Elon University

Topic: Community/Culture

The Internet and the Poor

In the information age, access is a more complex proposition that requires support for users as well as information content … There is good evidence that policy directives through the Information Infrastructure Task Force have resulted in broad investments across a range of domestic-assistance programs. Such policy directives should be formalized into Congressional findings in legislative proposals for telecommunications reform. These findings should accent the roles of public libraries and local non-profit organizations in supporting universal service goals.

The Internet and the Poor

For job-seekers, weak ties facilitated over electronic mail can increase the potential for strong ties that can result in new working relationships. Internet-based mailing lists have significant potential for transforming weak ties of acquaintance into strong ties … Universal service policy can effectively reduce costs associated with meeting new people and maintaining relationships that can lead over time to new employment and education opportunities. Internet-based electronic mail introduces a new process efficiency in creating and maintaining novel relationships. Weak ties can be efficiently and cost-effectively maintained … This helps retain options for more serious communications leading to new strong ties in other social and work domains … Policy that encourages such broad individual user of the NII could have a social and economic leveling effect.

The Internet and the Poor

It is likely that opportunities in the new economy will increasingly flow to those with access to the National Information Infrastructure – especially those who can strategically apply its resources, as in using electronic mail to enter labor markets. Access to networking could also encourage civic involvement. For example, a recent consumer survey suggested that voting in elections was a highly desired user of networked information services.

The WELL: A Regionally Based On-Line Community on the Internet

If limitations needed to be imposed and enforced, they could best be handled from within the user population on a “local” forum-by-forum basis, rather than on a system-wide one. The creation of private forums, where local rules can hold sway, has allowed public forums to retain their openness while providing more regulated “retreat” for those who felt they needed them.

The WELL: A Regionally Based On-Line Community on the Internet

The most effective platforms … are regionally-based, Internet-connected electronic communities, where the motto ‘think globally, act locally,” can best be put into practice. These systems may be self-contained in that they pay for their own operations and Internet connections, handle all administrative tasks for their users, and develop their own local community standards of behavior and interaction.

Balancing the Commercial and Public-Interest Visions of the NII

Internet is not used primarily for point to point communication; the sharing of information is a key value … There is a form of knowledge externality in knowledge sharing. There is a selflessness in the way people in the “Internet Culture” voluntarily collect and share information.

Balancing the Commercial and Public-Interest Visions of the NII

Internet is egalitarian for those who are on it; it is elitist for those who cannot use it or do not have access to it. Who will guide the broadening of access to Internet, while preserving its special character? Who is going to protect the public values in the information infrastructure? Who will protect the culture built in the Internet by the users who created it? How should the federal agencies advance the NII, and what provisions of policy should be incorporated?