Learning from the
LDC’s
Editor-in-chief < [email protected]
>
As
developed countries are retreating from the implicit commitment to their
citizens that universal Internet access will be available even to those without
in-home Internet access, so such a commitment appears to be emerging within
Less Developed Countries, particularly in
On
the one hand, some are saying that the recent cuts are simply policy responses
in the developed countries to “mission accomplished”—the Divide Divide has been
defeated (everyone who wants it can get affordable individual in-home access on
low cost computers). While on the other
hand, the parallel development in the Less Developed Countries (LDC’s) would
seem to be a sign that those countries are willing to make a considerable
financial investment in “catching up”.
In
fact, the situation is somewhat more complicated than that. In the developed
countries, rather than the “mission being accomplished”, the forces at work are
in more or less full-retreat from the commitment to universal inclusion and
what has now become a more or less necessary aspect of full citizenship in a
democratic society—that is the ability to engage and connect with government
electronically. What has been happening
in developed countries is that the state seems to be giving up on those at the
margins—the elderly, the deeply poor, the mentally disabled, recent
immigrants—those who lack not simply the financial means to access knowledge
for democratic participation via the Internet; but who also lack the associated
educational, psychological or motivational means to obtain access and realize
use with support and facilitation.
At
the same time and across the world, in the LDC’s the extension of such access
should probably not be interpreted as a simple response to a national or global
“Digital Divide”. Rather these programs should be seen as pragmatic and
calculated attempts at economic and social intervention. In these instances, ICT access and use is
being recognized as a fundamental element in the successful achievement of a
broad based strategy for economic development and, perhaps more important, for
realizing the transformation of traditional and largely rural societies into
innovative and productive “knowledge societies”. The understanding appears to be that if these
societies are to truly flourish, economic opportunity and the capacity to
innovate and participate in knowledge-intensive activities must be as widely
accessible as possible; and this can only be realistically achieved through
public (and community) access.
So
what we see in the developed countries is a retreat from a policy of broad
based digital social inclusion. This
seems to be of a piece with the continuing neo-liberal erosion of the notions
of inclusive citizenship. These in turn
are seemingly based on an assumption that decisions concerning Internet access
and use are best left to individuals (and individual resources) rather than
being an aspect of social policy. At the same time, in some LDC’s we see an
extension of precisely the same processes of broad-based access for pragmatic
social and economic reasons. So which
understanding of the role and significance of broad-based Internet access is
the correct one?
In
fact, the intension with the programs in the LDC’s is to use the base of
“universal access” (the medium term goal for these programs) as a means to
enhance the delivery of public services, facilitate a broader base of
engagement with governmental activities, provide support to local human
resource development, and facilitate the distribution of knowledge as a basis
for local innovation, among others.
The
question of course, is: Are these objectives for public access programs already
fully accomplished in developed countries, or are they for some reason
unnecessary, or perhaps beneath the range of interests of governments and
public policy? There is probably little
dispute that the answer to at least some of these questions is no!
Rather,
as in other areas, the developed countries are, for reasons that can only be
described as ideological, abandoning courses of action which would appear to be
in the national long term economic and social interests, not to speak of issues
of equity and social justice. Others, in
some cases the direct economic competitors in LDC’s, are adopting policies
whose long term results are likely to be a sturdier base of economic activity
and a stronger foundation for moving forward into knowledge societies.
Thus,
while some countries are putting into place the infrastructure for a robust and
innovative Internet-enabled democracy, others are allowing for structured
inequalities to persist and become socially embedded through differential
access to knowledge and digitally enabled services and opportunities for
participation.
Transitions
This
issue of the Journal unfortunately has been delayed due to a variety of
unforeseen circumstances and transitions.
The first major transition was that of moving from OJS 1 to OJS 2, which
proved to be rather more difficult in a variety of unexpected ways than had
been anticipated. The second transition
is a personal one for myself, moving from the East Coast and an academic position
to the West Coast and into “start-up” mode for a CI think-tank. A third
transition still being resolved is towards a more formalized organizational and
production structure, difficult of course since to date virtually all
activities within the Journal have been voluntary and thus supported by one or
another (mostly academic) infrastructure.
Hopefully,
most of these shifts, and their consequences, have now been absorbed and are
past. We look forward to resuming a
regular schedule of publication, with some improvements in process in place.