Information Communication Technology and Society: A community-based approach

Abstract

This chapter focuses on the issue of social exclusion from the developing information infrastructure. It discusses the need for guaranteed public spaces as a means of addressing the problems of social exclusion, and proposes a model of tripartite collaboration as a way of creating these public spaces on the ‘infostructure’. The chapter argues that urgent consideration must be given to the social implications of information communication technology (ICT) and their relationship to the broader information society debate. It discusses European Union and UK government approaches to the development of the information infrastructure, and how this development is often interpreted as being the sole information society issue. It examines deficiencies of the techno-economic approach to the information society, and suggests universal participation as an alternative to the current paradigm. Community networks and community telecentres are used as exemplars of this alternative.