The Internet and Societal Inequity

Topic Owners: Mark, Graham

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Preliminary Framing

Socio-technical Gap

Problems encountered in the act of discoursing itself are sometimes addressed via social means, technological means, or both. It has been suggested that technological tools should support social processes, but there is an adaptation of each realm to the other - how does this back-and-forth take place in the design of a successful technology-enabled discussion?

Which inequalities are created or strengthened due the increasing reliance on technology and the differences in the ability to access the Internet(e.g. global and socio-economic differences)? Does the net actually re-distribute and decentralize power and influence, or does it also reinforce the existing political and economic hierarchies? In short - is the Internet really a good thing for everybody?

• A solutions-focused question here might be: what tools might encourage a more egalitarian internet, both nationally and internationally? How can online applications be designed to encourage social equality? (Berkman Fellow Eszter Hargittai has worked on some related questions, focusing on research about how people actually use the internet.) --G 12:12, 28 November 2008 (EST)

One Laptop Per Child

Happy to help this group with info as I can. Mchua

Environmental Concerns

To what extent is the hardware upon which the Internet exists damaging the environment? Where does old tech go when it dies? What distributive impact does the "recycling" of old tech have. Was the Internet build with principles of physical sustainbility in mind? Is it too late to change? How do individual companies, like Google, view their own practices? Does the cost of a server internalize the cost of disposal? Why has it been cheaper to just keep throwing on new machines? What of the electricity necessary to run these machines? What does it say about society that we are so willing to pollute our own communities to create a second life? Has technological innovation and advancement dislocated the true impact of non-zero cost transactions? --Megerman 19:36, 29 November 2008 (EST)

Perhaps a way to innovate on these questions would be a system for tracking these offline effects of online behavior. Track hardware? A certification scheme? A carbon footprint clock for online activities? --G 02:10, 14 December 2008 (UTC)