Web Log’), has been multiplying and proliferating at an unprecedented pace. A blog tracking real time search engine, which monitors the world of web logs, called Technorati, claims to be monitoring over 36.8 million sites and 2.3 billion links, with about 75,000 new blogs being created a day – (that’s about one a second), 700,000 posts daily or about 29,100 blog updates an hour (<a href="http://technorati.com/claim/srj2g49ugm" rel="me">Technorati Profile</a>).
In China, “Internet connectivity has been growing especially fast, albeit from a very low base. According to china Internet Network Information Centre, there were 22.5 million internet users in china in January 2001, quintupling from a year and a half earlier” (IBRD, 2001; 84). “According to Total Telecom, there are around 520 internet service providers (ISP’s) and 600 Internet content providers (ICP’s) in china” (IBRD, 2001; 84).
More recently, “the Internet is increasingly becoming a part of our media and telecommunication systems, and a genuine technological convergence is taking place” (Schiller and McChesney, 2003; 15). “Accessing the Internet through alternative means such as mobile phones and personal digital assistants is showing strong growth, from 200,000 in March to 590,000 in June 2000, almost tripling in three months” (IBRD, 2001; 92). (The figures mentioned above are for china alone)
Information Communication Technology and Digital Divide
It was indeed a wonderful experience to lecture at a place where I was once a student. Hyderabad Central University, where I had done my Masters in Anthropology, is a distinguished academic institution, which offered me some rather unique experiences. I enjoyed learning from accomplished academics and I was truly delighted when I was invited by Prof.Sudhakar Rao to deliver a lecture at the same department.
I delivered a lecture on the role of Information Communication Technology and the ‘Digital Divide’. These are just a few highlights from the notes. Read on…..
“Digital Divide a multi-dimensional phenomenon. It represents ‘the gap between those who have access to technologies and those who do not; or the gap between those who use digital technologies and those who do not’
In the modern era, where knowledge intensive activities are an increasingly important component of the economy and politics – globally, Digital Divide is creating a rather new form of inequality - digital inequality. And as the distribution/diffusion of Knowledge across the population is increasingly linked to stratification - Nationally and Internationally, the focus of research and policy formulation has been on studying the divide between segments of population that have access to the Internet and those that don’t, its causes and consequences. This calls for a refined understanding of the spectrum of inequality across segments of the population depending on differences along several dimensions of technology access and use.
Diffusion of technology - Unequal
The rate of diffusion of the Internet across the world has been unequal. It is unequal both within and across nations and also at an individual level – in terms of Gender, Language and so on and so forth. But this unequal diffusion raises important questions, which will have a profound impact on the future – socially, economically, politically and also culturally.
There are distinct aspects of such a divide
Globally there is a divergence of Internet access betweenindustrialized and developing societies
Socially there is a gap between information rich and information poor in each nation & within online community
Culturally it has been accused of fostering an unhealthy cultural homogeneity.
Politically it tends to create a democratic divide between those who do and those who do not, use the digital resources to engage, mobilize and participate in public life Linguistically it creates differences in access due to the language
This concern has been voiced by the UNDP, OCED and UNESCO. For instance the UNDP-Human Development Report 1999 unequivocally stated that ‘The Network Society is creating parallel communications systems: one for those with income, education and literally connections, giving plentiful information at low cost and high speed; the other for those without connections, blocked by high barriers of time, cost and uncertainty and dependent upon outdated information’. Similarly, an OECD report states that ‘affluent states at the cutting edge of technological change have reinforced their lead in the new knowledge economy but so far the benefits have not yet trickled down so far to Southern, Central and Eastern Europe, let alone to the poorest areas in Sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America and South East Asia’. UNESCO suggested that ‘most of world’s population lacks basic access to a telephone, let alone a computer, producing societies increasingly marginalized at the periphery of communication networks’.
This raises some important questions for the wider world. Questions that we will not be able to overlook. For instance •Will Internet reinforce or bridge the gap between the information rich or information poor nations? •Will the Internet reduce or exacerbate social divisions? •Will it foster the strengthening of representative democracies or will it serve established interests?
This is more so because disparities in the distribution of ICT’s are deep rooted & can not be easily ameliorated. Most of the content is in English, of commercial nature - Driven by access, business, commerce and attractive demographics - initiated by distribution & access. Most users are in America, Sweden, Canada, Australia - the ‘Post Industrial Societies’ and so, technology which happens to be the engine of economic growth - serves the benefit of Industrialized countries.
However, it is not all doom and gloom. The Okinawa charter of the G-8 countries suggest that ‘Information Technology serves the mutually supportive goals of creating sustainable economic growth, enhancing public welfare and fostering social cohesion, and work to fully realize its potential to strengthen democracy, increase transparency and accountability in governance, promote human rights, enhance cultural diversity, and to foster international peace and stability’. This way, societies can leapfrog stages of technological development.
Delivery of Social Services
Information Technology promises delivery of basic social services like education and health info across the globe, thereby widening access to training and education. For instance, a networks of hospitals across the world can pool expertise on research on AIDS, Malaria or Tuberculosis. It also ensures the delivery of virtual news papers, streaming radio and television videos etc. which can benefit farmers. For Instance, farmers can access the market prices for fishermen, weather, employment opportunity news and so on and so forth.
Global disparities in Power
Digital technologies will shift global disparities in power and wealth by fostering a world wide society, can potentially strengthen the voice of the developed world, reinforce the process of democratization by connecting disparate social movements, coalitions etc and mobilize a global civic society, foster new types of mobilization by transnational advocacy.
Power & Development
Information Technologies can potentially facilitate networking &mobilizing of NGO’s, influence business elites, Governments and leaders running traditional international organizations and can potentially offer multiple opportunities for development & transforming poverty. It can be a force for human rights and provide global platforms for opposition movements challenging autocratic regimes & military dictatorships, despite government attempts to curtail access. Digital technologies can serve as alternative channels of civic engagement for instance as political chat rooms, e-voting, mobilization of virtual communities, revitalizing participation in public affairs etc.
Therefore it is important to widen public access, promote digital skills and encourage content that will empower underserved communities.
Hope all of you feel that you have learnt some thing and I would like to throw the floor open to discussion.
Shrenik, the world is a village. Just as I felt the frustration of being unable to reach you in Scotland, I scour the line and bang! your blog pops up! Great mischeif you have been at! Gebang I touch!
2008-03-28 11:50:13
Stay Hungry Stay Foolish !
This is the text of the Commencement address by Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, delivered on June 12, 2005 at Stanford University. I found it on the web and thought it was really inspiring. It is certainly a recommended read. So, read on........or alternately, you can also watch the video here
"I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories.
The first story is about connecting the dots.
I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?
It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: "We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?" They said: "Of course." My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.
And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.
It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example:
Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.
None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, its likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.
Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.
My second story is about love and loss.
I was lucky — I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation — the Macintosh — a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.
I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down - that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me — I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.
I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.
During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I returned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.
I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle.
My third story is about death.
When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.
Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.
About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor's code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.
I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I'm fine now.
This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope its the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:
No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.
Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.
When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960's, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.
Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.
I ended up having this brief conversation. It was pointless. I didn’t want to. But, I did!
Someone: I think the world is loosing human connection. We should stop connecting in much more humane ways and stop connecting in plastic artificial ways. We are connecting in ways, which are disconnecting people and taking human connection away. People are loosing touch.
Me: Oh! I see. I speak to my friends on facebook. I met up with friends who I haven’t met since I left school. I speak to people who work for me, I see them, I speak to my family and I see them in real time – all for free. If I want to speak to someone in India, America, Canada, Africa, I do that – almost for free. I think its great. And I don’t think technology is the culprit. It is just a tool. It depends on how people use it.
Someone: People are loosing human connection. Everything is just so plastic. There is no sense of community. Everything is driven by these capitalist corporations who are trying to take over the control of everything in life – There is so much information now that - wisdom has lost itself in this excess of Knowledge - Corrupting the values in society. We have become so dependent on technology. Everything comes down to what you own and what you have. Money money money! The corruption of our value system by this corporatized promotion and pushing of culture down our throats is making our society very disconnected to the values in life. What we need is more humanity. Not more technology!
Me: Really? You seem to be so divorced from reality. Please try to know the disjuncture between reality and rhetoric. Provide some real life solutions and not some idealized romantic notions of this human connection. Stop this irrelevant bull s**t
Someone: Oh Ok.. I was just expressing my opinion. I am passionate about this you know. I don’t thin k we should loose the human connection and get carried away by corporate capitalism!
Thankfully, the discussion stopped. I was looking for some information and I ask….
“I have to get to Grosvenor Road from Holborn. Do you know how long its going to take me to get to Grosvenor Court?“
Someone: “You can check it online actually ! Go to www.tfl.gov.uk !”
GLOBALIZATION AND OFFSHORE OUTSOURCING OF SOFTWARE SERVICES
"Globalization" has undoubtedly changed the face of the world. Enabled by a massive surge in user-friendly communication and technological innovations, the process of "Globalization" has enabled many a things, which were, just a few years ago, considered impossible. It has indeed changed the means, the method and medium in which individuals, corporations and governments, the world over, communicate, contact and interact with each other.
One of the outcomes of Globalization has been the "outsourcing" of services, which has, in the recent past, become very politicized. Economic necessity and reciprocity of interest fuelled by intense competition and cost-effective alternatives enabled by a drastic reduction in the costs of transport and communication has helped many a corporations in focussing on the "bottom lines" and maximizing profits. This "bottom-line orientation", led to the outsourcing of many a services to "low-wage countries" such as India and China, thereby putting the issue of job losses to "low-wage countries" at the top of the political agenda. A recent international study organized by the computing professional society ACM on Globalization and Offshore outsourcing of Soft ware Services, tries to elaborate on the enablers and economics of offshore outsourcing, the reasons why companies send work to other countries, globalization of research - associated security and intellectual property risks, educational and policy responses to address the issue of job losses to "low-wage countries". Alerted by the issue of "Job losses", the ACM job migration task force consisting of thirty members from UK, India, Germany, Sweden, Israel, Japan, China and India attempted to analyze and review literature on the Outsourcing of software services to "low-wage countries" and the consequent job losses within a time frame of eighteen months.
The executive consultant of the study, Prof. Willaim Aspray, Rudy Professor of Informatics at the Indiana University School of Informatics said that the study aims to look at the issues from an international perspective and has come out with conclusions more "as analysis and not as recommendations". It must be noted that no new research has been done and that most of the conclusions have been drawn from collating secondary sources, expert testimony and literature review. Moshe Vardi and Frank Mavada are the co-chairs, John White, CEO of ACM is the Ex-officio chair.
While the United States of America, United Kingdom, Germany, Japan, and Australia are countries, which outsource work, the principal destinations to which the work is outsourced remain India and China. Many Indian companies like WIPRO, INFOSYS, TCS, Satyam (to name a few) have been able to establish themselves as global players in the realm of Software services because of the immense outsourcing of software services to India.
The study reports that, in the recent past, several companies in India have been outsourcing work to china as the wage rates are going up in India. A new trend that has been indicated has been the "near sourcing" of work by Indian companies by setting up satellite centres in countries like Poland, Czech Republic etc. to capture western markets. KEY DRIVERS OF OFF-SHORE OUTSOURCING
The study lists out the key drivers of off shore outsourcing. The drastic reduction of costs in the telecommunications sector has been one of the key driver's of Globalization and the offshore outsourcing of software services.
The fact that the cost of international telephony has dropped by more than eighty percent and that world-class communication facilities can be available at reasonably good prices has boosted the process of offshore outsourcing of services.Intense competition brought about by globalization, coupled with "bottom-line" orientation of companies has led many a corporations to focus on core operations. This has led to the "downsizing" or "restructuring" of corporations thereby outsourcing of back end services to "low wage countries."
The move away from customized software to standardized IT platforms, the pace of innovation, the directional influence of thought leaders like Jack welsh in the business community, the emphasis of the venture capitalist community to push offshore outsourcing of software services to India and China to reduce the burn rate in the capital investments, increased willingness to divide work process, dramatic increase in the number of graduates in India with a large pool of English speaking skilled workers, the role played by well educated immigrant students from India and China who remain as "go-betweens," and their entrepreneurial endeavour, English as the primary language of work process, the opening up of the markets in India and china, ageing population in the west are some of the factors that the study claims, have driven the process of off shore outsourcing of software services. In addition, outsourcing of software services has not only occurred due to the cost and capacity, language skills or due to cultural proximity, but also due to a high-end niche of specific countries for example outsourcing of software services to Israel for security software.
Outsourcing has become politically sensitive due to the vulnerability predictions that are being made. It is estimated that in the United States, about twelve to fourteen million jobs are vulnerable with a maximum loss of around 2-3% per year over a period of ten years. However, the study predicts that there would be 40% increase in jobs per year over a period of ten years. The situation in Europe is not a gloomy one. It is estimated that Europe, overall is not losing jobs. In fact, in every country in Europe, with the exception of Denmark, business service job creation has been larger than IT service job loss. The number of jobs lost in Europe is going to be fairly low compared to the United States.
While the economics of globalization dictate off shore outsourcing of software services, safety net for workers and communities like wage insurance, retraining etc. prove to be very expensive and not politically and economically palatable.
Although many seem to argue for offshore outsourcing of software services, it does indeed come with a package of negatives. In some cases where job processes cannot be done at a distance or job process cannot be routinized, outsourcing can prove to be an unworkable strategy. Many a times, lack of appropriate infrastructure in the vendor country can impact negatively on the client firms.
There are inherent risks in "off shoring" of research due to globalization. The heightened risks due to data privacy, intellectual property and other trade secrets can have legal systems consequences, which may make the client companies and governments vulnerable.
The study has also come with policy alternatives for both the "High wage countries" and "low wage countries." Professor Aspray has acknowledged the fact that protectionist rules and tariffs have almost entirely failed inn the "high wage" countries, and has emphasized the need to encourage innovation, from foreign students, workers etc. by enhancing the educational system by funding research and development and promoting indigenous careers while providing safety nets for workers and communities. For the "Low wage" countries, he underlined the need for regulation for FDI trade, creating infrastructure, protecting Intellectual property, privacy and security
Globalization and the dynamics of such a technology-enabled change can be extremely unpredictable, fluctuating between the real, virtual and the ambiguous. The tacit yet perceptible nature of such a change and the incredible pace at which such change is occurring can pose epistemological limitations in understanding such politically sensitive phenomenon. Therefore, understanding trends in the dynamics of such interaction and the consequences of changes in the socio-cultural and political realms, both at the microcosmic individual and the macrocosmic societal levels, can prove to be very challenging.
The Internet is a relatively recent means of digital communication and information distribution, which has enabled a quicker, almost instantaneous, means of communication around the world. However, it is not merely a technical expression. “The Internet is above all a source of Information” (IBRD, 2001; 93), which is profuse and prolific, embracing an extraordinary variety and diversity.
In this essay, I would argue that, the Internet is not an inherently global technology. Rather, it is a matrixically trans-physical technology, a network that links computer networks all over the world, connecting physically disjuncted, non-digital, plural physicalities, the world over, by digitizing and thus, as Sassen (2004; 299) calls it,‘liquefying’, ‘dematerializing’ and ‘hypermobilizing’ the non-digital, rendering the non-digital to move across space and time.
My argument that the Internet is a matrixically trans-physical technology rather than a global technology is not just an attempt at a lexical rearrangement. Rather, it is an attempt to examine the terminology, structure, and form that convey the nature of the Internet in a precise, coherent and comprehensible manner.
It is based on three assumptions:
1.It is a network of digitized physicalities, which are partially ‘liquefied’ and ‘dematerialized’, forming a circuit of networked elements, which are embedded in socio-cultural, politico-economic structures, is Organic, digitally connecting plural physicalities all over the world (distribution and pervasion), by being functional, reciprocal, interdependent and Vice-versa.
2.The term ‘global’ is inadequate, in the sense that it implies connections all over the world, but fails to convey the liquified, dematerialized and hypermobilized, character that the Internet renders to the digitally connected non-digital, plural physicalities, across the world.
3.The term Matrixically trans-physical technology is much more precise for the Internet than ‘Global’ because it implies that it is multidimensional and multidirectional but NOT necessarily and inherently ubiquitous and universal. It is organic, distributive and pervasive but not inherently and symmetrically so. It is digital, functional, reciprocal and inter-dependent.But, it does not imply that it is necessarily and inherently utilitarian.
However, being multi dimensional, multidirectional and complex, the Internet is enormous in its empirical reality. It is more than a sum of similarities and contradictions and is perhaps incomprehensible and inexpressible in its entirety.
Therefore, to substantiate my argument that the Internet is not an inherently ‘Global’ technology, but is matrixically trans-physical, I will attempt to establish, with the help of illustrations, that the Internet is (1) Organic, (2) digitally connecting plural physicalities all over the world (digitized distribution and pervasion), by being (3) Functional (because it is embedded in Social, political, environmental, cultural, technological structures), and (4) is thus reciprocal and interdependent and Vice-versa.
ORGANIC
“The diffusion of the Internet is one of the most rapid and extensive of any advanced technology in history. Like any widely adopted technology, the Internet is not just technical, but also involves social, political, and economic dimensions.” (Wolcott and Goodman, 2003; 1-2)
It was not long after Marshal McLuhan conceptualized of a ‘Global village’ (1964; 11-12) that the ARPANET was started on an experimental basis. “In 1969, the experimental ARPANET being developed by the Advanced Research Projects Agency of the U.S. Department of Defense consisted of four host computers, all located in the United States. England and Norway were added in the early 1970s. In 1980, 213 host computers in fewer than a half dozen NATO countries were connected. By 1989, only a few years after the ARPANET migrated out of the Department of Defense and became the Internet, connectivity jumped to more than 20 countries and 100,000 host computers” (Wolcott and Goodman, 2003; 1).
“During the 1990s, annual worldwide growth of both hosts and users was often in the neighborhood of 100 percent, and much higher in some countries. The millionth host was connected in 1992. Today over 200 countries enjoy full TCP/IP connectivity, and by some accounts, over 500 million users access the Internet regularly” [Cited by Wolcott and Goodman 2003; 1 from ‘Internet Domain Survey’, 2002).
The proliferation and adaptation of the Internet at an unprecedented speed is palpable. Take for instance, a relatively recent facet of the Internet – ‘Blogging’ or ‘Web logging’. What was, till recently a typing error, ‘Blogging’, the process of maintaining an online personal journal –(‘Blog’/ ‘Web Log’), has been multiplying and proliferating at an unprecedented pace. A blog tracking real time search engine, which monitors the world of web logs, called Technorati, claims to be monitoring over 36.8 million sites and 2.3 billion links, with about 75,000 new blogs being created a day – (that’s about one a second), 700,000 posts daily or about 29,100 blog updates an hour (http://www.technorati.com/about/).
In China, “Internet connectivity has been growing especially fast, albeit from a very low base. According to china Internet Network Information Centre, there were 22.5 million internet users in china in January 2001, quintupling from a year and a half earlier” (IBRD, 2001; 84). “According to Total Telecom, there are around 520 internet service providers (ISP’s) and 600 Internet content providers (ICP’s) in china” (IBRD, 2001; 84).
More recently, “the Internet is increasingly becoming a part of our media and telecommunication systems, and a genuine technological convergence is taking place” (Schiller and McChesney, 2003; 15). “Accessing the Internet through alternative means such as mobile phones and personal digital assistants is showing strong growth, from 200,000 in March to 590,000 in June 2000, almost tripling in three months” (IBRD, 2001; 92). (The figures mentioned above are for china alone)
A phenomenon, which began as an experiment less than four decades ago, has been growing rapidly, revolutionizing the sphere of communication because of its ability to digitize the non-digital, digitally connecting them to form a digitized network of dematerialized physicalities.
DIGITAL CONNECTIVITY
It is undeniable that the Internet is growing at an unprecedented pace. It is rapidly growing, I would argue, because of its ability to connect the physically disjuncted, non-digital, plural physicalities all over the world by digitizing and thus, as Saskia Sassen puts it (2004; 299), ‘liquefying’, ‘dematerializing’ and ‘hypermobilizing’ the non-digital. This is because, “digitization brings with it an amplification of those capacities that make possible the liquefying of what is not liquid. Therefore, digitization raises the mobility of what we have customarily thought of as non-mobile or barely mobile. At its most extreme, this liquefying dematerializes its object. Once dematerialized, it gains hypermobility - instantaneous circulation through digital networks” (Sassen, 2004; 299). However, “much of what is liquefied and circulates in digital networks is marked by hypermobility, remains physical in some of its components”(Sassen, 2004; 300). Take for instance ‘Transport for London’ (TFL), which “is responsible for London's buses, the Underground, the Docklands Light Railway (DLR) and the management of Croydon Tramlink and London River Services.” Through its website, www.tfl.gov.uk, the physical aspects of Transport for London (buses, underground, Dockland light railways, etc), in many ways, convey a certain ‘liquification’ and ‘dematerialization’ of London’s transport services, thus enabling them to circulate in digital networks, across time and space. Yet, part of what constitutes TFL remains very physical. “The real estate industry further illustrates some of these issues. Financial service firms have invented instruments that liquefy real estate, thereby facilitating investment and circulation of these instruments in global markets. Yet part of what constitutes real estate remains very physical. At the same time, however, that which remains very physical has been transformed by the fact that it is represented by highly liquid instruments that can circulate in global markets. It may look the same, but it is a transformed entity” (Sassen, 2004; 300). “The World’s not so rigid anymore”(http://www.t-mobile.co.uk/Dispatcher?menuid=plans_flext&chosenPricePlan=pmt).
Digital connectivity makes the network (Internet) of digitized, physicalities distributive and pervasive by means of disjuncted yet embedded interconnections all over the world. Thus by digitization, the Internet has rendered a character of duality (‘fixity and mobility’) to plural physicalities, connecting them digitally and creating a circuit of digitized, networked physicalities, thus enabling them to move across space and time. This implies that the Internet as a technology is Matrixically Trans-physical.
FUNCTIONAL
The Internet is Organic, Digitally connective and pervasive because it is functional and vice-versa. It is functional because “digital networks are embedded in the technical features and standards of hardware and software as well as in societal structures and power dynamics”(Sassen, 2004; 296). Socio-economic, technological, cultural, environmental, political factors interact and influence its functionality and thus its distribution. As Saskia Sassen puts it, “network power is not inherently distributive. Intervening mechanisms that may have little to do with the technology per se can reshape its organization” (Sassen, 2004, 296). Therefore, examining the role of socio-economic, political, cultural, and technical factors in influencing the functionality of the Internet is imperative.
Disparities in distribution
As Pippa Norris (2000; 3) pointed out, “globally the regional disparities are marked” in the distribution and use of the Internet. Arguably, “the Internet does not touch the lives of most inhabitants of the planet. In spite of its growth over the last decade, the Internet is used by less than 10% of the world’s population, making it less widespread than the telephone or television or radio. Moreover, its growth is non-uniform. In the vast majority of countries, fewer than one percent of the population uses the Internet” (Wolcott and Goodman, 2003). Today almost two-thirds of the world's online community is located in just five countries: the United States, Japan, the UK, Canada, and Germany” (Norris, 2000; 3).
Economic Factors
Disparities arise because “the ability to use Internet resources is unevenly spread” (James, 2004; 209). “The relationship between costs and usage is most apparent in the poorest countries, where costs are exorbitant and usage rates are lowest ”(Mann, 2003, 72). In Uzbekistan, “the prohibitive expense for Internet access indicates that using the Internet is a luxury for local citizens” (Kolko etal, 2003; 9).
“Beyond the issues of intentionality and use lie the question of infrastructure and access”(Sassen, 2004; 297). “Basic access is required before the potential benefits of the Internet can flow to poorer societies”(Norris, 2000; 2). However,as Karanja Gaiko, the Vice-President of Africa online, stated at the Harvard conference on Internet and Society, (Cited by James, 2004; 210), “a lot is dependent on economic realities”. Arguably, “for most people in the developing world, the problem of survival is far more acute than the problem of being unconnected” (James, 20004; 210).
Economic realities act as barriers to building basic technical infrastructure necessary for using the Internet. For instance, “connecting to the Internet can be problematic in Uzbekistan; the telephone lines are poor and relatively low bandwidth is available” (kolko et al, 2003; 12). In 1998, India had “one of the lowest fixed telephony penetration rates in all of Asia, at 1.5 lines per 100 people. In addition, there were fewer than two personal computers per 1000 people“(Wolcott and Goodman, 2003;).
Moreover, “electronic space is going to be far more present in highly industrialized countries than in the less developed world, and it is going to be far more present for middle class households in developed countries than for poor households in those same countries” (Sassen, 2004; 297). For instance, “29 OECD member states, representing post-industrial economies and developed democracies, contain 97% of all Internet hosts, 92% of the market in production and consumption of computer hardware, software and services, and 86% of all Internet users.In contrast the whole of Sub-Saharan Africa contains only 2.5 million Internet users, or less than 1% of the world’s online community. Indeed there are more users within affluent Sweden than in the entire continent of Africa.” (Norris, 2003; 3.) In China, ”Internet services are less developed; less than 2% of china’s 1.2 billion people are online, compared with 50% of the United States”(IBRD, 2001; 91) “The best available evidence on the distribution of users, hosts and hardware indicate that in the emerging Internet Age the information revolution has transformed communications in post-industrial states like Sweden, Australia, and the United States at the cutting edge of technological change, reinforcing their lead in the new economy. But in the early twenty-first century so far the benefits of the Internet have failed to reach most of the poorer nations in Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia and Middle East” (Norris, 2000; 3).
Cultural and Political Factors
“Cultural attitudes towards using computers may also contribute towards some of the differences evident between relatively similar societies, like the UK, Germany, France, and Italy”(Norris, 2000; 4). In Uzbekistan, significant use of the Internet at a commercial site would signal to one’s peers that one has access to large amounts of cash than would be generated by one’s salary. Because Uzbeks tend not to use the banking system for their savings, it is important not to advertise to one’s neighbors that one has large amounts of cash” (Kolko etal, 2003; 9)
“Power, contestation, inequality and hierarchy inscribe electronic space” (Sassen, 2004; 296). For instance, in China, the “government is very strict in regulating content, and the Telecom administration bureau in the ministry of information industry insists that the government retain control” (IBRD, 2001; 93). “The government’s intention is to supervise internet content by issuing new rules, supervising Internet café’s (the primary access points for most young Chinese users), deliberately holding back private web development while selectively favoring government supervised web content” (IBRD, 2001; 93). Arguably, “the Internet has changed the structure of opportunities for political actors in many post-industrial societies. Yet the evidence from established democracies, at least in the emerging years of the Internet Age, throws a skeptical light on popular claims that the Internet will automatically transform the mass basis of political activism” (Norris, 2000; 1). The embeddedness of the matrixical trans-physicality in social and render the manifestations of the Internet to be varied and unpredictable.
RECIPROCAL AND INTERDEPENDENT
“The Internet involves a two way flow of messages (James, 2000; 206). “It is an interchange which is created by the active involvement of all those concerned”(James, 2004; 209), and thus “involves transmission of a plurality of cultures” (James, 2004; 209), “transforming the complex relationships between local activities and interaction across distance” (James, 2000; 198). And within the given limitations, “it allows a ‘very natural, free form, liquid relationship between human beings to take place”(Douglas Rushkoff, as cited by James, 2004; 208). For instance, “Blogs are a fluid, dynamic medium, more akin to a 'conversation' than to a library — which is how the Web has often been described in the past. An increasing number of people are reading, writing, and commenting on blogs. Instead of being passive consumers of information, more and more Internet users are becoming active participants”(http://www.technorati.com/about).
The Internet is reciprocal and Interdependent with the social environment because it is “embedded in the technical features and standards of hardware and software as well as in societal structures and power dymanics” (Sassen, 2004; 296). It reciprocity enables it to be functional and its functionality enables it to be reciprocal. Thus on the one hand “the internet is creating new opportunities for developing local sensitivity on a global scale, helping aid to remedy problems of global inequality rather than exacerbate them”(James, 2004; 212) and on the other hand, as Cukier (2004,1) points out, “the Net creates new areas of national interest and foreign policy concerns.”
“People are now jumping into use the net, not only to absorb the knowledge or information from the advanced countries but to share their own with others”(Izumi Aizu at the Harvard Conference on Internet and Society (James, 2004; 209). “Public and private universities are already embracing the Internet and distance education. Many stand alone universities offer world-class education because they have access to much larger, more up-to-date, and cheaper online libraries. University researchers are also forming networks” (IBRD, 2001; 95/96).
Functionality, inter-dependability and reciprocity of a social environment, enabled by digital connectivity by means of technical infrastructure, make the Internet Organic.
CONCLUSION
The Internet is reciprocal, functional, interdependent and organic because it is matrixically trans-physical and vice-versa. Thus the Internet is not an inherently global technology. Rather, it is matrixically trans-physical, but not inherently so.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Cukier, N.K., 2004: Internet Governance, National Interest and International Relations, Background Paper for theUnited Nations ICT Task Force Meeting, 24-26 March 2004, in New York
FLEXT ADVERT: ‘The World’s not so rigid anymore’ (http://www.tmobile.co.uk/Dispatcher?menuid=plans_flext&chosenPricePlan=pmt)
IBRD, 2001: China and the Knowledge Economy; Seizing the twenty first century; Washington D.C
James, S., 2004: Internet and Globalization
Kolko.E.B, Wei.Y.C, Spyridakis,J.H., 2004: Internet Use in Uzbekistan: Developing a methodology for tracking information technology implementation success, Information Technologies and International development. Volume 1, Number 2. 1-19
Mann, C. L., 2004: Information Technologies and International Development: Conceptual clarity in the search for commonality and Diversity, Volume 1, Number 2, pp 67-69
McLuhan, M., 1964: Understanding Media: The Extensions of man, Routledge, London
McChesney, RW &Schiller, D., 2003: The Political Economy of International Communications- Foundations for the emerging global debate about Media Ownership and Regulation, United nations Research Institute for social development, Technology, Business and society, programme paper number 11
Norris, P., 2000:The Worldwide Digital Divide: Information Poverty, the Internet and Development
Wolcott.P, Goodman S.E., 2003: Introducing the Global diffusion of the Internet series. Communications of the Association for Information systems (Volume II, 2003) 555-559
Wolcott, P. and Goodman, S., 2003: Global Diffusion of the Internet: India: Is the Elephant learning to Dance? Communications of Associations for information systems (Volume II, 2003) 560-646
“The ‘Diffusion of Innovation theory’ helps explain how innovations diffuse through a social system”(Rai et al, 1998; 98). This is because “the value of adopting some innovation increases along with the number of adopters and promotes diffusion across a population”(Rai et al, 1998; 98-99). Therefore, in defining ‘diffusion’, this essay borrows from Rogers (1983), who defines ‘Diffusion of innovation’, as “the process by which an innovation is communicated through certain channels over time among members of a social system”, and combines it with utility theory which “suggests that users subscribe to a technology only if it provides a net positive utility”(Rai et al, 1998; 100). Therefore, ‘diffusion’ is to be understood as dependant on “the concrete application and use of available modern technologies”(IBRD, 2001; 101) in specific social contexts because “communication flows intersect with the situated contexts within which activities are carried out in a knowledgeable and creative way” (James, 2000; 199). “Thus, the rate of diffusion is determined by the size of the adopter and potential-adopter populations at any given time”(Rai et al, 1998; 100). But, “achieving critical mass depends on the utility of the technology for the early users”(Rai et al, 1998; 100)
“Innovation is to be understood as products, processes, practises that are new in the local contexts, down to different regions and localities. In no way should innovation be perceived as referring only to brand new technologies in a global context”(IBRD, 2001; 101).
Empirical Examples –Role of New Media and Internet
An award winning, “Outstanding story of South Asia – (Print)”, reported by Jonathan Karp for the Wall street Journal in February 1998 (http://ushome.rediff.com/news/1999/jun/28us3.htm), is of relevance to this essay, in that, it offers a cue to ponder about the relevance of technology to the ‘Social context’.
Cotton farmers and computers in Kadavendi, India
“A. Narsoji rose from his restless sleep in this southern Indian village on a recent night to get something to drink.
The 45-year-old farmer had reason to be anxious. His cotton crop had failed, he had already sold his two oxen to repay one loan and had nothing more to offer usurious moneylenders who were hounding him. He owed about $3,300, equal to two-and-a-half years' earnings -- in good harvests. Yet this season, caterpillars, immune to pesticides that he sprayed frantically, ravaged his cotton. What failed to rid him of that plague at least ended his torment that Jan. 25 night:
Mr. Narsoji gulped pesticide and collapsed in a fit of convulsions in his open-air kitchen.
Two days later in a nearby village, S. Sailam finished lunch and told his wife he was off to spray pesticide on his besieged cotton. Instead, he squirted it down his throat. Recounting the story, his illiterate widow, six months pregnant with their third child and saddled with debt, sobs as she throws herself on a visitor's feet to beg for help. Advice from villagers gathered in the moonlight hardly consoles her.
Current (not any more) state leader N. Chandrababu Naidu, Who surfs the Internet with his IBM ThinkPad, projects modernity and is a darling of the World Bank. He has made the capital city, Hyderabad, a magnet for high-tech investment. Mr. Naidu was slow to recognize the cotton farmers' distress, despite a computer database that he touts as the key to improving his government's performance. The on-line system offers daily reports on electricity production and tax collection, and reveals, for instance, that a lazy bureaucrat has been sitting on a particular file for 276 days. The system also tracks rainfall and agricultural output.”
In a place like Kadavendi, given the Social context, will a smart citizen’s service like e-seva (http://esevaonline.com), initiated by the government of Andhra Pradesh, seeking to redefine the citizen’s service using state-of-the art-technologiessucceed in ‘diffusing’ itself? Will this one stop shop for 66 G2C and B2C services be of any use at Kadavendi? Will the government’s long term vision of creating a “knowledge society by using information technology appeal to Mr.Sailam’s widow? Is it relevant to her social context, where many lack the resources, the ‘know-how’ and more importantly the need for such a service? Given the abject poverty, will instant access to world-wide information through Internet and the other ‘New Media’ technologies be perceived to be actually needful in fulfilling an immediate NEED? Will Mr.Sailam’s widow with a burgeoning debt, with barely anything to feed herself and her two children, see the need for New Media and access to the Internet? Answers to these questions are not very difficult to anticipate. People at Kadavendi not only articulate meanings in accordance with habits and fixed formulas, but are also thinking individuals.
“The internet is seen as a tool for empowerment of disadvantaged groups and rural communities (Bhatnagar, 2004; 17). Arguably, “the new medium is expected to act as a moderator of inequality by making low cost information available to everyone”(Hargittai, 1999; 2) and “State-of-the-art technologies are supposed to enable better government-citizen interaction, allowing, for instance, filing of forms or registering concerns online, increasing both efficiency and transparency” (IBRD, 2001; 96). But, the Kadavendi case illustrates that “for most people, “the problem of survival is far more acute than the problem of being unconnected” (James, 2000; 210). Indeed. It illustrates that people will not feel the need to use the New Media and Internet, if they don’t perceive and get an actual net utility value. Without relevance to the social context, New Media and Internet will be rendered ineffective. In fact, introducing state-of-the art-technologies irrespective of the social context conveys the imminence of irrelevance. It can be counter-productive, compounding the problems for the poor.
The Uzbekistan case study
A survey conducted among the IT professionals in Uzbekistan by Kolko etal on the perceived use, revealed that a majority of respondents (85.7% of them) stated that the Internet played a role in their jobs. Communication with other IT professionals was important to people in the computer industry. (kolko et al, 2004; 16). Many reported that they used the Internet to gather information, for communicating with others, for software, presumably to download it or install patches or updates. Some respondents reported more than one Internet role in their jobs (Kolko, et al, 2004; 16).
Most of the respondents first used the computer, either at School, University or a place of higher educational setting. The second most common place where the computer was first used was work. The clear majority of respondents first used a computer in a school or University setting or at work suggesting that computers in Uzbekistan are more common in those settings”(Kolko et al, 2004; 15). It is very likely that these IT professionals will use the Internet as it is perceived as a need, which is directly related to their sphere of work. But, on the other hand, will the “28% of the people living below poverty line” (http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/uz.html) in Uzbekistan perceive the same use of the Internet and New Media as the IT professionals? Will they see a need to communicate with the others through the Internet, especially when “the prohibitive expense for Internet access, indicates that using the Internet is a luxury for local citizens” (Kolko etal, 2003; 9)?
Another interesting example, which the study highlights is that “many users do not use the Internet when they pay for computer access” (Kolko etal, 2004; 9), not only because “Internet access in Uzbekistan is expensive” (The average cost per hour of access was 1,656 sum, or about US$1.35 where as the salary standards are estimated at US$20 to US$30 per month) but also because, “significant use of the Internet at a commercial site would signal to one’s peers that one has access to larger amounts of cash than would be generated by one’s salary. Because Uzbeks tend not to use banking systems for their savings, it is important not to advertise to one’s neighbours that one has large amounts of cash. For example, people who work with foreigners and thus have access to hard currency try to minimize or obscure the source of their income because it can make them a target for robbery. Additionally, signalling such wealth might attract attention from the local tax police”(Kolko et al, 2004; 9). Will they see the need to put themselves at the risk of making themselves conspicuous?
“Many hope that new media, -- particularly the speed, global reach, and interactivity of the Internet, -- will transform civic engagement and political mobilization in democracies. This process is believed to be particularly important in giving voice to the voiceless, strengthening NGO’s in civil society, linking citizens with government services, and helping parties generate support among new groups in the electorate” (Norris,l 2003; 1) But, in Uzbekistan, which has an “authoritarian presidential rule, with little power outside the executive branch” (http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/uz.html.), “with something of a reputation for rights abuses”(Kolko et al, 2004; 13), “the government monitors Internet activity” (Kolko et al, 2004; 13), the “customers cannot access some Web sites because of government policies” (Kolko et al, 2004; 14) and “ it has been impossible to access the web sites of the government opposition parties from inside Uzbekistan.” (kolko et al 2004; 8). The researchers argue that many people may not have been aware of the rules and regulations. “Engaging in activity that may or may not be considered illegal carries with it relatively high risks. It is possible that people’s unfamiliarity with regulations and concurrent penalties provides a barrier to entry: better to be safe than sorry” (Kolko etal, 2004; 13-14). As Pippa Norris puts it, it is only “in the rosy scenario, the Internet promises to level the playing field and strengthen the voice of the voiceless”(Norris, 2003; 2).
MCTs in Rural Mexico
Robert Wade points out from the World Bank policy paper on ICT - ‘Networking Revolution: Opportunities and challenges for developing countries’, that “of the twenty three MCTs (Multipurpose community Tele-centers, facilities that provide public access to a variety of information and community services) built recently in a rural Mexico village, only five were working two years later. This is a failure rate of 80 percent” (Wade, 2002; 445). “Was there a good use for the services the MCT’s offered? Or more generally, what sense did the MCTs make to local people? If their business was mainly local, they may have seen little gain from the sudden access to world-wide opportunities”(Wade, 2002; 446). His questions and observations point out precisely to the perceived relevance and the net utility of a technology to the social context. And as is demonstrated by the MCTs in Mexico, technologies, which have no relevance to the social context, will be rendered ineffective, both in adoption and use.
The InformationVillage – MSSRF, India
The ‘InformationVillage’ project, which is being carried out near Pondicherry, India, by the M.S.Swaminathan Research foundation (MSSRF), is a good experiment in electronic knowledge delivery, with a view to exploring the impact of modern ICTs on rural development. “The project is designed to provide knowledge on demand to meet local needs, using a mix of wired and wireless technologies and through a local website”(Arunachalam, 1999; 473). The project is a tremendous success and the Internet and New Media technologies are accepted because “villagers get value-added locale specific information in a wide range of fields: health information (often not discussed in traditional societies), advice on growing crops and protecting them from diseases, market prices for these crops, local weather forecasts and clear information about the many programmes run by the government and other agencies. Much of the information is keyed in Tamil, the local language. Some key information, such as the day’s prices for rice varieties and changes in bus timings are written on a display board at all centres. Most of the system operators are women. Thus the programme enhances the status and influence of women by making them providers of primary source of information” (Arunachalam, 1999; 474).
“The entire project emphasises an integrated pro-poor, pro-women, pro-nature orientation to development and community ownership of technological tools against personal or collective ownership, and encourages collective action for spread of technology”(Arunachalam, 1999; 474). This is indeed an example of successful ‘diffusion’ of New Media and Internet by “delivering locale-specific knowledge that people actually need and can use to improve their lot”, following a “bottom up approach”, by “involving the user community as partners right from the beginning”(Arunachalam, 1999; 465).
This project underscores the point that “the emergence of an information communication technology is always, in part, the slow process through which particular technological possibilities are articulated into specific social and cultural contexts of action so that merely potential uses become not only actual but stable”(Couldry, 20003; 92) and highlights the importance of a synthesis of perceived and the actual use by giving the users of technology in a specific social context, the net utility value.
Conclusion
“The vast online universe of information and entertainment cannot be assumed to be a universal good, having the same value to everyone. The use you or I make of the internet depends not only on the speed and reliability of our modems and our individual predilections, but on our particular needs and capabilities to do something with the resources we believe are available” (Couldry, 2003; 92). As Saskia Sassen points out, “digital networks are embedded in technical features and standards of the hardware and software as well as in actual societal structures and power dynamics” (Sassen, 2004; 296). Therefore, “network power is not inherently distributive. Intervening mechanisms that may have little to do with the technology per se can reshape its organization” (Sassen, 2004; 296).
The objective of this essay is not to put forward a pessimistic argument against the ‘diffusion’ of New Media and Information technology. My aim is not to take on the mantle of an Advocatus Diaboli. But, it was an attempt to illustrate that, “technology is a cultural artefact. Its shape is determined in part by the context in which it is developed” (Kolko, 2004; 3) which variously affect the diffusion of innovation and thus different strategies.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Arunachhalam.S., 1998: Information and Knowledge in the age of electronic communication: A developing country perspective, Journal of Information Science, 25 (6) 1999, pp 465-476) {Paper presented at the sixth symposium on ‘Information and Knowledge in the age of Electronic communication’ Organized by Volkswagon foundation on the 7th may 1999 in Darmstadt}
Bhatnagar.S., 2004: E-Government- From vision to Implementation
Couldry,N., 2003:Digital divide or discursive design? On the emerging ethics of information space, Ethics and Information technology 5: 89-97, 2003. Kluwer academic publishers, printed in the Netherlands
Hargittai,E., 1999: Weaving the western web: Explaining differences in Internet connectivity among OECD countries. Telecommunications Policy. 23(10/11)
IBRD, 2001: China and the Knowledge Economy - Seizing the twenty first century; World Bank Institute, Washington D.C
James, S., 2004: Internet and Globalization
Kolko.E.B, Wei.Y.C, Spyridakis,J.H., 2004: Internet Use in Uzbekistan: Developing a methodology for tracking information technology implementation success, Information Technologies and International development. Volume 1, Number 2. 1-19
Rai, A., Ravichandran.T., Samaddar.S., 1998: How to Anticipate the Internet’s global diffusion, Communications of the ACM. October 1998, Volume 41. No. 10
Wade, R.H., 2002:Bridging the digital Divide: New route to development or New form of dependency? Global governance 8 (2002), 443-446
“The Hindu”, India’s national news paper has written about the importance of blogging. (http://www.thehindu.com/mp/2006/03/18/stories/2006031803670400.htm.)
This article underlines the adaptive co-existence of new technologies with the old. Can the Internet – websites, blogging etc, completely phase out older, more traditional forms of media like Newspapers, Television and Radio ? I doubt it. On the emergence of every new technology, doomsayers and cynics habitually predict that the new will end the old. But such simplistic versions amuse me. As technology enables newer, cost effective platforms of communication, it is also creating a complex dynamic media environment in which the state of equilibrium is very short livedIn the constant process of media evolution, the traditional and the new forms of media adapt and morphing themselves according to the demands of the time. They contradict and complement each other. A constant symphony of digital revolution destabilizes the ephemeral equilibrium. Digital revolution is changing the character of the globe. Wonder what the future will hold?
Media and Communication technologies like Television, Radio, Internet and Telecommunications are converging together and are fast becoming the utilitarian tool of the masses. They are making people more connected and bringing them closer. “The recent expansion of global access to voice-telephony has almost been violent. During the 1990’s, wireline phone access shot upward; while, increasing from a tiny base as recently as 1990, one billion mobile phones were in use by 2002” (McChesney and Schiller; 17) “The Internet is increasingly becoming a part of our media and telecommunication systems, The relatively recent phenomenon of blogging or Web Logging, (the process of maintaining a personal journal on the web, which can be accessed by any one any where in the world with an access to the internet or the world wide web), has been growing at a phenomenal pace too. A blog tracking real time search engine, which monitors what is going on in the world of web logs, called Technocrati, claims to be monitoring over 34.3 million sites and 2.3 billion links, with about 70,000 new blogs being created a day – that’s about one a second, 700,000 posts daily or about 29,100 blog updates an hour”. ‘Blog’ – What was till recently a typing error has now become an organic phenomenon, multiplying and proliferating across the globe at an unprecedented pace. But still does Global mean Universal? Think !
