In Jay Rosen’s discussion of journalistic authority, he sees the internet, in a very Shirkian sort of way, as breaking down barriers to connect with others and leading to a more knowledgeable, engaged citizenry. He sees bloggers and their communities stripping the power from traditional news sources and returning it to the people. The political blogger acting a bit like Robin Hood. Taking the power to define the sphere of consensus, legitimate controversy and deviance from the authority-rich journalists and giving it to the “poor” – the masses. (If only they could somehow provide that power to the information-poor populations… ah, but that is the realist speaking, and today I’m an optimist!)

While I see some issues with this argument, it resonates more with me than those  put forward by John Nichols and Robert W. McChesney in “How to Save Journalism.” In their article, they make a very strong case for re-establishing government subsidies to maintain a free and informative press. While I 100% agree that we need to do all we can to keep (or create) a diverse and competitive press, I don’t agree that the internet has no ability to help us achieve this goal.

Digital technologies have dramatically lowered production and distribution costs. Still, the main source of great journalism is compensated human labor, and, as the saying goes, you get what you pay for. We’re longtime advocates of citizen journalism and the blogosphere, but our experience tells us that volunteer labor is insufficient to meet America’s journalism needs. The digital revolution has the capacity to radically democratize and improve journalism, but only if there is a foundation of newsrooms–all of which will be digital or have digital components–with adequately paid staff who interact with and provide material for the blogosphere.

Near the end of their article, they reference the fact that the internet and publishing online does offer some solutions to cost-barriers. But what they seem to miss here is all the other potential to connect citizens to information. They also miss the fact that “volunteer labor” does in fact turn out some very good news and information, and people often do better work for the benefit of others or for love than for money. There has recently been some discussion surrounding this in the medical field, but it holds true across many disciplines, including the pursuit of truth and reporting the news.

I’m not saying that we should expect to keep journalists in their jobs with little to no salaries, but we should be looking towards what tangible benefits digital media offer for the future of our press. There are opportunities to connect part-time, freelance or just plain free journalists who happily write about their neighborhoods, topics they’re interested in or stories close to their hearts. While all the amateurism on the Net may be worrying as far as sticking to ethical journalism, if bloggers are writing for a specific news outlet and not just on their own web blog, their motivations and their journalistic ethics will look a lot more like a professional journalist than an amateur blogger.

Before learning more about the history of journalism and its decline since the 70′s, I was fairly negative about the future of our newspapers and news magazines. And even about the future of public broadcasting – perhaps I should still be when a conservative House takes charge in 2011. Newspapers have shut down, moved online or just seen severe cuts, the future of J-Schools are being threatened and the internet is crawling with amateur reporters and new outlets to spread lies quicker and further. Yet, me, the technological realidealist is optimistic about the future of a true, free, diverse and competitive journalism.

With all the evidence mounting towards increasing access to information, providing for a healthier and happier citizenry, and with Nichols and McChesney’s own example of the Scandinavian countries’ thriving news media, I am hopeful that the U.S. will begin to learn from its own mistakes – the same lessons that many other countries have already gleaned from our errors. Yes, I see the economic factors of the northern nations, but with a country as large and diverse as the U.S. digital communications offer ways to break some barriers — geographic, economic, generational, etc. Plus there’s Jay Rosen’s pivotal point of how the “echo-chamber” of the internet is actually bringing new issues into different spheres of consensus, debate and discussion without the authoritative hand of the major news outlets.

While the digital “revolution” is not seeing results that some optimists would hope for in the arena of governance and creating active democracies, telling news-worthy stories or taking part in important conservations has seen something revolutionary. This participation, shaping discussions and sharing stories, offers a more tangible return than engaging digitally with government. The opportunities to speak freely are limitless. There are many real two-way conversations happening and those that are able to engage with this new medium are feeling more connected with information than ever before. There are still barriers of access and literacy, but the opportunities to connect and share important news on the internet will help to revive a diverse journalistic community.

I see no end in sight for our free press. It will only get better.

(And the University of Colorado at Boulder isn’t shutting down its J-School.)

I live in a duplex – split between the upper and the lower unit – in Greenwood. My other half and I live in the upper unit. We are both under 30, have college degrees, and each bring in an income. In the other unit is a family of three; mother, father and a 9-year-old boy. I don’t believe either of the adults went to college, they don’t own a car and the husband supports their family with his sales position at a hardware store.

When we moved in this summer, we met with our new neighbors to discuss what we could share and how we would separate bills. We already had plans to get broadband in the home and offered to share a wireless internet connection with them. Each unit only having to pay $20 a month, we thought it was a screaming deal. But to our surprise, they turned the offer down. Even though they are an active gaming family, avid television watchers and their son is getting close to when homework will require a computer and internet, they deemed it a luxury and unnecessary.

It was a shock to me. How do they live without the internet? In Seattle?! In 2010?!

I wondered if their boy was behind his classmates at all in internet and computer literacy… do schools provide enough exposure? I had been using a PC since I was six or seven years-old, mastering Mario Teaches Typing and Minesweeper.

(source)

By the age of nine, I was playing with Paint, messing around with a movie clip audio database, and spending time in my elementary school’s primitive computer lab. In middle school, I moved onto to Where in the World is Carmen San Diego, Oregon Trail, research on Encarta and my first Juno email account. I remember spending summer afternoon’s with my best friend pretending to be much older than we were in chat rooms.

I come from a privileged position on many fronts, including the digital divide. But at this point in time, the ability to effectively use the internet and have regular access to it is becoming close to a fundamental human right – at least in some countries.

Since I was in elementary and middle school, technology has advanced quickly and significantly. While public schools don’t have endless sources of funding, many are equipped with ample computer access, fairly up-to-date machines, and instructors to guide students. But without a computer in the home are students like my neighbor becoming literate digital citizens? Will he be able to easily navigate the internet and decipher false claims?

Regardless of my own personal concerns, there wasn’t much to be done if they did not have the resources to get a computer and pay an extra monthly bill.

Yet, to my surprise, 3 months in, our neighbors came knocking. They had bought a used laptop with a built-in wireless card and were ready to take on the $20 internet access fee. We were more than happy to share our network key, and I did a little happy dance for our young neighbor and his new found bridge to cross the digital divide.

But were my concerns for at-home access even valid? Does a public education provide the next generation the tools they need to learn and compete in our increasingly hyper-digital world? Is it enough to have access at school and public libraries?

Top 40 Countries by internet usage

From The World Bank, World Development Indicators via Google Public Data:

I selected countries semi-randomly from the top and the bottom – interesting to see where China lies when its number of users are compared to their total population.

And more from the International Telecommunication Union (ITU)‘s

One major component of current global information and communication technology that is missing from Chadwick’s chapter is the spread of mobile phones and SMS. In fact, mobile phones are an important accessible and affordable point of access to both connect with others and to the internet; their importance illustrated by their place in the free report from ITU which puts mobile access and SMS numbers before internet access and statistics of computer ownership:

- Mobile cellular growth is slowing worldwide. In developed countries, the mobile market isreaching saturation levels with on average 116 subscriptions per 100 inhabitants at the end of2010 and a marginal growth of 1.6% from 2009-2010.

- At the same time, the developing world is increasing its share of mobile subscriptions from 53%of total mobile subscriptions at the end of 2005 to 73% at the end of 2010.

- In the developing world, mobile cellular penetration rates will reach 68% at the endof 2010 – mainly driven by the Asia and Pacifi c region. India and China alone are expected to addover 300 million mobile subscriptions in 2010.

- In the African region, penetration rates will reach an estimated 41% at the end of 2010 (comparedto 76% globally) leaving a signifi cant potential for growth.

SMS Triples in Three Years

- The total number of SMS sent globally tripled between 2007 and 2010, from an estimated 1.8 trillion to a staggering 6.1 trillion. In other words, close to 200,000 text messages are sent everysecond.

- Assuming an average cost of USD 0.07 per SMS, in 2010 SMS traffic is generating an estimated USD 812,000 every minute (or around USD 14,000 every second).

- In 2009, SMS revenue accounted for 12% of China’s largest mobile operator’s total revenue.

- The Philippines and the United States combined accounted for 35% of all SMS sent in 2009.

Two billion people on the Internet…… but too few in Africa

- The number of Internet users has doubled between 2005 and 2010.

- In 2010, the number of Internet users will surpass the two billion mark, of which 1.2 billion will bein developing countries.

- A number of countries, including Estonia, Finland and Spain have declared access to the Internetas a legal right for citizens.

- With more than 420 million Internet users, China is the largest Internet market in the world.

- While 71% of the population in developed countries are online, only 21% of the population indeveloping countries are online. By the end of 2010, Internet user penetration in Africa will reach9.6%, far behind both the world average (30%) and the developing country average (21%).

Connecting Homes

- While in developing countries 72.4% of households have a TV, only 22.5% have a computer andonly 15.8% have Internet access (compared to 98%, 71% and 65.6% respectively in developedcountries).

- At the end of 2010, half a billion households worldwide (or 29.5%) will have access to the Internet.

- In some countries, including the Republic of Korea, Netherlands and Sweden, more than 80% ofhouseholds have Internet access, almost all of them through a broadband connection.

- The number of people having access to the Internet at home has increased from 1.4 billion in2009 to almost 1.6 billion in 2010.

The ITU shows us that more people across the globe are finding ways to access information, but these numbers still illustrate the existence of  the digital divide (too few in Africa).

And finally, some US-based data from the Pew Internet & American Life Project, Mobile Access 2010:

Six in ten American adults are now wireless internet users, and mobile data applications have grown more popular over the last year.

From Pew Internet & American Life Project, Mobile Access 2010

From the Pew Internet && American Life Project, Mobile Access 2010

From the Pew Internet & American Life Project, Mobile Access 2010

From the Pew Internet & American Life Project, Mobile Access 2010

Are cell phones, cheaper laptops and wireless internet helping to close the digital divide in the United States?

In it’s most basic definition, the digital divide represents a discrepancy in access to information technology. The reasons for this gap are almost innumerable. I chose “101″ only to illustrate that their are multiple studies putting forth multiple reasons for why this divide exists and continues to exist.

From Andrew Chadwick’s chapter “Access, Inclusion, and the Digital Divide” we learn that the digital divide is affected from multiple social, economic and geographic influences. He also highlights some studies that stress the digital divide as part of a larger system of complex barriers. These include: mental access, material access, skills access, and usage access. Or alternately the digital divide is compounded by a series of other embedded barriers: the access divide, skills divide, economic opportunity divide, and the democratic divide.

The most common evidence used to describe the digital divide is the economic differences between developed and developing nations. Chadwick looks towards many other causes especially in his study of the divide within the United States – finding age, education, income, race and ethnicity all contributors. But ultimately it appears that the digital divide is just an added trend in other barriers of access. Within the US, access to education is a long-standing problem and the digital divide falls right in step with all the factors contributing to this discrepancy. Globally, governments, infrastructure, economics and education have all contributed to the continuing gap between the global north and south and the digital divide continues that trend.

Whatever the reasons for the divide, it is hard to deny it exists.

Global Digital Divide illustrated by NASA’s observations of electricity. (source)

In “The Digital Divide: The Role of Political Institutions in Technology Diffusion,” Helen V. Milner takes a different approach looking specifically at the influence that types of governments have had in affecting the spread of access to the information technology. Looking at other studies of governmental impacts on the digital divide and her own statistical methods, she concludes that:

Democracies adopt the Internet at a much faster pace than do autocracies.

She points to the ways in which information technology can be inhibited through governmental control which can only be implemented effectively through more authoritarian control than democracies allow. These methods include: firewalls, routers, software filters, internet police, coercion, restricted access, high access price and a national intranet. Autocratic governments are more drawn to limit access as:

The Internet threatens autocrats because it promotes uncensored access to information, the wide sharing of that information, and the capacity to overcome
collective goods problems, thus enhancing the public’s ability to organize against a regime.

We see this sort of impact in China as they struggle to maintain their position as a one-party authoritarian government but still seek to compete in the global economic arena. From a July 9, 2010 article in The New York Times

Internet censorship in China is among the most stringent in the world. The government blocks Web sites that discuss the Dalai Lama, the 1989 crackdown on Tiananmen Square protesters, Falun Gong, the banned spiritual movement and other Internet sites.

Web sites in China are required to employ people who monitor and delete objectionable content; tens of thousands of others are paid to “guide” bulletin board Web exchanges in the government’s favor.

China has an incredible number of people on the internet, but compared to their total population, they still lag behind the frontrunners:

As Clay Shirky points out in Here Comes Everybody, China lost the race to sequence the SARS virus–despite their proximity to the disease and their scientific research infrastructure–to a small Canadian lab, Genome Sciences Centre. Because of their “obstacles in cooperations.” The Chinese government placed “too many restrictions on sharing either samples of the virus, or on information about it.” While the Canadians were able to cooperate with many different networks, receiving collaboration and samples from the National Microbiology Lab in Winnipeg and the CDC in British Columbia.

Thus, while autocratic governments prohibit their citizenry to fully engage in a global network, they suffer the consequences in both economic and social capital.

Together, Chadwick and Milner build an extensive list for the reasons why the global divide exists, but I am still left with questions:

Considering Chadwick’s chapter and the discrepancies he found between many wealthy European (and democratic) nations, how can we explain the digital divide between countries in the European Union (Finland, Denmark, Iceland vs. Germany, France, Switzerland)?

How does the digital divide affect the digital “revolution”? What about the role of Twitter in Iran?

How are cell phones contributing to the digital divide?

Is the digital divide shrinking?

Does the digital divide impact the effectiveness and usefulness of eGovernment?

Why does the existence of the digital divide (and its persistence) fail to curb the enthusiasm of technological optimists?

Nevertheless, a look at the digital presence of the pro/con groups.

Yes on 1107 online

Stopgrocerytaxes.com:

Yes on 1107 on Facebook, where “9,554 people like this”:

Stop Grocery Taxes on Twitter, @Yeson1107:

yeson1107′s YouTube Channel:

Here they feature 3 of their professionally made TV ads which collectively have more than 800 views.

No on 1107 online

Voteno1107.com:

No on 1107 on Facebook where “544 people like this”:

They have the ability to share items from their website on twitter, but I could not find their own twitter account.

While they do have some amateur videos on YouTube, they do not have their own channel.

Even with relatively inexpensive tools, where a grassroots campaign has the opportunity to thrive, the big budget Yes on 1107 campaign still covered the ground better than No on 1107. They had more followers on Facebook, a better website with visible links to their Facebook and Twitter accounts, a YouTube channel featuring videos, although professionally made and financed by the American Beverage Association, with much better content as far as persuading voters goes.

In short, the Yes on 1107 campaign may have succeeded due to a better online presence, but more likely because they were better financed and better organized.

I see this and I experienced it during the 2008 election when the Obama campaign “got it” and used a combination of digital community-building, online fund-raising, innovative ideas and a whole lot of money to change the way people experienced politics and presidential elections.

But now, 2 years later, has anything really changed? Has it and I just don’t see it or get it? Because to me, it feels like people are back to being disengaged with our government, apathetic towards elections and generally disillusioned. The realist seeps in.

If Trippi could make it through decades of increasingly awful politics and come out on the other side hopeful, there must be something happening. Idealism, is that you?

Companies and organizations are changing the way they communicate and build relationships with their customers, because the people are demanding it and the internet is their tool to spread the word. And it seems, at times, that some politicians are doing that too. We have an incredible arsenal of tools at our fingertips (literally) to demand change in our political system. The tools that could indeed revolutionize the way our government is run and they way politicians campaign.

Will the time come when change is real, and not just a slogan for an incredibly powerful presidential campaign?

(source)

In response to this week’s readings (Chapter 7 “Explaining the Adoption of Web Campaigning Practices” from Web Campaigning, Chapter 6 “Decision 2004: The War for the White House”  from Douglas Kellner’s Media Spectacle and the Crisis of Democracy and Dennis Anderson’s “How has Web 2.0 reshaped the presidential campaign in the United States?“) and thinking about how technology has and is being adopted in campaigns, I am left in a less-than optimistic camp. “Technological pessimist” would be too strong, but I have yet to find evidence that the transformations taking place will result in a better, more involved democratic state and that campaigns will be run with more honesty, integrity and transparency.

The evolution of a political campaign genre online and the pressures to conform to certain “genre markers” has laid the path for little innovation in online campaigning and me feeling like maybe nothing ever will change (Web Campaigning). We’ve examined pre-internet campaigning and taken note of similar approaches through traditional media that are now mostly just being replicated and amplified online. I’m not sure if the 2008 election and Obama’s online presence has significantly changed the course of online politics, and I can see the merit in arguments about “traditional forms of power” influencing the way internet politics are being run (Web Campaigning). Especially when examining how in recent years, traditional mass media and online journalist sources have been easily influenced and even silenced by presidential administrations, according to Kellner.

Yet on the other hand, I see all the potential new media offers. With the Dean Campaign, he made incredible use of social networking to build a community of young and passionate supporters. And in 2008, Obama succeeded on that same front too. And although Kellner sees the state of media and politics as a fairly corrupt system (in 2004), we’ve seen digital media gain attention for valuable stories and help them reach larger audiences and even pick  up traditional mass media coverage (for example, the Trent Lott comment.) We have awesome tools to connect and inform, and although the authors of Web Campaigning didn’t see much evidence for it in 2006, to also involve and mobilize. I can’t help but let the idealist in me out when I hear about powerful stories resulting from new media and renewed community-building.

But then the realist returns. Many of the examples I can come up with either have accompanying failures or a compelling counter-example. With the Dean campaign, he may have had an incredibly successful run in social media, but he was dealt a devastating blow with the prevalence of the “Dean Scream” and by how easily new and traditional media spread his overly joyful moment. With the Lott comment, the interplay between blogging and mass media helped garner this story more attention, but now the same attention can be easily gotten for false messaging and spread incredibly quickly with little to no fact-checking.

Perhaps with the upcoming election and the 2012 Presidential campaigns we will begin to see the true potential of these new technologies, but until then, here I sit, a technological realidealist.