Citizenship.1
– Nov. 4, 2002
Overview of 3rd Phase of the Course:
Analyzing the effects on the average citizen of
the extensive use of networked computers in today's "Information
Age, " and, where applicable, to look at these issues within
our democratic nation-state of Canada
1. need to consider issues in an historical perspective:
--> look at evolution of rights and responsibilities
of a citizen in a nation-state (lecture Nov. 4)
2. look at devolution of powers of nation-state
in light of other power sources:
--> conflict between idea of "global
village" (Cyberspace Manifesto) and continuance of nation-states
and citizens' rights
--> positive and negative aspects of globalization
(lectures Nov. 6 and 13)
3. Case study of Singapore as a country defining
itself as an “Information Age’ nation (Nov.
11)
4. Using Feather’s article as the beginning
point, we will look at Canadian citizens’ needs to be
involved in questions of:
--> What information should we have access
to freely, what information should we pay for? – copyright
issues (Nov. 18 lecture)
--> What information should be protected? Who
owns information?
privacy issues (Nov. 20 lecture)
--> What information should we not have access
to? Censorship issues (Nov. 25 lecture)
--> as citizens what govt. information do we
need access to? Access issues (Nov. 27 lecture)
If restrictions to the free flow of ALL
information is required, than what technological, legal, political
and social actions will suffice? (what involvement of governments)?
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Today’s lecture:
1. What did it mean to be a citizen
in a “Pre-Information-Age” democratic nation-state?
2. Divisions of the world “pre-Information
Age”...Contrast to “globalizatio
***************
1. What did it mean to be a citizen in a “Pre-Information-Age”
democratic nation-state?
1.1. What is a “Nation-State”?
“peoples living in a geographically determined
area and forming a society under one government”
N.B.: “...only in a few rare cases [e.g.,
Sweden, Japan] do the political boundaries of the state
correspond to the reality of a nation comprising
a single people sharing characteristics of language, culture
and common origins. Nor are boundaries all-encompassing...”
(Chodos, Murphy & Hamovitch, 1993, p.43)
1.2. In a democratic nation-state,
what are the rights of the citizens?:
Mosco summarizes Marshall's (1964) 3 steps in
the evolution of citizenship:
--> first, the legal sense of basic rights
and protections (habeas corpus, due process, etc.)
--> then citizenship extended to encompass
political rights (right to vote and public assembly)
--> then "social democracy stretches the
notion to include the right to employment, housing, health care,
and other social welfare benefits."
1.3. democracy
(according to Mosco) :
-->“requires the fullest possible public participation
in the decisions that affect our lives.”
--> no just casting a vote in elections:
-->people must be able to participate in decision-making--in
ALL aspects of a nation-state - and in order to participate
people need PUBLIC, easily-accessible information
and so the concern that the Internet is becoming
a private “highway” rather than a public information
conduit
"It is especially important to invoke citizenship
today because much of what we see in the media, [including on
the Internet] . . . addresses people as consumers or as audiences.
Citizenship elevates human activity beyond the. . .view that
the best way. . . to define human activity is by its marketplace
value, its worth as a consuming or laboring commodity."
(Mosco, 1997: on-line)]
--> so in 2000, citizens need guarantees of
the “right to information” (see
Gutstein, E.con: How the Internet Undermines Democracy,
1999)
2. Divisions of the world: pre-Information
Age”
Things were relatively stable after W.W.II when
the world’s nation-states were divided into 3 “worlds”
depending on their economies:
1st world: Western democratic - market economies
2nd world: Communist world - planned economies
3rd world: non-aligned countries - evolved into
meaning “economically underdeveloped and deprived countries”
(also known now as LDC’s - Less Developed Countries)
--> Then in 1989, communism fell in Soviet
Union, and by then some 3rd world countries (especially in Southeast
Asia) were developing economically very quickly.
This dissolution of “worlds + development
of information technologies + rise of ideology of neo-conservatism
(discussed in next lecture), means we move into globalization
2.1. Instead of “worlds” the
thrust is “globalization”:
“the process of globalization consists of
erasing of national borders in the production and distribution
of goods.” (Chodos, Murphy and Hamovitch, p. 17)
-->question becomes what happens to our “rights”
as citizens of a nation-state when the national border is erased?
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