Social Stratification and the Emerging Digital Culture: The Education Superhighway
by Diny Van Beers
If I were an Anthropologist I would find the impact of the emerging digital culture worthy of study, especially its impact on social stratification. I would want to know what social repercussions lie in store for us.
Disparities in access to new information systems have surfaced, making the already disadvantaged even more disadvantaged. On a global scale, one could argue that many people, starving and struggling for survival, may never use or have access to a computer. Imposing a digital culture on these people will not solve their hunger problems yet, they may be negatively impacted by the consequences of a digital culture. Locally, one could argue that individuals of low-income groups may never use or have access to a computer. They too may be negatively impacted by a digital culture as they may be underrepresented, for example, in plans for installing new telephone lines for communications networks.
New technologies will displace workers. There may be a steady and inevitable decline in jobs creating wider gaps between the haves and the have nots. Jeremy Rifkin in The End of Work predicts that " . . . sophisticated computers, robotics, telecommunications, and other information age technologies . . . [are] fast replacing human beings in virtually every sector and industry."
Globally, or locally, the long-term impacts of digital technology on social stratification are, at this time, only speculative. What we do know, however, is that information is power. Those with information have power over those without. Access to information, in this case the information superhighway, costs money. Those with resources will have access; those without resources will not. From my perspective, the recipe for inequality has not really changed over time; only the ingredients are different. That is why it is so important to know where we came from in order to understand where we are going. We need to learn from our mistakes. As an Anthropologist studying the past and ethnographic studies of the present would, I hope, present me with solutions for the future.
Sclove and Scheuer in their paper entitled "For Architects of the Info-Highway, Some Lessons From the Concrete Interstate" compare the information highway to a concrete highway. They write that Vice President Gore once saw the information superhighway "as the second coming of the interstate highway system." That is a scary thought when one considers the consequences of the concrete jungle that we live in today. Rush-hour traffic jams, gridlock, highway fatalities, air pollution, global warming, depletion of world oil reserves, loss of farm land, are significant world-wide problems we struggle with on a daily basis. In addition to all but destroying our environment, the concrete highway superstructure has resulted in the creation of and the need for a multitude of control systems including highway patrols, motor vehicle and safety regulatory bodies, motor vehicle insurance regulations, systems for control and reinforcement of traffic violations, licensing and driver training, to name but a few. The concrete highway is responsible for much death and destruction, and yet we cannot function in our world without this ever-expanding and evolving system. I suspect most of the systemic problems associated with this superstructure were never anticipated at its inception when the concrete highway was championed as a means of uniting a country, much like the railroad was prior to that time.
One could use that same argument for the information superhighway. Like the concrete highway, the information highway is being touted as a means of uniting the world by creating a global culture. Yet, access to and participation in this global culture is, at present, restricted, granting access only to those who can afford it. Just like the concrete highway, there are costs associated in getting on the information highway. One does not need to purchase a car, vehicle insurance, fuel, etc. Access to the information highway, however, does require one to purchase computer equipment and to pay a dialup fee for access to the internet through a commercial service provider. A support infrastructure is developing. Questions about the need for mechanisms to design, evaluate and govern these new systems lead to topics that go beyond the scope of this essay.
A certain skill level is required to operate the computer equipment. This requirement emphasizes the need for education, a key factor in addressing inequality. A friend once explained to me that the people in her homeland (Trinidad) see education as a privilege which is taken very seriously because it is seen as the "roadway" out of poverty. Perhaps the "education highway" will become the superhighway of the future. In my opinion, equal access to education is a fundamental consideration in avoiding the disparity and inequality inherent in the emerging digital culture.
References
Rifkin, Jeremy. The End of Work: The Decline of the Global Labour Force and the Dawn of the Post-Market Era. New York: Putnam Publishing, 1996.
Sclove, Richard, and J. Scheuer. "For Architects of the Info-Highway, Some Lessons From the Concrete Interstate." Internet, 1997.