Access To Informational And Educational Resources example essay topic

Technical transformations in the processing and communication of information have not only been viewed as the means for economic regeneration (for example eradicating poverty with cheap food and green consumables) but also as "vehicles of a new and more democratic social and political relationship". This article discusses the technologies and their transformations, how these affect democracy, and the relationship between information and power. Before one can say whether the existence of these transformations and technologies will create a better democracy, their capabilities need to be examined, which essentially dictate the democratic possibilities. The technologies that he discusses are the personal computer, and the transformation in the telecommunications (e.g. fax machines, cable TV and especially the Internet.) The PC has moved from a 'heavy information industry' to a 'consumer item'. People everywhere have access to a PC if not ownership, it's reasonable in cost and doesn't require too much training. Its user-friendly graphical user interface makes gaining the skills required to use it attainable to the majority.

You need neither extraordinary finances nor a college education. The revolution in telecommunications has paved the way for the transmission of new kinds of information in quantities and at a speed that was previously unthinkable. While the possibilities surrounding this revolution seem endless, access to the Internet and personal computing resources essentially breaks down into two basic types of communication. Firstly it provides access to informational and educational resources, and secondly it allows for interaction among individuals.

There's no doubt that the there has never been such abundance of information and educational resources prior to this; we are now spoiled at the wealth of archives that are literally at our fingertips. Message boards, e-mail, and instant messenger etc. are all interactivity forms that serve as a basis for "virtual communities" (based on the exchange of messages over a computer network). It's incredible that a conversation, which was once was the most intimate of all communication, can now be carried out on an international and anonymous scale. However Hirschkop does point out that this isn't in itself a new development, for once we started writing there were plenty of communities not reliant on physical proximity but there's no debating the fact that something 'oral in time scale, written in form, and electronic in range' isn't truly incredible. ONLINE DEMOCRACY? These definitely open up possibilities for political parties.

The now legendary example of such possibilities is when the revolutionary Zapatista leader Marcos sent out his communique " es over the Internet in March of 1995. So they are efficient organising tools that make international communications rapid and cheap compared to old systems, but he makes the point that it's politically neutral in this case, because it provides the same aid to authority as it does to those trying to resist that authority. However the true political claims for these new technologies lie in the fact that they give access to a huge amount of information and also to an international form of communication, that's not politically neutral but inherently democratic. Because the key to democracy (which is utilised here) is the 'informed discussion of a more / less unhindered kind'; therefore a technology that allows for this can only work to the advantage of the forces of democracy. What really excites the technophiles is not what the Internet can do for a responsible citizen, but the possibilities it offers to those with a more anarchistic personality. Hirschkop identifies the two main aspects: Firstly, the technology for Internet was initially designed as a military control and command system, which could withstand a nuclear attack.

"Packet switching" was the method that scientist discovered as a way of communicating independent of a central communication facility so there's no central point where the network can be controlled from, and they view this as a certain freedom being wired into the network itself. Secondly, the apparent insecurity of all software-independent systems, no matter how big or secure the institution, hackers are still breaking in. Nonetheless, the political economists on the left have been more realistic and less excited about it all. They remind the naive cyber anarchist wannabes that these technologies have come from the very centre of the U.S. military and industrial complex.

It wasn't designed as a public service, but a state one. Even the generosity of the research network itself (they " re always giving away free software) it's still "unabashedly devoted to the restructuring of capitalist industry and the maintenance of military control and security". Hirschkop illustrates that the real weak point in the political argument for the new technologies is that they believe that more access to information will give a better-informed citizenry, and a better-informed citizenry could alongside the communicative possibilities of the Internet wield power through more frequent and types of communications (e.g. electronic communication with constituents etc.) The problem with liberal democracies is not a lack of information, nor are the voting procedures too difficult at present. Chomsky has shown that it's possible to see through the ideology of the state - the information is there - it just requires some searching. Naturally, there are some cases where information needs to be made more accessible, (generally when scientific questions are mingled with political), but this still doesn't change the fact that inequality of information is not the reason for the inequality of political power. Those who are in power do not know more than us.

He's basically saying that the left deluded themselves about the democratic possibilities; it was due to a fundamental misreading of the nature of liberal-capitalist states and of political power in the late twentieth century. Sure, there are informational elites, but these are not the same as political and economic ones because we " re not living in Plato's Republic. The technophiles naively think that once the information is there and available that the political power will be spread amongst the many or even fall, but this isn't realistic! Information is for the most part already available, and if the power is still centralised well that's because the information itself simply isn't enough. Lack of knowledge is not the cause of our undemocratic life. So ultimately, although they may well be useful for politics, both the structure and the form of the network are determined by the needs of the state and the capitalist corporations.

Money has to come from somewhere and so big companies and federal governments will invest in these technologies, but obviously there not going to be concerned with the extension of democracy but rather just interested in the profit! Even as a consumer item, regardless of its influence on the state, it has its limitations. Rather than extending the community these technologies may instead "install a form of communicative apartheid". How? Well when new resources come into the picture the present ones will either become run down (e.g. like public libraries) or become privatised (like the replacement of traditional broadcast by cable television.) When wages are declining and there's an increase in the fee for access to these things people are not going to be willing to pay for it no matter how small it is. It's obvious that there are clear limitations regarding the availability of new informational and communicative resources and as long as the military and corporate world remain behind them it's going to get worse before it gets better.

What I find to be the main point of this reading was that the new technologies are not the driving forces of our society; it's profit. It's neither the scientists nor the hackers who are on the board of directors at IBM. The capabilities of these technologies and what they can accomplish are determined by where the money is and where it wants to go, not by what's best for political democracy. "Information technology is currently capitalism's favourites son, but it should not forget that its status is the gift of its parent.

"One cannot buy democracy off a shelf, or download it form a Website. It demands courage, fortitude and political organization, and as far as we can see, Microsoft has yet to design software that can deliver that".