Universal access

[Steve]

Online Debate Includes Doubts About Getting Everyone Online

Rebecca Fairley Raney
NY Times 5/18/98


Shahidul Alam tells a story of his group's electronic post office in
Dhaka, Bangladesh, a place where people who cannot afford computers
can go to check their e-mail: 

"Our oldest user, Golam Kasem, had just turned 103 and had never
seen a computer before. I would cycle over to his house in Indira
Road with a printout of a message from his grandson in Canada and
next day peddle up to collect his reply. I remember the frail old
man, straightening up the computer printout and adjusting his thick
glasses as he held the paper by his tungsten lamp." 

The image of the centenarian, the bicycle and the printout opened
the Markle Foundation's online conference on the possibilities of
universal e-mail. The conference, which was being conducted by
e-mail, started May 4 and continued through last Friday. 

While the concept of an online conference may seem, at first glance,
an obscure event, the profile of this conference was heightened with
a post from Vice President Al Gore. In his post, Gore stressed the
need to improve public access to the Internet through libraries and
schools. 

"One of the most important goals that President Clinton and I have
set for this country," the post said, "is to give every child in
America access to high quality educational technology by the dawn of
the new century and to make sure that every person in America --
regardless of race, income or where they live -- will be able to
participate in and benefit from the Information Revolution we are
currently experiencing." 

Several days before that post, Alam's story from Bangladesh brought
down to basics a concept that has inspired gushing idealism from
people who work with computers and sharp criticism from people who
work with the poor. 

Charles Ardai, president of Juno Online Services, which provides
free e-mail accounts, set a tone with an essay that explained the
need for outreach. People need computer training, he argued, before
e-mail can become a universal medium. In addition to training,
universal access would require less expensive equipment for e-mail,
organizations willing to run huge server plants and, in the absence
of revenue, public subsidies. 

"Without this," he wrote, "the danger exists that Internet access
and e-mail could become a toy (or, worse still, a weapon) in the
hands of a wealthy, already-powerful elite. Imagine if only people
with incomes of $100,000 or above had telephones, if only people
under 35 had TVs and VCRs, if only college-educated people had
answering machines. Imagine if e-mail were the way lawyers
communicated with politicians and CEOs with investment bankers, while
the remainder of the population was left out. To a first-order
approximation, this is the case: by and large, it is the wealthier,
younger, better-educated segment of society that is using e-mail. 

"If e-mail is to be a force for good rather than ill," he concluded,
"it must not stop there." 

Naturally, the notion of public subsidies made some participants
squeamish. 

"I'm concerned about naïve enthusiasm that leads to ideas such as
creating a bureaucracy to support e-mail," wrote Bob Frankston, a
developer of computer applications who has worked for Lotus and
Microsoft. "The term 'Universal E-mail' makes me think of the
Universal Service fund, which has become an effective means of
keeping telephony a backwater of technology." 

Strong participation from people in developing countries has kept the
discussion down-to-earth. In addition to reminders that any
"universal" system should be approached with the consideration that
the world is made up of more than North America, several participants
asked how to get around the problem of lack of access to electricity.

In an essay called "E-Mail for All -- What For?" Alfonso Gumucio
Dagron of the Center for Development Communication in Guatemala City
wrote: "Yes, it will be nice that everyone has access to e-mail in
our world. But first things first, it will be even better if everyone
had access to safe water, to electricity and the luxury of telephone.
Please, get into the shoes of 90% of real people in the real world.
How many of them need e-mail today and for what?" 

Dagron questioned whether global e-mail would even be desirable.
"People want to defend their cultures, they don't want to be
submerged by 'globalization,' " he wrote. "We hope that e-mail and
Internet will not become another way to deprive people from their
culture, as it's happening with the globalization of cable and
satellite TV." 

This conference is a component of four years of efforts by the Markle
Foundation to explore the issues surrounding the concept of universal
e-mail. In a series of studies, reports and conferences, the E-Mail
For All project has pursued questions about society's need for
e-mail, the role of industry and the role of the government. 

The project began by raising questions as to whether access to e-mail
could be considered a social issue; after determining that it is a
social issue, Markle's efforts are moving toward creating a national
dialogue on public policy regarding the issue. 

The online conference, the first event in the project held
exclusively on the Internet, was organized largely by e-mail. The
event's host, Steven Clift, posted invitations to 50 e-mail
discussion lists. Two hundred participants had been expected, but by
May 8, 700 people from 30 countries had signed up. 

"We've hit a vein," said Edith Bjornson, vice president of the Markle
Foundation, who was thrilled to see the issues discussed in a forum
Vice President of the United States. That notion in itself helps make
the case for universal access, she said. 

"It so vindicates our assumptions on the power of the medium,"
Bjornson said. "There's something notable going on here and, needless
to say, we're delighted." 

Copyright 1998 The New York Times Company 






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