The Internet: the opportunity
for the planet?
While the Internet represents a real
technical revolution, its social and cultural effects, however, seem ambiguous. The view
of two experts: Dominique Wolton, who reminds us of the limits of any medium to resolve by
itself the problems of communication between people, and Philippe Quéau, who stresses the
need to establish a new form of global regulation to ensure fairness and human development
in view of the profound inequalities in access to information.
People have forever been trying to
communicate, and frequently transfer their concern to improve this often disappointing
communication to the methods. Thus in the course of a single century, from the telephone
to the radio, from television to the computer, and today to the Internet, the methods have
continued to improve communication to the extent that many believe the problem has been
solved. Yet the long history of communication reveals four facts:
Each new method resolves a previous
communication problem, but creates others. No method supplants the previous one, it is
just added to others. Communication methods, designed to cut back on the journeys people
have to make, have actually had the opposite effect, creating the need for people to meet
physically.
No one method has been sufficient in itself
to change human and social relations radically.
The need for a social plan
The Internet, at the crossroads of
telecommunications, the IT and the multimedia industries, is not exempt from this law.
Everyone is fascinated by its achievements and dreams of it becoming the medium for new
human relations.
The whole problem is that there is no direct
link between the two types of communication. Human and social communication is much more
difficult, is time-consuming, requires a sharing of common languages and values, sharing
common ideals and, at least, a common project... In short, it would not have been enough
to put more computers into Kosovo and Serbia, for example, to avert civil war! And we have
seen that the Internet could be as great a medium of information as of rumours or
propaganda.
While the world is a "global
village" technically speaking, it is not, and never will be so socially and
culturally. We even face the opposite challenge: the more distances are removed, the more
easily we see what divides cultures, civilizations, political and philosophical systems.
And the more we need to work at mutual tolerance. The more the methods remove the
frontiers of time and space, the more visible the difficulties of mutual understanding
become, and the more difficult to resolve.
In other words, the Internet is a technical
revolution awaiting a social and cultural plan. For the time being, above and beyond the
dreams of electronic democracy and access for all to databases and databanks and
interactive links, the Internet seems more suited to the electronic commerce of tomorrow.
Why not? Provided that a method suited to the globalization of the economy is not confused
with a social plan.
For instance, to talk about the information
and communication society of tomorrow because information systems will occupy a central
position in every aspect of the economy, education, leisure and services is dangerous.
Why? Because the dominant technical system of a society (here information methods) is not
sufficient to characterize a society, even if this technical system manages information
and communication. This may be at the risk of succumbing to technical ideology, namely
demanding of a method, which may be communication, that it resolve a human and social
problem.
Dominique Wolton
Director of the CNRS
Communication and Policy Laboratory
National Scientific Research Centre
The development of the Internet and the
"global information society" represents a unique opportunity for promoting the
ideals of UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation): the
free movement of ideas, equal opportunities for all in education, the promotion and
dissemination of knowledge. It offers access for all peoples to what each of them
publishes.
The Internet could become "the"
medium of the 21st century without necessarily doing away with books, radio or television.
It is predicted that by 2002, global telephone communication will equal no more than 1% of
Internet traffic.
The Internet is primarily the incarnation of
an irreplaceable idea: simply providing access for all to information. But this idea is
not enough. The Internet does not provide drinking water nor sacks of rice. And the
Internet is of particular benefit today to those who already have everything... The most
striking gap in the information society is that separating the connected (2% of the world
population) from the unconnected.
The threat of monopoly
The nature of the forces governing the world
of the Internet need to be clearly understood. The Internet network is actually focused
upon the United States. And this phenomenon, far from diminishing, is becoming more
pronounced. The top thirteen world Internet access providers are all American. The cost of
"information superhighways" linking the countries of Europe remains 17 to 20
times higher than the cost of equivalent links in the United States. The effect of this is
that European Internet access providers are being connected to the United States first.
Likewise in Asia, more than 93% of the Internet infrastructure is oriented towards the
United States. Even when direct, intra-regional links exist, they are not necessarily used
and regional traffic continues to pass through the United States. The situation is even
more serious in Africa. There are no interconnection points for pan-African traffic, with
the exception of South Africa, which reroutes regional traffic.
A corrective must be introduced. This
concerns the invention of new ways of regulating the global "info-structure".
There is no lack of subjects and they cover many areas other than the physical
infrastructure: regulation of access to naturally limited resources of general interest
(Internet addressing, orbital positions of satellites, frequency allocations); regulation
of competition between Internet service providers; development of world-wide anti-trust
laws covering in particular the telecommunications, software and electronic commerce
sectors; definition of pricing policies and world-wide reciprocal subsidies for
international telecommunications.
Also, following the recommendations of the
1999 Report of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) on human development:
taxation of international telecommunication flows and patents filed at the World
Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO), invoicing for the use of common world resources
for global redistribution purposes; revision of the management of intellectual property
rights for establishing a system that does not bar access to knowledge by developing
countries.
World Internet regulation must be handled by
institutions of global expertise and stature. It is the responsibility of public opinion
and society across the world to devote their energies to encouraging governments to speed
up this necessary process.
Philippe Quéau
Director of UNESCO's Information and IT Division
On the eve of National
Day of Bangladesh
Bangladesh at a glance
The socio-economic condition of Bangladesh
has gain started to gain momentum after the present alliance government assumed office
under the leadership of Prime Minister Begum Khalida Zia through the landslide victory of
last general election held in October 2001. The goal of this government is to alleviate
poverty with the shortest possible time for which the strategy has been taken to maximize
utilization of resources and for balanced development. Shaheed President Ziaur Rahaman had
taken initiative first to place the national economy on strong footings when the
responsibility of administering the state was entrusted on him in 1975. The present
democratic government, in line with the dreams of Shaheed Zia, has been taken pragmatic
steps in different aspects to institutionalize the democracy and to establish good
governance aiming at changing the lot of common people of the country.
Economic Growth: Despite the
world wide economic slowdown, Bangladesh achieved 4.4% economic growth in financial year
2001-2002 against the global growth of only 1.2% in 2001. The rate stood at 5.3% in the
financial year 2002-2003.
Primary Education: An epoch
making step has been taken to provide cash money by amending the "food for
education" program. During the period of last two years, development program of about
six thousand government and registered non-government primary school has been taken. A six
year program titled ‘Primary Education Development Program’ has been undertaken
at a cost of about Taka five thousand crore. Steps have been taken to appoint sixty-
percent female teachers against vacant posts in the primary schools so as to raise the
participation of women in the field of primary education.
Strategies undertaken for Poverty
Alleviation: Programs for poverty alleviation through making the poor people
involved in development of fisheries and livestock, developing rural infrastructure,
making the poor people involved in government and non-government small loan activities,
gearing up co-operative movement, poultry farming and raising milk production, creating
job opportunities by providing small loans and imparting necessary training to the poor
women of rural and urban areas, women small entrepreneurs development and various
development activities have been taken.
Social Welfare, Women and Children
Affair: One national rectification institute for adolescent girls has been set
uup at Konabari, Gazipur to rehabilitate sentenced and under trial adolescent girls. Three
baby homes have been established in Khunla, Barishal and Sylhet for the guardianless,
destitute and helpless children. Five centers are being set up and existing seven centers
are being expanded for rehabilitation and training of the distressed and the vagabonds.
Monthly allowance of widows and those left out by husbands has been raised from Taka 125
to Taka 150. The number of beneficiaries has been increased from two lac seventy thousand
to five lac. Now ten lac of poor and helpless persons will get this. Training and
rehabilitation centers have been set up in six divisions of the country for socially
handicapped girls and eight new schools have been established at the district level for
handicapped children. Vocational training has been imparted to one-lac women for making
them self-reliant and self-dependent. One thousand and five hundred have been given skill
upgradation training and six hundred women have been provided with loans.
(Text Courtesy; Nepal SAARC
Journalists Forum/Bangladesh Embassy, Kathmandu) |
