The power of being plugged in

The readings for this week, particularly Amir Hatem Ali's "The Power of Social Media in Developing Nations...." (Harvard Human Rights Journal); Zizi Papacharissi's "The Virtual Sphere..." (New Media & Society); and Everett M. Rodgers' "The Digital Divide" (Convergence), raised an interesting debate both internally in my own brain, and externally as the husband (who will now be referred to as Larry throughout this blog) and I discussed points that I would blurt out while reading. What struck me was that the two of us were discussing the idea that having access to technology (the Internet, computers, etc) and its associated infrastructure could lift up a underdeveloped society.

I interpreted two arguments from some of these readings: infrastructure is almost critical to the success and prosperity of underdeveloped nations, and the contrary, introduced in Ali's work to offer the other side of the coin from famous technology experts Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. The academics say, essentially, "the power of information will save the world," while the technologists -- the ones who could conceivably make money off this idea if they were to don their capitalist hats for this venture --  say, "No, this is not what these people need at the moment."

What I find interesting from all this is the fact that on both sides of the argument sit fairly privileged people determining what is best, or what should be a first step, for these other societies.

Maria Sourbati's "Media Literacy and Universal Access in Europe" (Information Society) comes closest to my belief that we can't just plug everyone in and say "go." From most of these other articles, the overarching idea was that a lower socioeconomic status was connected to lower digital media skills and could lead, within certain societies, a disenfranchisement of those lower socioeconomic classes. This is somewhat of a "given" for me, and is not the same issue. Of course within an already plugged-in society we will have the plugged-in and the not-plugged-in. And of course we can't just drop off some technology and expect the solution to be solved; Alexander van Deursen and Jan van Dijk's "Internet skills and the digital divide" (New Media & Society) skills tests taught us that. In these cases, it is obvious to me that trying to level the playing field within that society by providing infrastructure and education is a completely different issue than deciding whether or not to plug in an completely unplugged society because of reason X.

To quote from Zizi Papacharissi's "The Virtual Sphere..." (New Media & Society):

"Those who would benefit the most from the democratizing 

potential of new technology do not have access to it." 

The problem I have here is the assumption of benefit. Of course, from my perspective, political situations and living conditions are not acceptable in many areas of the world. But it is not up to me to decide what is best for anyone else, rather, it is for the residents themselves. Yes, this is a naive view; of course there are myriad situations that prevent people from deciding things or making changes for themselves, but let us not storm in waving our flags of "information for all." Stating that a certain nation/society needs more access to technology and information so they can stop "X or Y" is the wrong pretense; let those who have access simply help the dissemination of infrastructure and training and let that society determine how they use it.

Sourbati's comes closest to saying this in her conclusion: "Provision of assistance by 'proxy' users, who can mediate access to media services for those  individuals or groups who cannot cultivate media literacy capacities under their current life circumstances, is likely to be an important dimension of such an approach."