Who are the hard to reach?
June 12, 2008 Posted by Kevin in : Bristol , trackbackLots of assumptions are made about who the “hard to reach” digitally excluded individuals in the UK population might be. Generally these assumptions focus around deprivation, ethnicity and disability. However wealth, education and privilege don’t necessarily guarantee inclusion in the digital age. Ex-Prime Minister Tony Blair is himself a self-confessed technophobe.
Famously, Senator Ted Stephens of the United States Congress, demonstrated a breath-takingly sketchy grasp of how the Internet operates while opposing an amendment to the Net Neutrality Bill. Better reserve a few seats for any similarly minded politicians and bureaucrats at the next “Introduction in IT” course.
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So the internet isn't a series of tubes then?
Its certainly one way of describing it, but its a pretty rudimentary way of presenting a highly complex, worldwide network of computers and connections to the US Senate. What we can safely say though, thanks to Ted Stephen's insight, that the Internet is not a big truck.
Kevin
What I find scary is that, in spite of their ignorance of ICT, our elected representatives still feel qualified enough to try and enact legislation in respect of it.