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Testing our Assumptions: Equity of Access
January 20, 2003
Overview of lecture:
1. "What ethics isn’t”
2. Question from Rifkin’s “The connected and the disconnected”
regarding equity of Access: Access to what?
3. . Question from Rifkin’s “The connected and the
disconnected”
regarding equity of Access: Access for whom?
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1. Follow-up to Jan. 15 lecture: What is ethics? Important to
see what it’s not:
Differences between descriptive and normative
claims:
descriptive claims: how people actually
behave.
(social scientists empirically observe humans’
actions and report on their findings...
e.g., do a survey:
X% of university students download music...)
But findings don’t necessarily mean it’s
“right”....
prescriptive claims: how people ought
to behave
subject matter of this section of the course:
--> for us to debate how people should behave when they use
computers
(see handout: article from March 6, 2001 Globe
and Mail called “Pilfering Music”)
2. Access to what? (see Rifkin article
in kit)
Is it ethical that our Internet access routes
and Internet content are not only becoming more and more privately
controlled, but also in the hands of a few large corporations?
[Is the range of what we can “view”
limited?
Is this resulting in one homogenized culture?]
- examples of “cultural capitalism”:
corporations extending their cultural industries to all media.
(see Paramount and Viacom described on page 112)
AND deregulation: aided by governments’
actions; e.g., in U.S. 1996 Telecommunications Act + 1997 WTO
Global Telecommunications Agreement - accord to end nation-state
telecommunication monopolies and open up to foreign investment.(but
see Rifkin’s comments about Canada)
Effect of deregulation of telecommunications industries
on developing countries? (see Rifkin page. 114) --> “colonial
appendages”
Last step: deregulate the airwaves: sell the publicly
regulated space to private interests…..(see page 114 ff)
3. Access for Whom?
(“the digital divide debate”)
“Outside the electronic gates” (Rifkin’s phrase)
Is it ethical that only a small proportion of
the world’s population enjoy the Age of Access?
(see Rifkin, kit p. 116 ff)
Disparity between rich and poor widening on many
economic indicators, so why should we worry about lack of access
to computers and the Internet for people based on their economic
status (class), disabilities, gender or race?
These are people who have been are disenfranchised,
dispossessed and now they face being “disconnected in the
Age of Access.” (Rifkin, kit p. 118)
So WHAT?
Time magazine: access to “electronically mediated
worlds will be essential to one’s ability to function in
a democratic society.”
Rifkin’s premise (kit p. 119): “much
of the life of human civilization is going…..question of
access then becomes one of the most important considerations
of the coming age.” Do you agree?
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