Ted conference oxford
Phil | Jul 24, 2009 | Comments 0
I came across Gordon Brown’s TEd talk yesterday so I thought I’d take a look. For those who read my blog on ‘global’ it makes interesting watching. I applaud the sentiment but wonder if the ‘global institutions’ idea is just rehashing an old idea on a bigger scale rather than real transformative potential of technology promused by the title of the talk. Can the transformative potential of technology be summed up by stating that it facilitates better communication between people. I think there is more…what about its power to transform the way we think and act?
I also wonder if the idea that a ‘global society’ (whatever that is…see my previous blog on the subject) is really made possible by the web. Participation in a society requires access to it. In a similar way, your level of access can afford and constrain both the nature and content of your participation. BUT web acess requires finance…for equipment, for a service provider, for hosting, etc, etc. So what about those without the finance to get access to all this ‘free’ content? If your level of financial support constrains your ability to access this ‘society’ then could someone tell me what has been transformed please?
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Phil,
Good questions…I’ve used the term “global conversation” for sometime now with regard to our discussions on music as the Internet has certainly allowed all of us/me to to share and talk with the largest base (and diverse) of people since the beg. of time.
The digital divide however, is a large as ever it seems… There was a very interesting and topic related study that was released by the PEW center this month showing that policital activity and participation is almost exactly the same for those that are active online as those that are active offline. It is easy to see, in this study, that the poor are not more active in govt./politics than they were before the emergence of the “technology revolution” -most likely due to monetary concerns.
Here is the study:
http://arstechnica.com/web/news/2009/09/pew-internet-has-not-changed-activism-yet.ars
The study brings some other interesting questions, answers, and more questions to light…
Hi Joseph
Thanks for pointing out this study for us. It certainly is an interesting study. I was intrigued about whether they reported on wider forms of engagement that involve technology. For example, be an active member in an online forum seeking to influence policy/government, collaborate online to solve a problem, twitter about . So I was please when I looked up teh report. Of particular interest is the following section:
“There are hints that forms of civic engagement anchored in blogs and social networking sites could alter long-standing patterns that are based on socioeconomic status.
In our August 2008 survey we found that 33% of internet users had a profile on a social networking site and that 31% of these social network members had engaged in activities with a civic or political focus—for example, joining a political group, or signing up as a “friend” of a candidate—on a social networking site. That works out to 10% of all internet users who have used a social networking site for some sort of political or civic engagement. In addition, 15% of internet users have gone online to add to the political discussion by posting comments on a website or blog about a political or social issue, posting pictures or video content online related to a political or social issue, or using their blog to explore political or social issues.” (see http://static.arstechnica.com/InternetandCivicEngagement.pdf)
Maybe there is still hope? This said, I still feel uncomfortable with current usage of ‘global’. It is a hyperbole that may encourage those who are online to loose sight of those who do not have access.