Message-ID: <Pine.OSF.3.91.951212101527.28603A-100000@alcor.concordia.ca> Date: Tue, 12 Dec 1995 10:39:16 -0500 From: "Wendy B. Lowe" <mailto:wendlon@ALCOR.CONCORDIA.CA> Subject: Re: African and the Internet To: Multiple recipients of list DEVEL-L <mailto:DEVEL-L@AMERICAN.EDU>
On Mon, 11 Dec 1995, Martin Sieg wrote:> Television and the print media are biased, regardless of various efforts
> made to achieve objectivity. Some people feel that the internet is even
> more biased, because it allows individuals to state their own opinions,
> without being open to the large volume of potential criticisms that more
> public forums must face.
> Through the internet, only a relatively few people read and react
> to any one message that is transmitted, so it is possible that someone
> will mistake individual views as valid fact.
> I feel that the internet will be very useful in developing
> countries because it will help people escape from government censorship
> and allow them to have the communication they need to learn - and what
> they learn will be what they choose, not what others decide to give them.
I have not been following these communications for very long. I find the limitations of media extremely interesting ... could someone tell me how any medium which relies on the written word (including this list) can help to liberate those who cannot read? I'm sorry if I am being obtuse. Education, or lack of it even at the simplest functional literacy level has long been a tool of control by "governments" which do not deserve such a name.
Communication through imagery is highly conditioned by cultural environments (does a man wear a skirt?; does a woman wear pants?) a thousands of years of pictograms have rendered chinese writing the domain of a calligraphic elite or the subject of draconian teaching methods.
Unless people are given the simple tool of literacy, their access to the internet will always be a function aims and objectives of the person providing the interface ... and surely the ulimate question becomes "How do I get rid of this intermediary?". Only the most altruistic of go-betweens will accept to show how he or she might be shouldered aside. Since internet is only a tool, its potential and power will always be limited by the people who use it ... and those who do in Africa have their own agenda, not necessarily that of the "people".
Please refute my thoughts as these questions will allow us to understand the fundamentals of the transmission of ideas which go beyond the NET.
A. Graham Lowe (consulting in rural development since 1978)