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SOCIAL
POLITICAL AND ETHICAL DIMENSIONS OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGIES
Access
The hype about the impact of network and computing technologies
on modern life ignores the fact most people alive today
will never even make a telephone call, let alone use the
Internet or a computer. The growth of information technologies
has come mainly in the so-called “developed”
world. Barriers to wider use are:
• the need for some degree of literacy;
• language issues;
• infrastructure (electricity, a network, maintenance);
• cost.
Advances in broadcast media, particularly radio (e.g.
the “wind up” radio), have helped to bring
information to remote places and people, but this remains
a “one-way” channel from provider to receiver.
Experiments giving illiterate villagers video cameras
have enabled them to communicate with officials in political
centres, but this approach requires equipment and training.
People who speak languages other than the major European
and Asian languages may also be disenfranchised because
most of the Internet makes use of just a small number
of languages (though many millions speak them). |
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Most
people will never see a computer... |
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