[ 20.02.09 - 20:51 ] [ comment by Robert Adlam ] I have one first response. Dreyfus's 'On the internet' (which isn't mentioned in this text) devotes a chapter to the emergence of 'noise' on the 'net. He shows how much of it (most of it?) is like Dylan's 'Highway 61' - a huge space for distraction and meaninglessness. So, unless there is an already established critical consciousness the 'net is only likely to consolidate the established (global) power structures and seduce people with the objects of desire.

[ 21.04.08 - 09:05 ] [ comment by Christian Eigner / Michaela Ritter ] Internet in Sri Lanka

Amal Rajapakse and Amara Dissanayake
30. 12. 1998

- In the last three years, a number of Internet Service Providers were established in Sri Lanka. Nevertheless, only in the capital and its suburbs some access to the Net is possible.

- Moreover, computer hardware costs are unbearably high and using the Net often means blocking a whole telephone line normally used by many people.

- As a study showed, only a small, well educated elite knows how to use the Internet. Even at the University most academics have no idea what possibilities the WWW or e-mail offer. read on

[ 15.04.08 - 09:41 ] [ comment by Christian Eigner / Michaela Ritter ] Power to The People: The Role of Electronic Media in Promoting Democracy in Africa

Dana Ott
30. 12. 1998

- Political decisions are always made by small ingroups practising a face-to-face communication. This fact won't be changed by the Internet.

- But the Net can affect the process preceding decision making by establishing a new channel transporting the citizens' wants to the elite. In other words, it allows to put pressure on the political establishment.

- For functioning like this the Net needs a broad platform of users which it doesn't have in Africa for reasons of an impressive rate of illateracy and extreme high telephone costs. Therefore, it is possible that the Internet becomes a medium of the elite like television is.

- At the moment no relation between connectivity and democratization is measurable in Africa. Democratization is much more driven by newspapers and would eventually be stimulated by an independent radio broadcasting content delivered by the Internet. Read on

[ 10.04.08 - 11:11 ] [ comment by Christian Eigner / Michaela Ritter ] "Our own ignorance about the digital third world is part of the problem"

an Interview with Robin Hamman
30. 12. 1998

Editor of "Cybersociology" magazine, Robin Hamman, feels it's important to show the digital third world how the internet can be useful to them. Once people have been given the desire to get online, overcoming the inevitable financial difficulties in accessing the net, time and again there are examples of how small, or isolated communities have used cyberspace to take steps towards being heard, and noticed, worldwide, on issues relevant to them. read on

[ 07.04.08 - 10:46 ] [ comment by Christian Eigner / Michaela Ritter ] Internet rickshaw to Dhaka - and back?

Manfred Ewel
30. 12. 1998

- The Net users of the so called "Third World" are in many cases self-trained computer experts working with old hard- and software. They are proud of belonging to the technological avand-garde of their society.

- In spite of high telephone costs, e-mail is often the easiest and cheapest way to send letters. Besides, the World Wide Web offers the only platform people of Third World countries sometimes have to publish their ideas and opinions if they don't want their statements to be distorted by government or western media.

- Finally, the Internet gives the members of technological avand-garde the possibility to communicate with competent colleagues all around the world and to integrate themselves in communities of interest instead of only participating in the usual social life. read on

[ 02.04.08 - 10:40 ] [ comment by Christian Eigner / Michaela Ritter ] "We have links to over 2000 web sites that contain information important to Indigenous cultures"

an E-mail talk with Shane Caraveo
30. 12. 1998

- Since the alternative net-project "NativeWeb" started in 1994, it tries to educate the public about Indigenous cultures and wants to promote communications between Indigenous peoples and organizations all around the world.

- "NativeWeb" is administrated by a network of webmasters. They all work for free.

- The main goal for the near future is to become a non-profit organization which will provide internet access to community leaders and distribute donated computers read on

[ 31.03.08 - 11:30 ] [ comment by Christian Eigner / Michaela Ritter ] "If Indian cultures are incapable of incorporating new technologies, that might mean that they have become stagnant and are dying"

an e-mail conversation with Marc Becker
30. 12. 1998

- The Internet is no longer a great leveling agent in society which creates equal access for everybody. In the last three years it has become a typical medium of capitalistic economy.

- Nevertheless, the Internet is a workable tool for political organization and education: Projects like "NativeWeb" try to open netspace for native people like the Indians of Latin America who otherwise won't be heard.

- Therefore, it makes no sense to fear that the implementation of technology will destroy a native culture. Technology wasn't the end of western culture and it won't be the end of the Indigenous cultures, too. read on

[ 25.03.08 - 12:46 ] [ comment by Christian Eigner / Michaela Ritter ] "People do not spend all their time in Asia thinking about just food or water. People have desires, they engage with real and imaginary worlds"

an e-mail discussion with Ravi Sundaram
30. 12. 1998

While on one side the US and European techno-elites pose the web as a chimerical solution to inequality in the Third World, on the other hand their opponents use the existence of poverty and inequality in the periphery to deny any serious engagement with the technological practices there.

The web helps attacking loss-making institutions like universities, but it doesn´t really "westernize" the poor countries because communities tend to communicate first among themselves. And the web doesn´t deepen the gap between the rich and the poor, it has rather inserted itself in existing inequalities. Electronic cultures provide space for thousands left out of official, elite cultures. read on