Whose Information Society?

"We argue that the new communications and information technologies threaten to exacerbate, rather than alleviate, regional disparities." "Our own argument is that when (new) technology and technological innovation are demystified and reinstated within their real social contexts, then the prognosis for the information society is far more problematic." "Within this naive and simplistic association there is a lack of awareness of inequalities and disparities within 'the world's freest societies'. The realities of information access are far more complex than Maisonrouge allows for: inequalities with respect to information resources exist along class, gender, ethnic, regional and national lines."

"This argument that 'gaps' or inequalities are only temporary anomalies during the early stages of exploitation of any given technology draws upon the theory of technological evolution or modernization which, we argue, characterizes the work of technological futurists such as Wilson Dizard or Alvin Toffler. It draws on the same repertoire of progress, growth, productivity. Within this conception, technological growth is a generally benevolent force, creating wealth, freedom, democracies. Inequalities remain subsidiary problems that can be resolved through yet further growth, and through political initiatives to ensure the most just distribution of the ever-greater pie. As such, this perspective stands in a long tradition of liveral Utopain thought which has equated democracy, freedom, equality and self-development with the promise of technology. What is fundamental, in fact, to liberal democratic societies, as Albert Borgmann (1984) has argued, is that technological growth consistently has been the panacea for the endemic social and economic inequalities of capitalist society. Technology offers itself as the force that will create even more wealth for social distribution. And so it is now with information technology, as with a whole stream of earlier technologies. (....) Yet social inequalities persist (...). Our own belief is that information technologies should be seen as manifestations of the prevailing social relations (Robins and Webster 1980) (...). It builds upon, rather than supersedes or dissolves, existing class and regional inequalities - it cannot evaporate the social and economic history out of which it emerges (...). We believe that the new technologies will tend to extend and deepen social and regional inequalities rather than anneal them. The evidence we have gathered suggests that the 'information revolution' is manufacturing itself, not as an unproblematic social evolution, but as a process of uneven and unequal social upheaval." "This is a real problem and a real issue for social policy." "The interrelated issues of class and region which we discuss in this article must be seen in terms of wider and fundamental political issues relating to democracy, economic opportunity, and the quality of social and cultural life. These are the issues we raise when we ask: Whose information society?".

"The questions that must be addressed in the context of new communications and information technologies are difficult and divisive. But they are not new questions: they refer to old and familiar problems of social, economic, regional (and also gender, ethnic and age) inequalities. They will not be solved by ritual invocations of technological progress and inevitability."

from Mark Hepworth and Kevin Robins (1988!): Whose Information Society? A View from the periphery. in Media Culture and Society, 10:323-343

Jordan

We just came back from a week in Jordan (we'll put pictures up on our Cambridge site; if you don't know where that is, email me). We came back recharged: a real evasion, plenty of sunshine and yummy food, and goose-bumping landscapes. Plus I love giving my ears and brain a break in a country where I don't understand a thing. I did learn to say 'excellent', 'may your hands be blessed' (a thank you) and 'no problem'. The basics ;)

DAY 1
Rush over to my faculty to hand in an assignment. Then up town to the bus station. The bus takes its time winding through the countryside (plenty of sheep sightings) before it drops us off at Heathrow. We change a bit of money because we don't expect the ATMs to be open when we get there. It's London to Amsterdam (where we pick up an array of Droste chocolate), and Amsterdam to Amman. We land past 1am, wait patiently in line to get our visas pasted into our passports, are delighted to see a cab driver holding a sign with our names (courtesy of my classmate friend H), and off we go. It's past 2 when we discover H's home/palace and settle into our beds.

DAY 2
No time to catch up on sleep. It's up at 7, breakfast of locals, then off to the Wadi Mujib, a natural reserve an hour and a half south of the capital where we were staying. (If you're wondering where these places are, http://www.lonelyplanet.com/destinations/middle_east/jordan/ ). We enjoyed a gorgeous hike with a guide, a bedouin mint tea (also known as tea with your sugar) then took off in the late afternoon just across the road to the dead sea. well... it's true! You do float insanely, you can be curled up in a ball and still float; and you can't swim on your stomach: your feet stick up in the air. interesting experience. Of course we also had to lather ourselves with the mud and wait for the healing powers to take effect. Back to the capital, traditional dinner with her father and sleep.

DAY 3
Hard to wake up. That's not usually the case for me, but I'm all grumpy. A strong coffee eventually helps, and while H goes off to work, we go tour Madaba to check out the mosaics. The highlight is certainly an ancient mosaic map (in greek) of Jordan, Israel, Palestine, Egypt, etc. Sure, some of the towns were no more than two houses back then, but it's impressive - and a little confusing: east is up. our taxi driver then takes us to Mt Nebo, supposed to be the site where Moses died. It is home to impressive views of the 'biblical lands'. In the afternoon, we're off to Jerash. I honestly wasn't all psyched to go check out Roman ruins: we've got plenty in Europe and I thought we could spend our time better, but they convinced me and I have no regrets. We're not talking about a single theater or a little temple, we're talking about an entire city really. Baths, oval plaza, temples and chapels and two theaters and so on and so forth. huge. massive. and we were part of the attraction: it must have been the national schoolgirls field trip day that day cuz they were everywhere; and they were very excited to take pictures of us. we saw it all including girls screaming at P (was he married? what a lucky guy to have two girlfriends, etc.). it was a bit unsettling the first time (are they pulling my leg, why in the world would they want a picture with me?), but mostly fun if not repetitive in the end.

DAY 4
We split up. P stays in town to visit Amman the capital and be part of a desert rally recon the next day. I go down with H in the 7am bus to Aqaba, the resort city of the South. There clearly was a pattern of early wake-ups during that trip, and the problem with coffee is that you're usually not awake yet when you start sipping it, so I was a bit confused when I first tasted my 'white coffee' (coffee plus rose water and spices). it's actually quite tasty once the brain readjusts. The beach is extraordinarily relaxing. [One word to the tourists: do you really have to bring your G strings to Jordan?!? Speaking of clothing, out of respect and to avoid much harassment especially when it was just us two women traveling, we always wore long pants or long skirt and long sleeves. but to tell you the truth, you should try it: even in the hottest places, I was surprisingly not frying. Plus you save considerably on the sunscreen expenses ;0. Bonus: when we weren't speaking, people assumed we were locals.] Anyway, relaxing beach. sunset from the jacuzzi on the roof with arid deserts to our backs and the red sea in front. not bad, not bad at all.

DAY 5
After another relaxing morning on the beach, we leave Aqaba to go to Wadi Rum - home to the Lawrence of Arabia landscapes. Waiting for P, we play cards in front of the seven pillars of wisdom, hitch-hike a ride from the entry point to the main village (it's another nature reserve so only local bedouins and tourists are allowed in). Drop our stuff in the little white tents that will house us that night. Run into friends of H and their english guests and chit chat, then pet a camel. Finally, off we go. I love the desert. It's incredible, similar sensations but very different landscapes from the desert in Egypt. We climb up a sand dune of red sand (our land rover driver/guide is probably no more than 14, he'll get into mild trouble with his dad later!). See ancient inscriptions in the rock that is an old narrow passageway (those inscription designs can be seen on most of the new pottery patterns). And settle by 'the tower' for good sunset views. We all keep silent and take in the scenery. If you're ever in the desert, do try it: see how long you can be all still and quiet. It was a magical moment; I can close my eyes and remember the shades of red, the quietness, even the camels returning to the camp and the two local kids running around the desert. We are privileged.

DAY 6
We wake up early (you guessed it), to get to Petra, a two hour ride. Petra's unbelievable, it's orders of magnitude more ornate and vast than I expected it to be. I expected the famous 'treasury' facade, but not much else. In fact it's so large you really have to get on a horse/camel/donkey if you want to see more than the absolute bare minimum. It's two periods mixed in, the old Nabateans who left hundreds of tombs , staircases and carvings, and the Romans who later (you can even see that the ground wasn't at the same height) came in and added their own flavouring and a couple of buildings (but those no longer stand). 500 tombs... a narrow passage at the bottom of a narrow canyon, with carved waterways on either side of the passage to distribute water. the treasury of course, but so much more. temples with a pool on the roof and five pyramids to decorate the facade. stucco/plaster coloured. we took a camel ride to the bottom of the 800 stairs to the 'monastery' and everywhere I turned I saw carved entrances. seeing an entire city/complex is so much more than just visiting a cool building. You get a feeling of the life, the people, how it all fit together. Anyway, H easily convinced me to climb up the monastery (i do love rock climbing after all) with her via a no=longer legal but still perfectly maintained path. P kept watch and got yelled at. we made it to the first of the two premontaries, but I guess we were kind of obvious, standing all alone hundreds of feet up the facade. We came down to appease the local cop, and got away without any problem. on the way back it was a donkey ride, plenty of tombs with incredible marbled stone colors carved at a 45 degree angle. and i bought my second tourist souvenir (the first was a set of postcards of a gorgeous baptismal in Mt Nebo, the second a deck of cards where each card is a famous spot in Jordan; there are a few cards devoted to Petra). Fresh fish for dinner back in Aqaba. (oh food, SO much better than england!).

DAY 7
Snorkeling in Aqaba. It is after all the red sea and the snorkeling is impressive. It was a bit eerie though: there's all these beaches, visitor centers, permanent umbrellas and benches set up everywhere, and few visitors. Their tourism industry has of course suffered much since 2001. Their economy also took a 40% cut overnight after the six day war; and the US imposed embargo on Iraq hit them hard: they used to get oil and a few other things from their neighbor. But they don't complain, they offer tea, and P had some incredible conversations when he inadvertently walked in for lunch in an Iraqi restaurant. Unfortunately, it's almost time for us to go. We get on the bus back to Amman. that's 4 hours. we have time for dinner, Knafeh (local pastry of cheese, pastry dough and tons of honey and rose water; addicting), and pick up a box of pastries to take back with us. At 11 o'clock our taxi shows up to take us to the airport. We left earlier than we had to to let them sleep, but in fact our 2am flight is pushed out till 3am, arg. We finally take off for Amsterdam. We land late but still try to get on an earlier flight (we traveled with a small backpack each so nothing's checked in), but no luck. We wait and wait, get on the flight to London but they won't let us take off (Heathrow is backed up). Finally we land. We have 20 minutes to get out of the back of the plane, clear immigration and customs and find our bus to Cambridge. We make it. Sit on the 2 1/2 hour bus ride back to Cam. And even pick up some groceries on the way home from the bus station! If you count the bus from Aqaba, that final journey was well over 20 hours and a bit painful. But hey, that's the price we paid for a glorious vacation. In case you're wondering, I highly recommend Jordan.

WHOA

WHOA - it's been over a month of silence on this blog.

As you'll find out, much has happened, most of it somewhat unexcitingly related to the end of the past term. I have survived a single week of 5 assignments due. I have had to produce 5 more during the ironically termed 'break' since the end of term and today here it is at last: MY DAY OFF ! One single day of nothing related to work, one day to catch up on email, to vaccuum and clean my drawers and put away the winter clothes. Today's a happy day! And welcome back to this blog (I'm always amazed when I hear that some of you are still checking in).

Speaking of blogs, I've mentioned some of my housemates in the past. There's one, a woman from mainland China, who's doing development studies. We always have political or economic conversations, conversations about feminism, about international relations. Sometimes she cracks me up with her blend of naivete, militantism and insight; for instance she had me review an application essay she wrote to a program in Germany about the new Europe. Now, she's boycotting all Japanese products on principle (her grandparents barely escaped a massacre) (Note that this occurred about a week before all hell broke loose between the two countries). In her essay she was explaining that she thinks China but mostly Japan ought to learn from Germany about dealing with its past. The way Germany was portrayed in her textbooks apparently was a Germany that pulled itself by its bootstraps and singlehandedly became an economic powerhouse by sheer will and magical dealings with its past. There is no mention in her textbook of the Marshall Plan; and when I mentioned that she ought to think about the other countries, the ones that were mature or cynical enough to say, let's put this behind us and work together now; she didn't understand why. I went on explaining that Germany could've hardly become an economic powerhouse if the rest of the world had boycotted all of its products. She said that was such Western logic! I'm not too sure what she meant.
Most recently she's been (finally?) seriously woken up from her dream. So far she thought China was clearly the center of the world and that it didn't matter at all that there wasn't democracy. Her friends and her all use blogs to keep in touch with home (they blog on a Chinese blog, friends at home can read it, it's a lot cheaper than phoning every day). Recently though all their blogs were put on hold, and yesterday when she tried to submit a blog about 'big country syndrome', it was repeatedly rejected on grounds that it contained sensitive material, i.e. censured. The same thing happened to her friend last month when he included the picture of a past Chinese leader fallen out of favor. The sad story is that if they put the same information up on a blog like this one, it's not accessible from China. So not only will she lose all her articles and links when she goes back, her friends and family also can't read it. I'm really not trying to make fun of her - she is very smart, dedicated, incredibly open and keen on all kinds of new experiences from hard rock to baking cookies; but it's fascinating to watch her pride and disenchantment evolve.