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Some of the issues raised in these
articles are addressed in the Draft
Prospectus for Online Communities.
and in later articles in the publication How
you can use IT in the community.
An article by Dave Greenop mentioned
here and published in the booklet by permission of the British
Journal of Telecommunications Engineering, is not currently
online.
The articles in this book,
contributed by authors from a range of backgrounds, provide some
glimpses of the impact new technologies like the Internet may have on
our society and local communities - for better or worse.
They highlight enormous gaps between the rhetoric of political debate
and commercial hype, and the reality for individuals and small
organisations who don't yet have the skills or the equipment to join
the promised Information Society, and may never acquire them.
This prospect presents a particular challenge for the voluntary
sector, traditionally concerned with the tensions created by social
change.
Voluntary bodies, from national charities to local groups, may be
able to use the new technology to amplify their voice and perform
their day to day tasks more effectively. Experience gained from
trying will give them a convincing role in arguing the pros and cons
of new developments.
If they are unwilling to try, or unable to gain this experience
through lack of equipment, training and support, they will not have a
voice. The development of new technologies will be dominated by
commercial expediency and political opportunism.
That perhaps, is the strongest message from this collection of
articles.
Not available online
BT futurist David Greenop argues for debate and partnership between
those who will build the new information infrastructure and those who
will use it.
He writes in an article for the British Telecommunications
Engineering Journal: 'The widespread availability of digital
technology is currently blurring the boundaries between the
traditionally separate industries of computing, information content
production and telecommunications.
'These changes have the potential to shake the foundations of today's
society, affecting the way we lead our lives, the work we undertake,
the means by which wealth is generated, and our systems of
government.'
He argues: 'The users of tomorrow should not be regarded as just
consumers of mass-produced information products. They will be equal
partners who participation will decide the success or failure of this
information vision.
'Their participation and enthusiastic support is needed to
counterbalance the excesses of commercial enterprise. Without this
participation and support, the information age vision could become an
electronic nightmare.'
He concludes: 'Above all else in bringing about the information
society is the necessity of partnership between the builders of the
information infrastructure and the representatives of society.'
'The challenges and the opportunities of new technologies must be
made apparent to all members of society and its institutions, and a
healthy debate must be encouraged.'
The social
implications of information technology,
by Graham May
A leading futures academic, Graham May, acknowledges the potential
problems, yet warns against alarmism.
He writes: `Some have even suggested that if we had known beforehand
the problems that the car has created we would not have developed it.
But then we would have been without its obvious benefits too.
`Society's relationship with its technology is a complex one of
interacting influences. Blaming the Internet for pornography is like
blaming Guttenberg for `top-shelf' magazines, and to ignore much of
literature including Shakespeare and Chaucer.
`It is much easier to argue against the use of IT because it is not
yet universal than to argue for it because it might become so.
Perhaps the best argument is that we, as a society, cannot afford to
allow only the powerful to have the ability to use it.'
by David Wilcox
New
technology and the voluntary sector,
The use of information technology by the voluntary sector has changed
rapidly in recent years. Most voluntary organisations with paid staff
now use computers. Some are using electronic mail to communicate
internally and externally, and publishing globally using World Wide
Web. A few are involved in telematics projects to promote the use of
electronic networking locally or regionally.
Ten years ago a minority used fax. Now its use is almost universal.
Are electronic mail, bulletin board systems, and the World Wide Web
simply additional communication tools, or will they lead to
significant shifts in the way voluntary organisations operate?
This article - and the one on Community
Networks - explains some of
the basics of networking, and touches on policy issues for the
voluntary sector raised more fully by other authors.
Voluntary bodies in North America -
or non-profits as they are usually known - have more experience of
what the technology can offer, and have started to join the debate.
Opinions are divided on where the balance of benefit lies.
The Benton Foundation is broadly optimistic about the potential. They
report: `The Information Age could be a golden era for the non-profit
sector. New information and communication technologies are creating
enormous opportunities for non profits to increase their efficiency,
improve the quality of services they provide, and influence
policy-makers.
`These applications of technology ... help organizations increase
their own efficiency and effectiveness, improve the quality of
services that non-profit groups deliver, and give non commercial
interests greater influence in policy debates.'
Terry Grunwald, director of a project working with low wealth
communities in North Carolina, offers a caution and a challenge to UK
organisations: `There is no way that voluntary organisations (I will
call them NPOs) will participate in the policy debate unless they
experience tangible results that make them feel they have a stake in
telecommunications.
`The Internet is only theoretically a "leveller" ... NPOs will need
incentives to participate: online information designed to meet their
specific needs and a support framework to handhold them through the
process. These are key. Who in England is willing to provide these
incentives?'
Social
inclusion in the information society,
by Kevin Harris
Kevin Harris of the Community Development Foundation is one of the
most experienced people in this field in the voluntary sector. He
argues for changes in the way that traditional information managers
and power holders operate, and support for those they claim to
benefit:
`The rhetoric of community involvement is now widely accepted but the
practice appears still to baffle many authorities. Sometimes this
becomes apparent from attitudes towards `community information'.
`Library services which invest in community information often do so
very much in a top-down manner, collecting and making available in
their own terms information about agencies known to them; and yet
there is enormous potential for community organisations to
self-publish online once they have access to the systems. Enabling
such agencies to contribute should be an essential part of an
authority's information strategy.
`Information capability comprises more than just access to
information (which is the element upon which the library and
information professions have become fixated): it also comprises
information awareness; and the skills to exploit information once it
has been acquired. The information society is unlikely to be socially
inclusive in any meaningful sense if the development of information
capability is not addressed.'
Virtual
community in real reality, by
Greg Smith
Greg Smith, who works with the Community Involvement Unit in Newham,
examines claims that the Internet can create new communities, and
finds them wanting. He writes: `Whatever benefits may be found in the
information society, revival of "community" is not one of them. At
least not community as the traditional nostalgic, and
incontrovertibly good product of our imaginations.
`The rapid changes brought about by information technology present a
crisis which is both a challenge and an opportunity in the
inter-related worlds of community work and politics. Fundamentally
the information society and postmodernism are about privatisation,
individualism, fragmentation, and a culture without history that
recognises no values or truth beyond money.
`In contrast religion, community work and politics is about building
a common life, about integrating people into a body, about
collaboration and concern between neighbours and about enduring
values of justice and truth.'
This publication was compiled in the
first instance to brief participants at the annual conference of the
National Council for Voluntary Organisations. BT Community
Partnership supported its production. The commitment of these two
bodies is a first step towards the partnership advocated by David
Greenop.
What else would help address the issues raised in these articles?
Here are some suggestions, drawn from the articles and the programme
being developed by Partnerships for Tomorrow.
The past year has seen a sudden burst of activity and innovation in
this field in the UK - yet it struck me in compiling this book that
many of the new initiatives do not know of each other, nor of the
trail-blazing efforts of pioneers like GreenNet and Poptel. And
despite the international nature of the Internet, we in the UK know
little of what is happening in North America.
So an obvious step is to bring key interests together: at seminars
and conferences, and using email, bulletin board systems, telephone
and video conferencing. We should publish the results on paper. No
one medium is enough for discussion and dissemination - we still need
the traditional strengths of face to face contact and print.
In order to use the new media, participants will need help - whether
they are community activists, concerned citizens or chief executives.
(I suspect many of those making the most noise leave even simple
email to their secretaries). Programmes of training and support are
essential, plus a `how to' guide which starts with the prosaic needs
of individuals and groups rather than the relentlessly expanding
potential of the machines and the ever fatter cables which connect
them.
From those exchanges of ideas and experience, and a greater capacity
to handle machines and digital information, we will be in a better
position to experiment, building on the hard-won successes and
failures of pioneers in the field. We need to design these
experiments so that they have the potential to provide clear `real
world' benefits for the organisations involved, and use the
technology to greatest advantage.
Plans for the Community Regeneration Network, for example, are an
attempt to use new technology to tackle some of our most pressing
global and local concerns.
The main aim of this book is to promote discussion and enable those
developing new projects to meet each other in the real or virtual
world - so please get in touch with us or the other organisations
mentioned. I hope we can produce an update shortly