[Air-l] Re: Inventor of the term "Digital Divide"?

[Janna Anderson]

If you search the Elon University/Pew Internet predictions database, you can
find dozens of statements about the digital divide that were made in the
early 1990s. You might find useful information there, although since it is
only a sampling of 4,000 randomly found statements about the internet's
future you may not be able to track down the specific person to credit with
coining "digital divide."

Go to the site and type digital divide (with no enclosing quote marks) into
the Keyword Search box:

http://www.elon.edu/predictions/advanced.aspx

Some of the early-1990s disenfranchisement mentions recorded in this
sampling of public statements about the internet in the 1990s include:

In a 1992 article for The Boston Globe, Charles Radin quotes Michael
Dertouzos. Radin writes: "Professor Michael L. Dertouzos, director of MIT's
laboratory for computer science, says 'the gap between rich and poor is
increasing as a result of these technologies' - widening differences between
rich and poor nations and between rich and poor people within individual
nations. 'Left to its own devices, it will increase much more.'"

In a 1991 article for Technology Review, MIT researcher/administrator
Michael Dertouzos writes: "High-speed communications may someday become
affordable to everyone. But until then, the information infrastructure must
offer a wide range of transmission capacities, or bandwidths, to meet widely
varying requirements. Users should pay only for the bandwidth they need."

In his 1991 book "The Virtual Community," Howard Rheingold writes: "In the
future, that's where the Net culture in the rest of society will come from
worldwide - those who connected with it in college. Will the future see an
increasing gap between the information-rich and the information-poor? Access
to the Net and access to college are going to be the gateways, everywhere,
to a world of communications and information access far beyond what is
accessible by traditional media."

In a 1993 article for The Seattle Times, Paul Andrews interviews Howard
Rheingold. Andrews writes: "Rheingold and other watchdogs, including the
Electronic Frontier Foundation formed by Lotus 1-2-3 founder Mitchell Kapor
and Grateful Dead lyricist John Barlow, have raised three red flags over the
future of digital communications. [The third is:] Cost. A fee structure
prohibitive to large sectors of society could create an information
oligarchy, further delineating class divisions and disenfranchising the
computer uninitiated."

In his 1994 book "City of Bits," MIT computer scientist William J. Mitchell
writes: "The bandwidth-disadvantaged are the new have-nots. It's simple; if
you cannot get bits on and off in sufficient quantity, you cannot directly
benefit from the Net."

In his 1994 book "City of Bits," MIT computer scientist William J. Mitchell
writes: "Will the fast lanes of the information superhighway - the switched,
broadband, digital networks that will be required for the most advanced
services - be deployed with the same lofty goal? Or will they serve only the
affluent and powerful, while rural communities languish at the ends of
information dirt tracks and economically marginalized neighborhoods get
redlined for telecommunications investment? ... No network connection at
all-zero bandwidth makes you a digital hermit, an outcast from cyberspace.
The Net creates new opportunities, but exclusion from it becomes a new form
of marginalization."

In a 1994 article he wrote for Wired magazine, Lewis J. Perelman addresses
the future of education in an age of digital networks in the form of an open
letter to the nation's information industry executives. He writes: "While
the HL [hyper learning] revolution is inevitable and the HL industry is
already developing today, its advance will be hampered and distorted by the
massive waste of resources tied up in the academic empire. In particular,
the well-off will continue to afford access to HL tools at work and at home
no matter what public policies we pursue. A business-as-usual policy will
only continue to isolate the poor, minorities, and disadvantaged from the HL
revolution, further aggravating the economic polarization of our society."

In a 1994 article for Computer-Mediated Communication magazine, John
Monberg, a graduate student at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, writes:
"Computer/communication technologies can indeed create new connections
between researchers, instruments and audiences. But access to these networks
is far from equally distributed. As these technologies reinforce the
strength of connections between members of wired communities, the gap
between these communities and the social community as a whole widens. These
technologies can act to create distance as well as to destroy it."

In a speech he delivered at the summer training program for New York State
Deans of Education at Bank Street College in 1994, Ed Lyell says: "Today's
wealthy child already has access to multimedia computers at home, the
Internet and all databases, and a private tutor to guide and direct the
learners. Corporations can provide such resources to their employees, and do
so at an increasing rate. However, the middle class and the impoverished
classes have little or no access to this emerging learning system. Moreover,
the power structure's avoidance of real restructuring using technology will
further impoverish the un-powerful and is increasing the gap between the
haves and have-nots."

In his 1995 book "Being Digital," Nicholas Negroponte writes: "As we move
more toward such a digital world, an entire sector of the population will be
or feel disenfranchised."

There are many more there to sort through...

Janna Anderson


On 3/27/05 5:40 AM, "baterfly at email.com" <baterfly at email.com> wrote:

> It might have been Lloyd Morrisett, the former president of the Markle
> Foundation, according to:
> http://elab.vanderbilt.edu/research/papers/html/manuscripts/race/science.html
> 
> or James Wolfensohn, president of the Word Bank (ironic, rather), in a
> communication at UNCTAD X, according to:
> http://www.g7.utoronto.ca/scholar/johnson2000/index.html

-- 
Janna Quitney Anderson
Assistant Professor of Communications
Director of Internet Projects
School of Communications
Elon University
andersj at elon.edu
(336) 278-5733 (o)
(336) 446-0486 (h)