Re: <nettime> e-LITISM (UK and beyond)

[ronda@umcc.ais.org (Ronda Hauben)]

Susanna Paasonen <suspaa@utu.fi> wrote:

I have wanted to make some input into this discussion but have
been busy lately and not able to reply.

>I'm jumping on this discussion a little late, but reading it I felt
>increasingly uncomfortable - not just beacuse of the tacky term
>"e-litism", but rather because of some rather simplified views of "us" and
>"privilidge". 

I wanted to put suggest that the discussion of "e-litism" be framed
a bit of a different way.

>There is no simple answer as to how using the net makes you priviledged: 

I have been studying writing about the history of the Internet,
and of Usenet and what strikes one as important in this history
is that there has been a commitment among those who have found
the Internet and Usenet valuable as communications media to 
spread them as broadly and widely as possible.

With a communications medium the more people who are accessible,
the more valuable that medium is to all who are using it.

The Internet was created as a means of sharing resources across
diverse networks. Thus the more resources the more to share.

In the context of this, when I got online in 1992 there was a 
challenge which had to do with spreading a cheap or inexpensive
connection to the Internet via Free-Nets to home users and 
spreading it to educational institutions and libraies.

During the NTIA online conference in Nov. 1994 this issue
was debate, and the question raised of what should be the
goal of public policy, high end usage of video and audio
which took more bandwidth for a few, or widespread access
to email and text based Internet access for all, and then
to move to more high bandwidth uses after all who wanted
to be connected could be connected at a low cost.

The Canadian Freenet movement estimated that it would cost
$12 a year to connect every Canadian to a Freenet.

Thus the goal of access for all has been a goal for quite
a while of many Internet users.

However, the ability to influence and get government policy
that would support this goal has been a problem not yet
solved in the US and I don't know if it is solved in other
countries but would be interested to hear of their progress.

Hence, for many, including especially those who committed
themselve to do what they could to spread the access to
the Internet as a medium of communication to as many people
as possible, this has been the goal of the concept developed
of netizenship.

The e-commerce hurricane, at least in the U.S. is actually 
a political attack on netizenship and the hacker ethic of 
spreading the Internet as broadly and widely as possible.

The reason I say that the e-commerce hurricane in the US is
a political attack and is about politics not economics,
is that the US corporations and elements of the US government
insisting on making the world safe for "e-commerce" are
systemmatically trying to end the public nature of the 
Internet as a means of resource sharing across diverse
networks and replace it with one monolithic, centrally 
controlled network that US industry can dominate.

That is very different from the view of the Netizens and
of the pioneers whose vision led to the development of
the Internet.

The question is do those who recognize the importance of 
global communication do what they can to spread what
I call the "netizen vision" of the Internet rather than
blindly assuming the e-commerce program is the only game
in town?

And if they do so, how do they do this?

That seems important to be discussing, *not* how those online 
are part of an "e-lite". 

If those online can help to spread the Internet as a communications
medium to others around the world, then that is a continuation
of the process that helped us to get online in the first place.

For a while we had a mailing list where we were trying to understand
how to do this. The Freenets were part of this effort and spreading
knowledge about the Freenets helped.

It wasn't compuserve that grew and spread, with its proprietary
software and its online shopping. It was the Internet with its
open protocols and interfaces and its resource sharing activity.

I recognize that those who control the offline media are able 
to spread their hype about the glories of "e-commerce", but
the reality of the experience of many many people online is
that the global communication made possible by the Internet 
is what we want to spread far and wide.

How we do this is a challenge we haven't yet solved. But at
least we recognize that this is the goal, and that those
intent on the hype of "e-commerce" have forsaken this goal
and are chasing a phantom that can't compet in any fair
competition.

>Stefan Wray posed the question "If its true that over half of adults in
>the U.S. have Internet access, then are those people in an elite group?"

It isn't true that over half the adults in the US have Internet access,
not by a long shot.

The goal of the US govt isn't to spread Internet access but to 
spread e-commerce.

But the goal of netizens is to spread Internet access and knowledge
about why the Internet is so important to our lives and times 
and why it is important that all be able to have very cheap or 
(or free) access so that access will be a right *not* a privilege.

This is the vision that has made it possible for the Internet to
develop thus far, and this is the vision that will make it possible
for it to reach all those who we need to have access so we
can communicate ever more broadly and widely via the Internet.

Cheers

Ronda
ronda@ais.org

http://www.ais.org/~ronda/new.papers/

http://www.columbia.edu/~hauben/netbook

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