Networking
The computer networking movement encompasses a wide range of domains, some of which overlap computer-based education. For example, this computer-based education movement currently advocates extensive network links across schools, libraries, art museums, and research centers. The computer networking CM pushes this vision even further, advocating the weaving together of all institutional sectors into one giant electronic web. This web is sometimes referred to as cyberspace, a term first used by Gibson (1984) in his science fiction novel, Neuromancer, to describe the electronic realm where the novel's action took place. Today, we use the term to refer to the place where all social interactions via computer networks occur.
Prior to 1990, the physical manifestation of cyberspace was the Internet and the primary users were government employees, research scientists, and other academics in research universities and centers throughout the United States and western Europe. The Internet started as an ARPA demonstration project on internetworking in the early 1970s (Kahn, 1994). After splitting off from MILNET (the military network), the ARPA NET became known as the Internet. The National Science Foundation (NSF) paid for new computer science sites to be added to the Internet through CSNET (the Computer Science Network) and then commissioned the NSFNET to link NSF-funded supercomputer centers across the United States. The Department of Energy (DOE) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) built HEPNET (high-energy physics net), SPAN (space physics analysis net), ESNET (energy sciences net), and NSI (NASA science internet), all used primarily by research, academic, and government communities.
In the last few years two related events have helped strengthen the public appeal of the Internet: the expansion and growing commercialization of the Internet and the promotion of technological support for the NII by the Clinton administration. These actions have already expanded the range of Internet services to most universities and colleges, many libraries, and some elementary and secondary schools. Government subsidy and other resources generated by CMOs along with strong advocacy about the transformational capacity of computerization by the media and popular magazines help to fuel the increasing demands for computer networking.
While most users connect to the Internet through work or school, situations where the institution bears the financial burden, increasingly people are willing to pay for Internet connections out of their own pockets. Today, PCs can be found in over 26% of households in the United States and many of them are connected to local computer bulletin boards, online services, or the Internet (Brody, 1992). In 1992, New York City had two providers of public Internet access. In 1993, there were seven. More people have been connected to the Internet in the last two years than in the previous twenty. It is currently estimated that approximately four million homes in the United States are now connected to some type of online service and these numbers are growing daily (Eng and Lewyn, 1994). Current scenarios of home use portray exciting social interactions with distant people and places, primarily in the guise of entertainment, home shopping, and group game playing. The NII: Agenda for Action (the White House, 1993) states, “You could see the hottest video games, or bank and shop from the comfort of your home whenever you chose.” Although the Clinton administration consistently advocates universal access and affordable prices for users, today only the rich can afford the equipment and network connections required to be online.
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A less entertaining but nonetheless Utopian vision of computer networking focuses on uses that empower and preserve the public interest. Several networking CMOs, like the Society for Electronic Access (SEA), and the Center for Civic Networking (CCN) have focused attention on grass roots networks and the recreation of civic life. The first civic network was the Community Memory in Berkeley, California, started in the mid-1970s to strengthen and revitalize the Berkeley community (Schuler, 1994). Today, over one hundred civic networks are planned or are currently in operation in the United States. They include the Cleveland Free-Net (Ohio), Big Sky Telegraph (Montana), Electronic Cafe International (Santa Monica, CA), and the Cambridge (MA) Civic Forum, all based in and run by local communities in partnership with networking CMOs. Global civil networks have also emerged. Examples include PeaceNet, EcoNet, GreenNet, and ConflictNet, all of which are dedicated to peace, human rights, and environmental preservation. In 1990, these networks with the support of the MacArthur, Ford, and General Service foundations and the United Nations Development Program established the Association for Progressive Communications (APC) with partners in ten countries and affiliated systems in many other countries (Frederick, 1993).
The goal of participants in these civic networks is to make information flows more democratic, break down power hierarchies, and circumvent information monopolies. At the local level, city- and region-wide citizen dialogue is considered critical to the development of innovative solutions for the improvement of government services, industrial competitiveness, and a revitalized democracy. At the global level, network enthusiasts argue that the present flow of world news is too regulated. Five news agencies around the world control about 96% of the world's news flows (Mowlana, 1986). By providing low-cost appropriate solutions, APC networks can democratize cyberspace and provide an effective counter-balance to trends in corporate control of the world's information flows.
Computer networks are central to Utopian accounts of the next wave of human culture where much of life is spent online. Participants are referred to as settlers or homesteaders (Rheingold, 1993). Specialists are portrayed as cowboys with keyboards rather than six-guns. Exciting images of life at the frontier propel many into participation. Networking activists imply that there are no limits to what can be done in cyberspace by downplaying the actual costs of new technologies and the continuing benefits of physical forms of social interaction. Other media for learning, socializing, working, or revitalizing the community are treated as less important. Real life is life online. The physical world is relegated to IRL (in real life) or life off-line (Rheingold, 1993).
The beliefs and strategies advocated by the two CMs have changed over the past several decades. But both have moved in the direction of increasing computerization and networked forms of social arrangements. Helping to fuel this momentum are Utopian visions that downplay the actual social choices that can constrain or inhibit institutions from making such large-scale changes and the political challenges that will certainly accompany them. These CMs require enormous resources and their orientation is sufficiently elitist that one might expect some systematic progressive alternative to it. In the next section, we focus on some organizations that have emerged to serve the public interest and which participate in the forming of national policy about computerization. We also discuss the challenges associated with the development of a general movement to counter computerization.
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