Not everyone can Reach Out and Touch Someone - The Digital Divide

Andy Carver in his article:, Mind the Gap claims that accessing knowledge using the internet is a matter of civil rights and in these last days of the 2008 Presidential elections I couldn't agree with him more. Candidates that upload commercials on YouTube and are able to send text messages or robocall cells and blackberries definitely have the upper advantage when trying to reach Generations X & Y who are first time voters. No other time in global history has there been such an aggressive attempt to reach out and touch someone using digital technologies. Coming to work this morning, over the radio, I heard ABC's Journalist David Richards say that if the Democrats sweep the elections it will be due in part to digital technologies that have reached and ignited the younger voting base.

Being on-line is more than promoting a personal agenda; however, it is the future of communication and gaining information crucial to our understanding of the world. It is the means of finding out what is happening now and in the future and knowing how to prepare for that future. Knowledge is power. Yet, even for those who have the technologies and access, digital technologies, argues Carver can not be fully realized without the proper education and training. School curricula around the world must incorporate computer training and internet navigation as part of the future educational goals for students to grasp the internet.

Mark Warschauer specifically asks, "what role can access to technology play in promoting social inclusion"? He writes about social communities on the internet and without developing such communities, people will merely use the technology as a reference tool when it is potentially so much more. In other words, if the internet is nothing more than an electronic book (and I know how to read a book but do not know how to use a computer), why bother using the internet? What's all the hype about?

It's one thing to have access to the technologies and even the resources, but without training and knowing how to navigate, search, reach out and connect with an on-line community the technology is redundant. Both Carver and Warschauer explain that we must resolve the Digital Divide by addressing at least the following five issues: Access; Content; Literacy; Pedogogy or (training and education) ; and Community. They say that poor and rich alike given access and technology resources still will not utilize the internet or other digital technologies until the Human resource is a component. Humans provide training, education, social interaction and reason to connect on line.

Digital hardware and software companies along with corporate industry will provide the technology and access resources, users will provide the content resources, but who will provide the human resource; the training, the education, the social community? The answer is all of us -we are all responsible for closing the Digital Divide so that no one is excluded.

A Reflective Look at Haraway's Cyborg Manifesto

Donna Haraway's Cyborg Manifesto looks at a myriad of issues dealing with politics, religion, western male dominance, inclusiveness, exclusiveness, gender identity and technology in a post-modern world. To analyze her entire piece would make a good thesis topic which is outside the realm of this blog post, so I will pick some points that made sense to me and things that I question.

I realize that in writing her manifesto that Haraway is basing her piece on personal biases from her experiences living in the 1970's and 1980's as a scientist and philosopher. She recaps the ideology of radical feminism and reflects on the military techno culture of a Star Wars mentality in America and Europe. In her reflections she describes a mythical cyborg identity which is genderless, without religion, ego or alliances other that its own survival. It is not innocent and has the unique perspectives of both human and machine consciousness. Although the cyborg is a fictional character, in reality AI robots were in existence at the time of her writing and she predicts a continual merging of organic and non organic matter in a blended animal in the future, which could be affirmed with recent cloning technologies and smart id implants in animals.

Another issue she raises is inequality in pay. From my own personal experiences as an IT professional, in western society the opportunities for high paying jobs and/or advancements have traditionally been reserved for white males in the technology field over women. Haraway goes further to say that western white male dominance has reigned over people of color, nature and animals as well. I think that was more of a truism in the past than it is now, but it does still exist. This is evident in our current presidential election where an African American and a woman are in an unique position to hold one of the highest governing offices in the land and how monumental this will be. This monumental achievement only means that there is not equality yet in America.

Haraway raises some interesting points about what defines the female essence. She defines a Goddess feminism movement which tried to return woman's identity to a "back to nature aura", rejecting technology and post-modernism which she found troublesome. In this regard she says she would rather be a cyborg than a goddess and I would have to agree with her.

Where we differ and what I question is her assertion that the western male white dominance ideology in America is still the driving force keeping women and people of color excluded in politics and technological fields. There has been diversity awareness education in schools in the last twenty years that has helped to rid westerners of stereotypes but more work is needed. My son and his generation X have grown up in an America which has a better, (although not perfect), understanding of gender, race, and socioeconomic conditions than my former boomer generation did not have. Although the understanding of inequality would not have been realized without writings such as Haraway's Manifesto in the first place. I do see the dominance issue played out in war and violence scenarios in video gaming but argue that almost as many younger women play these games as young men.

She also touches on religion as being a male dominant hierarchy and I understand why she says this having grown up in the Catholic church. I think that religion has become less hegemonic; however, I don't know if the Catholic church has women priests yet - certainly Protestant churches have women and minority pastors.

Her hypothetical cyborg is becoming more real than unreal in the 21st century. There are bionic soldiers which have been retrofitted with mechanical limbs and inorganic parts as a result of war injuries, and as I aforementioned, cloning is an example of replicating nature by human crafted intervention. Not only does Haraway raise philosophical arguments but raises ethical ones as well. I end this blog with one of the proclamations she gives which I have not formed an opinion on yet. Does a world without gender, a world of cyborgs, equate to a world without war or a world without end? I don't know. What do you think?

-Jennifer Wheeler

The Guillermo Gomez-Pena Piece -A Critical Response

This article talks about how the Chicano populations are "cyberimmigrants" on the internet and supports the argument made by both Nakamura and Kolko that there is a racial and cultural digital divide when it comes to the internet and its access. Guillermo Gomez-Pena; however, points out that the divide may not totally be due to a lack of access to high technology rather than it holds no apparent appeal. Culturally, he says that Mexicans enjoy social and physical interaction with people. The cyber culture does not afford any physical contact and therefore is viewed as being a dehumanized environment. He also points out that growing up Mexico, it was far more important owning postmodern technology rather than using it. He mused how televisions doubled up as the family religious alter and how his Grandmother commented on how well her new electric ionizador worked; although she had never plugged in.

I have to agree with Guillermo, that Latin Americans, historically and from my own personal experience of having Hispanic friends and neighbors, that as a race they are renowned as having a great sence of humor, a love for politics and social interaction, and see themselves as culturally and spiritually superior. The internet chat rooms would seem to be an informidable and unlikely place to meet and really befriend someone. The internet lacks the tactile interaction that social extroverts thrive on. He agrees with Nakamura that the internet for people of his culture is used as a tourist gallery, not unlike watching television. The title of the article sarcastically says that the Chicano Internet is the search for intelligent life in cyberspace.

As an artist Guillermo is working hard to introduce the world to the Mexican culture using high technology. Even his high tech performances always involve some form of physical contact with his audience. This both attracts the Chicano audiences and shows the world how his culture can incorporate technology in art. He pokes fun of the way the world perceives his Aztec ancestry by mixing politics with art and humor with tragedy. Some of his works are disturbing to watch such as this following piece from the Museum of Fetishishized Identities:



I found the article very thought provoking and his perspective of how "web backs" identify or do not identify with the predominately white cyberworld enlightening.

A critical response to the reading on Cybernetic Tourism...

In America we celebrate global multicultural perspectives that have shaped our country’s values and beliefs. But what if there were no diverse perspectives, based on gender, age, race, or unique personal experiences? Would that be a utopian society? Lisa Nakamura writes that companies such as MCI, IBM, Compaq and other high-tech corporations that portray the internet as an Utopian democracy “founded upon disembodiment and uncontaminated by physical differences", would like you to think so.

"Where Do You Want to Go Today?"

One of the questions that comes to mind in reading her work is that if technology really levels the playing field by eradicating all cultural diversity, (because technology is homogeneous and devoid of cultural bias),is that this is an utopia world I personally would not want to live in. Nakamura claims that the ANTHEM ad MCI produced only camouflages its depiction of race using visual cues and does not address the diversity issues of multi-cultural perspectives. Race and cultural diversity is something that technology considers insignificant and unimportant which is at best misleading and at worse unethical.

In a virtual world, what you see is not necessarily true or factual. The visual ads depict pristine exotic environments and peoples that are brought together through technology. What you can’t experience through this virtual world though is reality. To market networking and personal computing, Nakamura says technology companies must convince its users that the world is without limits and you can safety surf it using the internet. The problem with this reality is that it is only a facimile of the real world designed by ad agencies and doesn’t really exist.

In a virtual world you can mask the culture and create new identitities.As the internet evolves, a new digital culture will be created. The new culture, though, is limited to those that can access it. People in third world countries, or who live in rural areas may never have access to the technology to visit or be part of the virtual world. Nakaramura points out the transnational tourists on the internet are those of us who have the technology and access to it to visit the virtual world and design it anyway we'd like. This does not make it "real" in the sense that you can touch and experience it like the experience of walking outside in your own backyard and touching, smelling and picking an apple, lets say, and eating it from your garden... well at least not yet.

-Jennifer Wheeler