3011: Geographies of Cyberspace
The Geography of the
Internet and Digital Divides
Martin Dodge
(m.dodge@ucl.ac.uk)
Lecture 2, Monday 11th October 2004
http://www.casa.ucl.ac.uk/cyberspace
Today’s lecture
• theories - technology and society
• what is the Internet and how it works?
• the geographies of the Internet and the
nature of ‘digital divides’
Theories of cyberspace
•
•
•
•
what is cyberspace?
where is cyberspace?
who owns it? who controls it?
Is it ‘good’? or is cyberspace root of ‘evil’ in
society today
• how you answer these questions depends on
the theory you apply
• the key is the way you conceptualise the
relationship of technology to ‘the social’
Following Graham (1998)
• three broad classes of theory identified
– 1. substitution and transcendence
‘impact’
Tech.
‘independent’
‘dependent’
– 2. co-evolution
Tech.
‘recursive’
– 3. recombination
Tech.
Social
‘joined’
Social
Social
Substitution & transcendence
• the belief that embedded, grounded, human
lives can somehow be replaced by technology
• deterministic. reductionist (cause-effect)
• technological utopianist or dystopian
• technology is neutral, independent factor
which simply ‘impacts’ on society
• often seen that technology will lead to social
change; this social change is usually presented
as inevitable and beneficial
• technical fixes. universal solutions
• often this style of reporting in media,
presented as ‘theory free’, but espouses a
very definite modernist agenda
• cyberspace is the new (economic) frontier
• cyberspace will bring economic wealth,
reinvigorate democracy, bring world peace,
etc. etc
• flip side is the simplistic dystopian views that
cyberspace is causing the moral decay of
society, it is root of evils
• transcendence of material bounds of human
body. Immersed in cyberspace, leaving behind
‘meat-space’& ‘tyranny of geography’
Co-evolution
• parallel social production of geographical
space and electronic space
• recursive relations, technosocial reproductions
• social shaping of technology and the
technological building of the social
• virtual space represents and reproduced real
spaces
• social depth in communications, not capacity
of data exchange
• cyberspace supports and often generates
physical mobility (e.g. setting up meetings via
email)
• “New information technologies, in short,
actually resonate with, and are bound up in,
the active construction of space and place,
rather than making it somehow redundant.”
(Graham 1998, p. 174)
• cities are not dissolving, they are being
remade, in complex ways. cities also make
cyberspace. recursive interaction
• can not ignore the political economy of
infrastructure deployment and access.
Cyberspace as new spatial fix for global
capitalism. Cyberspace enables exploitation
of local characteristics, for even more finegrained international division of labour
Recombination
• actor-network theory. Latour and Callon
• technology and the social cannot
meaningfully be separated. they are joined
and meshed in complex ways
• technical objects have agency
• “… the hundreds of other actor-networks,
are always contingent, always constructed,
never spatially universal, and always
embedded in the microsocial worlds of
individuals, groups and institutions.”
(Graham, 1998, p 179)
• relational view of power and action
• space is continually being constructed, places
are in a state of becoming
• individual performance of space with a
contingent, local actor-network enrolling
technologies to solve problems as they occur
• “Technologies only have contingent, and
diverse, effects through the ways they become
linked into specific social contexts” (Graham,
1998, 178)
• your cyberspace is very different from mine.
You cyberspace is always being remade in the
moment
What is the Internet?
The Internet isn’t cyberspace
cyberspace
banking
data spaces
radio
Telematic
nets
military
nets
fax
Internet
Corporate
intranets
email
p2p
www
ftp
sms
nope, the Web is just a nice window. Its not the Internet
So, what is the Internet then?
Internet….?
•
•
•
•
Is where my friends are?
email
IM, chat
news
• I can get free stuff
• MP3s
• essays
lots of computers
‘Inside the network’
edges of the network
lots of wire
Internet “plumbing”
• various types of pipes and wires connecting routers
• all have different capacity to carry data (known as
bandwidth)
• transparent to end-users
fibre-optic
satellites
cables
tons and tons of AC
and a lot of electricity
and back-up equipment
(photos courtesy of Kazys Varnelis)
Software to keep it running
and people of course
engineers, designers, planners, programmers...
So, what is the Internet then?
• It is a global communications network
built from
–
–
–
–
–
physical things
human things
software things
money
regulations and institutions
• a social-technical system
• differences / parallels with the
telegraph, telephone, tv?
Why geography matters?
• technical and infrastructure geographies
• Internet has a material existence
“ Nevertheless, the Net cannot float free of conventional geography.
Not a single bit could pass through it without miles of copper
wire and glass fiber, as well as tons of computing hardware – all
of which is very much situated in the physical world. The cables
and routing centers of the Internet have specific coordinates on
the earth’s surface, even if users of the network seldom give much
thought to where their bits are going.”
(Source: Brian Hayes, “The infrastructure of the information infrastructure”, American
Scientist, May-June 1997, Vol. 85, No. 3, pages 214)
The ‘invisibility’ problem
where are the wires? where are the servers? data is
served from somewhere and delivered to to somewhere
Why is the Internet interesting?
• it is a disruptive technology - 2 way interaction, not just
a 1 way broadcast medium
• general purpose technology. vital plumbing for the
‘information society’
• transformative, not revolutionary
• defining technological system of C21st
• over hyped (dotcom mania, dotcom crash)
• the Internet is not everywhere, it is in specific places
• rapid diffusion, but diffusion is uneven over time and
space. production and consumption of the Internet
varies from place to place
Building a network
A network of networks
form the Internet
•
the Internet is not a single network, it's a
collection of networks.
• thousands of separate networks - owned by
businesses, universities, governments, and other
organizations - linked up to share traffic and form
the global Internet
your Internet experience depends on the slowest
link in the chain
•
the Internet is a network of networks
some of the Internet’s networks
‘rules’ that make the Internet
work
• Its all about ‘inter networking’
• linking together thousands of networks requires:
– common protocols (speaking the same language)
called TCP/IP (transmission control
protocol/internet protocol)
– unique addresses (finding the right location)
– algorithms to route data (moving stuff)
• each network is owned/managed by distinct
organisation, with own goals and priorities.
however, they can only interconnect successfully if
they follow the ‘rules’
The geography of the Internet
• many metrics to quantitatively describe the
geographies of the Internet
– people, language, by access type and cost, (freedom
of access?)
– number of computers
– network links and traffic flows
– content production, economic geography
– institutions and law
– social practices
• considered at many scales - local -> global
People - how many online?
(Source: OECD Communications 2003 Report)
People with fast access?
(Source: OECD Communications 2003 Report)
People - how many online by language ?
(Source: www.global-reach.biz/globstats)
Geographic density of Internet routers
Modeling the internet 's large-scale topology, http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/cond-mat/0107417
Digital divides
• narrowly defined as unequal access and use of IT and,
in particular, the Internet
• (of course there have always been spatial and social
inequalities in access to technology)
• hot political topic in the late 90s, but less so now
• location is often a significant determining factor for
individuals and and business
–
–
–
–
can you get access?
how much will the access cost?
how reliable is access?
are you free to access any web sites? (monitoring, censorship)
• seeking to even out the inequalities
• cleavages of digital divide can be analysed by
income, gender, race, age, education, geography
(rural-urban), disability, etc, etc
• naïve belief in technology as a ‘quick fix’ to social
problems. ‘just give the poor kids laptops’
• lack of understanding of complex relationships
between ‘technology’ and the ‘social’
• it more than just basic access issue (‘haves’ and
‘have nots’)
• issues of skills, content, and control
• fundamental issues of distribution of power
• digital divide is just the latest visible manifestation
of deep seated and persistent inequalities in wealth
and power in society
• the diffusion of consumption of Internet has been rapid
in last few years. significant disparities in material
access are fast disappearing
• but the problem of the ‘rich get richer’, Castells’s
says:
• “… it could well happen that while the huddled masses finally
have access to the phone-line Internet, the global elites will
have already escaped into a higher circle of cyberspace.”
(Internet Galaxy, p. 256)
• power and control in Internet production remain highly
concentrated in a few companies and a few places
• Internet reinforcing existing core - periphery
inequalities
Internet’s unequal geography
• Lets look at geographical variation in
Internet infrastructure and use
• range of scales
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–
–
–
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global
national
city
local
family (see work of Gill Valentine, ‘cyberkids’)
How many online in UK?
• OFTEL consumer use of the Internet report, July’03
• 47% UK homes have Internet access
• 58% UK homes have a PC
• 15% Internet homes use broadband (according to subscriber
figures)
(Source: http://www.oftel.gov.uk/)
July’03
(Source: http://www.oftel.gov.uk/)
August’02
July’03
(Source: http://www.oftel.gov.uk/)
Significant regional
variation in Internet
access rates
(Source: http://www.e-envoy.gov.uk )
(Source: E-London and the London Plan)
Scale of digital divide
• City versus Hackney
• the City is one of most ‘wired’ places on the
planet
• yet virtually all connections and capacity
bypass geographically adjacent areas of
Hackney
• allows powerful elites to further disengage
from their local environment and at the same
time deepen connection with elites half a world
away
• Internet does not render place meaningless, it
makes it easier to exploit difference between
places
Reading for this lecture
• Key article
• Barney Warf (2001) “Segueways into cyberspace:
multiple geographies of the digital divide”
• Castells, Internet Galaxy, chapters 8, 9
– The geography of the Internet
– The digital divide in a global perspective
Readings for this lecture
• Supplemental readings:
• Ed Malecki, (2002) "The Economic Geography of the
Internet's Infrastructure”
• Anthony Townsend (2001) "The Internet and the rise of the
new network cities, 1969-1999"
• Brian Hayes, (1997) “The infrastructure of the
information infrastructure”
• Greater London Authority (2002), The Digital Divide in a
World City, June 2002
• Janet Abbate, Inventing the Internet
Next steps
• Friday’s practical gets you exploring Internet
geography
– watch a short animated film on ‘how the Internet works’
– mapping the routes of data flows through the Internet
– putting the results on a new web page