Summer-Fall 2001

Thinking about the future of the Internet is to invite schizophrenia: technology as wide open, bubbling over with beneficial potential for education, political participation, economic opportunity, and social justice. A darker view: the Internet as another medium in the inexorable process of being colonized, homogenized, commercialized.

In either case, we are lead to ask: What sort of information and communication systems do we need? What policies can help us with this effort? What campaigns do we launch? Activists believe that building equitable and effective communication and information systems can help address issues of concern at the local level. Tomorrow's citizens will need information and communication technology that Microsoft, AT&T, and Disney are unlikely to build.

In May 2000, 400 people attended Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility's (CPSR) seventh "Directions and Implications of Advanced Computing" (DIAC) symposium. The proceedings contain theoretical essays as well as case studies from Italy, Nigeria, Argentina, and Canada's Northwest Territories. Thanks to a grant from the National Science Foundation, we have 100 hard copy editions of the proceedings available for free for appropriate requests.

In contrast to other concepts in communication studies (like "cultural imperialism" or "media monopoly"), the concept of "public sphere" is positive, an idealized communication venue into which all people can freely enter. It is through the conversations in this "public sphere" that civic decisions are made. This is fundamental to democratic systems. The topic was discussed after the conference in CPSR's Summer 2000 newsletter. "Public Sphere Correspondents" supply news dispatches from all over the world.

Patterns for the New Millennium

CPSR and the Public Sphere Project are launching the DIAC-02 symposium, planned for Seattle, May, 2002, to provide a forum to continue with these issues. Dedicated to building bridges between practitioners and researchers, community organizers and policy-makers, DIAC-02 will focus on "patterns" as a common theme, where each pattern "describes a problem that occurs over and over again in our environment, and then describes the core of our solution to the problem." In our case we'll use patterns for the design and development of information and communication technology, policy, and use that are more human-centered and progressive.

All of us have are embarked on our own journeys to identify and refine the "patterns" that we use to think and work purposefully and effectively. The work we undertake now can have a lasting influence; it can help determine whether the Internet becomes a powerful community and civic tool, or whether it degrades into another type of commercial television. Stay tuned.