Draft copy of paper presented by Mark Warschauer at the University of California,
Los Angeles, March 6, 10. Please do not quote.
The Internet and Social Access:
Dissecting the Digital Divide
Today I’m going to talk about what is referred to as the “Digital Divide,” in
other words, the supposed gap between those who have and don’t have access to the
Internet. In thinking about this talk, I remember what critics used to say about the
upheaval in China called the “Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution”. There were
only four problems with it—it wasn’t Great, it wasn’t Proletarian, it wasn’t Cultural,
and it wasn’t Revolutionary. Well, today, then let’s consider what is called the
“Digital Divide”. Perhaps you can guess what my two criticisms of the notion are:
First, there isn’t a divide, and second, it isn’t digital.
Why do I say there is not a divide when there is obviously so much
information inequality? Simply because that inequality is spread of a continuum, or
actually over a series of parallel continua, rather than simply falling into a binary
opposition, with some groups or individuals completely “online” and some “offline.”
As pointed out recently by Cisler (2000), those of us who are connected have a
variety of degrees of connectivity, and those without Internet access also have diverse
ways of getting information from new media sources. Compare, for example, a
professor at UCLA with a T1 connection in her office, a student in Seoul who uses an
Internet Cafe, and a rural activist in Indonesia who has no computer or phone line but
whose colleagues in her NGO download information for her. The notion of a binary
divide is thus inaccurate, and can be patronizing, as it fails to value the social
resources that diverse groups bring to the table.
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Secondly, and even more significantly, the stratification that does exist
regarding access to information, communication, and publishing opportunities online
has very little to do with the Internet per se--in that sense it is not “digital”-- but has
everything to do with political, economic, institutional, cultural, and linguistic
contexts which shape the meaning of the Internet in people’s lives. The notion of a
digital divide suggests that the divide can be giving someone an Internet address and
email account. But far from it. Within 10-20 years, or maybe sooner, it is safe to
predict that the Internet, or its next incarnation, will be ubiquitous in the United
States, connecting not only computers, but also televisions, video game machines,
mobile phones, and maybe even refrigerators and toasters. Does anybody reasonably
expect that the universality of the Internet will by itself overcome information
inequality? If anything, we are moving in the opposite direction.
I’m not suggesting that we all stop using the phrase “digital divide,” as it has
important social currency now. What I am suggesting is that we critique the concepts
behind it and develop in its place a social model of access to new media technologies.
I hope that my talk today will be a modest step in that direction, and I do intend to
introduce and describe such a model. Before doing, a few more words of conceptual
and theoretical framework.
In critiquing the “digital divide” it is useful to compare it to the other great
social divide which was widely discussed a generation ago, and still is to some extent,
and that is the so-called “great literacy divide.” According to this theory, prominent
among some academics such as Goody (1968; 1973; 1988)and Havelock (1963;
1986), individuals and/or societies could be divided up into whether they were literate
or not, with far-ranging cognitive and social consequences automatically determined
by this distinction. Over the last 20 years though, in-depth research, including that by
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Scribner and Cole (1981)with the Vai people in Liberia, who were literate in their
own language but had never gone to school, revealed that literacy in and of itself
brought virtually no cognitive or social benefits, and that almost all the benefits
associated with literacy came instead with the other social activities which surrounded
it, such as schooling. Social and critical theorists of literacy have thus proposed a few
key points that I think are worthwhile in our consideration of new media access.

There is not just one, but many types of literacy (Cope & Kalantzis, 2000; Gee,
1996)

Literacies exists on a continuum (Gee, 1996)

Literacy alone brings no automatic benefit (Scribner & Cole, 1981)

Literacy is given meaning in social contexts (Gee, 1996)

Acquisition of literacy is a matter not only of education and culture, but also of
power (Street, 1984)
Perhaps the most important of these are that literacy achieves its meaning only in
social context, and often as a result of struggles for power. As you can see, I would
suggest that the same framework can apply to our consideration of new media access.
This discussion relates to a broader theoretical point, which is that of
technological and media determinism. Technological determinists (e.g., Ellul, 1980;
1990)hold the view that it is technology itself which inevitably spells certain results.
Hard technological determinism, which holds these results as virtually automatic has
been proven to be wrong. One of the most compelling counter-examples is the first
invention of the printing press in China and Korea some 1000 years before it was
“invented” in Europe. It had little impact in China and was discarded for a
millennium (Eisenstein, 1979). “Soft” determinism holds that new technologies and
3
media can facilitate or make possible new social developments, and that is of course
true (see discussion in Levinson, 1997). However, more valuable that this is what
Feenberg (1991)and others have called a critical theory of technology. From this
perspective, a technology is not neutral, nor are its effects automatic. Rather, the
features in the technology imbedded in its history and design carry certain biases.
Those biases then help shape the social struggle over how the technology is put to
use. As in the theory of literacy mentioned above, acquisition of and use of new
media technologies is thus a battleground, shaped by social context and the historical
and design features of that medium. The Internet is shaped by several features of
history and design. First of all, it stems from a recent history of expanded and
differentiated access to media. A generation or two ago, all of us were sitting around
with our families watching the same 3 television stations and listening to a relatively
small number of radio stations. Today, media consumers in industrialized countries
can choose between scores of cable television stations – heard live or recorded on
VCR – and also choose between dozens of specialized radio stations and hundreds of
magazines targeted to special audiences and sub-. This diversification of media has
also intensified social stratification, with what one watches, listens to, or reads,
shaped by one’s socio-economic, cultural, and educational background. This trend is
heightened by the Internet, which allows a limitless number of individualized
channels of communication but which requires special means and skills to access
them (see discussion of this issue in Castells, 1996).
Beyond the history that preceded the Internet is the important history of the
Internet itself, which resulted in features that are now imbedded in the technology.
The Internet, and indeed the personal computer, were developed mostly by engineers
in a North American context. They devised them so they work easily with the
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A Social Model of Online Access
Political, Economic, Social, Educatio nal, & Language Policy
Institutions
Institutional Reform
Communities
Social Capital
Design
Features
of the
Internet
Texts
Critical Multiliteracies
Stratification by Nation, Class, Race, Gende r, Language
(Warsc hauer, 2000)
English language and paid little attention to non-roman dialects, thus seriously
effecting other people’s access around the world. They designed a system to be
accessed via local telephone connections—virtually free in the US but expensive
around the world, again seriously impacting other people’s impact. The Internet was
designed to be used, in its first iterations, in mainframe and personal computers,
easily accessible to university and military engineers, but not so affordable or easy to
use for people around the world. All these features help shape how the Internet has
been used. But “shape” does not mean “determine”. There is certainly much room to
struggle to reshape who has access to the Internet and for what purposes they are able
to use it, but to do so will necessitate thinking about the Internet in the appropriate
context. We must focus not so much on digital division but rather on social access.
Let me today take a beginning step toward this end, by introducing a model of social
access and discussing it in light of past, present, and future communication research.
This model takes as a beginning point that the most important issues of access
have to do with the social relations that are formed around use of the Internet.
Lievrouw (1996; in press)has drawn out how access to information content takes
5
precedence over access to telecommunications services. I extend this work to
examine three types of relations that help make meaningful access to and use of
content possible. One of these is institutional, and the main questions to be
addressed there is what kinds of institutional reform does introduction of the
Internet facilitate or hinder, and how does institutional reform in kind influence the
use of the Internet. The second area of social relations has to do with communities,
and the key question is how is the Internet used to help or hinder the development of
social capital. The third area of social relations has to do with texts, and the question
to be considered what kinds of what I call “critical multiliteracies” are valuable for
effective use of the Internet. These three areas of social relations are overlapping and
interconnected; each one affects, and is affected by, the other two.
These relationships are conditioned by a number of variables. First of all, the
Internet has design features imbedded within it that influence how it is used.
Secondly, the policy decisions that numerous actors take in the areas of politics,
economics, education, and language policy, all influence the use of the Internet.
Finally, the use of the Internet intersects with pre-existing social stratifications in
society related to nation and nationality, class, race, gender, and language, which also
effect the use of the Internet. This then is the overall purpose: to examine what kinds
of social relations are formed in the context of Internet use, in regard to institutions,
people, and texts, and how these social relations are mediated by issues such as
design, by policy, and by social diversity. This model does not discuss every single
social factor that may affect, or by affected by, use of the Internet, but it attempts to
capture the major features.
Now let’s examine the three main areas of social relations and discuss each
one in the context of research. In doing so, I will discuss the others, and refer to my
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own research that I have conducted in Singapore, Egypt, and Hawai’i, three places
that represent a range of issues related to information inequality, with Singapore being
one of the more connected countries on earth, Egypt, having few connections to the
Internet, and Hawai’i representing a place with a high degree of stratification of
access based on class and nationality, with the Native Hawaiian community having
the least access to education and media resources, but now engages in creative efforts
to expand those resources.
Institutions and Institutional Reform
The first area has to do with institutional reform. Since virtually all of
economic, political, and social life is mediated by institutions, it is critical to consider
the interaction between new media technologies and these institutions (Agre, 1999,
September). Simply put, the right institutional climate can help provide people more
meaningful access to new technologies, and the wrong climate can rob them of
meaningful access. The most important questions to be asked are, does the
introduction of new technologies bring about necessary institutional reform, and how
does the introduction of institutional reform help or hinder use of new media
technologies. Some of the most interesting research in this area has been done in
business, for example by Zuboff (1988) of Harvard Business School. She carried out
ethnographic research of 8 US companies in diverse types over a period of five years,
examining the use and impact of new information technologies in the firms. From her
research, she came up with the important distinction between automating and
informating. Simply put, when many companies first introduced information
technology, they thought they would be able to “automate” their operations, part of
which involves removing power and control from individuals. However, though, new
information technologies actually have the ability to do the opposite, to divest more
7
power and control to individuals, and it is this spread of power and control that
Zuboff calls “informating” as opposed to “automating”. Basically, what she
discovered in her research was that those companies which were able to successfully
“informate” were those that made use of the new technologies, and those that didn’t
ran into problems, not the least of which were dissatisfied employees, whose
expectations had been raised by the potential of the new technologies. As Zuboff
explained, and I think this is a critical point to keep in mind as we consider issues of
institutional reform and social access, “the informating process sets knowledge and
authority on a collision course” (p. 310). The question still remains to what extent the
introduction of new technologies will bring about necessary restructuring, and the
answer is, not that much. Kling and Zmuidzinas (1994) examined the development of
40 work groups over a period of three years. Like Zuboff, they found that
transformation of organizational structure was not uniform, but depended on factors
such as managerial ideologies about appropriate work organization, the strategies for
implementing technological change, the social organization of technical support and
work, the occupational power of the worker and work group, and the degree of
integration of the computerization in the worklife of the user and workgroup. In other
words the broader social configuration of the workforce, and the means by which
different actors could struggle for their own visions, determined to what extent the
workplace evolved in a more democratic direction. And the changes that did occur
took years.
This issue of institutional change and reform, control from above vs. control
from below, takes place at all levels, and the results are fascinating to consider. Let
me consider one example at the governmental level and one at a ministerial level.
Starting with government policy, there is the interesting case of Singapore. A wealthy
8
country, you would think that Singaporeans would be considered “online” in any
binary division of online and offline. But in fact, to this day they are denied full
access to the Internet, and many people think this is impacting not only their own
individual possibilities but also the economic future of Singapore. Basically, though
Singapore is a wealthy country, much of its strength comes from being an
international business hub. It lacks a strong indigenous business class, has few startup business firms, and devotes relatively little money to research and development
(Chieh, 1999; Lee, 1999). All these factors contribute to Singapore’s low rate of what
is called “Total Factor Productivity" (TFP, see Low, 1999), defined as the
productivity with which capital and labor are combined, a measure of both technical
efficiency and technological progress (Pack & Page, 1992, cited in Low, 1999). In
shorthand, Singapore needs to reform its economy if it can sustain its economic
growth. This has spurred its leaders to pour huge amounts of money into information
technology to try to develop the country into what they call an “Intelligent Island”
(Sandfort, 1993). But here’s the catch, to do so, they need to informate their people,
and their willingness to do so has not yet been established. All media in Singapore
are tightly controlled, and the Internet is no exception. In 1996, when the Internet had
reached a critical mass in Singapore, the authorities passed draconian restrictions on
what people could access (Rodan, 1998). These were later eased, but not eliminated,
following national and international protests in 1997 (Warschauer, in press). The topdown political control in Singapore, which also affects the country’s educational
system (Warschauer, 1999b), is probably a major reason why Singaporeans produce
relatively little Internet content compared to what they consume; indeed, in one recent
study Singapore fell together in a category with Vietnam, Sri Lanka, and Bolivia as
“content consumers” rather than producers (Zook, 2000). The Singaporean leaders are
9
in a bind; they want to create a Silicon Valley type economy but they are unwilling,
yet, to allow a Singapore Valley type society, based on free-wheeling, open access to
information and reward for those that take risks. Now Singaporeans are continuing to
oppose these restrictions, and are apparently winning some support from within the
government. For example, the country's most prominent newspaper recently
published a critical essay by two prominent figures with close ties to the
government—one of whom was in fact the head of the national computer board and
thus the main architect of Singapore’s IT strategy. The essay questioning the
feasibility and wisdom of tight government control of the Internet or other media in
an era when a free flow of information is required for social and economic
development (Yeo & Mahizhnan, 1999). As the authors state, “the advent of
unprecedented information technologies will make unilateral control virtually
impossible” and in any case undesirable; information is the “lifeblood” of Singapore’s
evolving economy and that its “unfettered flow will be vital to its health” (p. 34). Just
the fact that such arguments are aired publicly in Singapore is a welcome
development. Whether the policy changes recommended will be implemented is
another question, but it is an interesting example of the struggle for institutional
reform in order to achieve meaningful access, because most of us would agree that
you don’t have meaningful access to the Internet if you can’t use it to find and publish
critical information. I think it will be a fascinating case to watch in coming years to
see whether a high-tech modern economy is or is not compatible with authoritarian
government, and, if not, which gives push to the other.
A second example comes from a completely different context, Egypt, where
I’ve been working for two years and studying the introduction of new information
technologies. With only 1/4 of 1% of its people online, Egypt would be considered by
10
most to be on the “offline” side of a digital divide. Internet use is held down thereby a
number of factors, including inefficient public monopoly of telecommunications (a
critical factor in many countries of the world), low literacy rate, high expense of
owning computers, lack of Arabic operating systems, and low knowledge of English.
But it is expanding rapidly—supposedly one of the fastest growth rates in the world-and now includes more than 100,000 people (Mintz, 1999). As in Singapore, the
government is aggressively promoting information technology, in this case to better
globally as part of Egypt’s desired transformation to a modern market economy. This
has led the government to throw huge amounts of money into the introduction of
information and communication technologies into the schools, building an
infrastructure which include a national multi-point videoconference network that
rivals anything found within California; a digital satellite system with 5 television
stations broadcasting to digital receivers in some 20,000 schools; and computer
laboratories with software libraries, LCD displays and Internet access (at least in
theory) in almost every school in the country, all supported by a national technology
development center staff of more than 600 full-time employees.
Unfortunately, though, this money has almost all been wasted, and it stems
from the same contradiction between knowledge and authority mentioned earlier.
The structure of the Ministry of Education, and the Technology Development Center,
is extremely hierarchical, reflecting the traditional style of government organization in
an authoritarian country as well as the special political sensitivity of information and
education. The four top leaders of the Technology Development center are all retired
military generals, and none of them has a functioning computer on his desk. Nobody
at any lower level can make the simplest decision. Try to ask a teacher in a school to
borrow a copy of the Educational Ministry CD ROMs that the Ministry of Education
11
reproduces, and you will be bumped upstairs one step at a time until you finally have
to ask the vice-minister of education for permission. The multimedia labs at the
schools are kept locked up and seldom used, and teachers who are bold enough to use
the labs are forbidden from using any software other than that approved by the
Ministry, and in some cases are even forbidden from writing anything on the
Microsoft Office programs which are already on the computer, so as not to give
“viruses”. Internet access is almost impossible, because for security reasons, all
phone calls must be routed through ministry offices, so the more reliable method of
dialing directly to Internet Service Providers, is forbidden, as is any wireless access.
Any new technologies that are used in education are for one-way
transmission, of information, with the standard Ministry curriculum transferred
uncreatively onto CD ROMs and TV satellite programs. The training teachers
receive, if any, seldom involves any hands on workshops, such as this educational
technology workshop pictured in the Ministry’s own publication. This kind of
training leads to rather odd visions of student self-directed learning, as pictured here
as well. Meanwhile, in contrast to the huge wasted funds on expensive technologies,
classrooms are starved of practical materials that teachers could actually use, such as
simple tape recorders, and tens of thousands of children drop out of school every year
since there families can’t afford the annual school fees. In summary, the failures of
educational technology in Egypt are monumental, and represent a textbook case of the
insignificant value of hardware, software, and Internet lines in the face of a
dysfunctional institutional environment. Some positive efforts of children’s computer
education is taking place, for example in rural computer clubs organized by NGOs,
but this is taking place entirely outside the realm of the Ministry of Education.
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Research I carried out in Hawai’i reveals a similar phenomenon at the
classroom level (Warschauer, 1998a;1999a). I found that all the teachers that I
worked with at first amplified their own previous teaching beliefs and visions; in
other words, rather than re-arranging the classroom completely, they did more
thoroughly what they were doing before, this time with technology though. For those
who were open to “informating” their students, this worked out well. For those who
weren’t, they ran into conflicts, as in Zuboff’s study, where students became
frustrated and rebelled against restrictive uses of computers and the Internet. Thus
educational research seems to support research in other sectors. Introduction of
technology does not by itself bring about reform. It creates positive conditions for a
more decentralized form of communication, and organizations that are able to move
in that direction usually get positive results. Organizations that refuse to carry out
some level of decentralization will likely run into conflicts and tensions, as the
collision between knowledge and authority comes into play.
Communities: Enhancing Social Capital
As the example of the Egyptian Ministry of Education shows, not all
institutions are reformed at the same speed, if at all. How else can the Internet help
make meaningful differences in people’s lives? In this sense, it’s necessary to look at
how people make use of the Internet as a general source of networking with people,
rather than as a medium of communication within a particular organization. This,
includes, for example, the thousands of e-mail discussion groups which are organized
within and outside institutions all over the world, the numerous Web sites developed
by individuals and community groups, the chat rooms, etc.
A useful theoretical framework for evaluating the role of this kind of
community-building is that of Social Capital. Based on the work of sociologists such
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Social Capital
z Child AХs mother has
poor educational
background
z She helps her child
with homework a lot
z She has low human
capital
z He has high social
capital
z Child BХs mother has
excellent educational
background
z SheХs too busy to
help him with
homework
z She has high human
capital
z He has low social
capital
as Pierre Bourdieu (1977; 1986; Bourdieu and Passeron, 1986) and James Coleman
(1988), Social Capital refers to the benefits that one can potentially receive from
participating in communities and networks. These benefits might come in the form of
information, support, guidance, or other forms of preferential treatment. It differs
from the concept of Human Capital in important ways, as seen by the example on the
screen.
Social capital is an extremely important sociological category for
understanding marginalization, because marginalized members of society have less
social capital to draw on (as well as less of other kinds of capital, including human,
physical, and financial capital). A good deal of research has been done, for example,
on minority students’ performance in schools in relationship to social capital. Simply
put, while middle class students have the kinds of social ties who can provide them
the resources, information, guidance, and support for the complex process of
succeeding in school and going to college, whereas minority students usually have
less of this form of social capital (Bourdieu & Passeron, 1986; Stanton-Salazar,
1997).
The Internet, through giving people more possibilities of extending their social
interaction, can provide opportunities for enhancement of social capital, and, again,
this can be especially beneficial to those who are most lacking in social capital, as
Agre has pointed out (Agre, 1999a; 1999b; 1999, October). One study was done of
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cancer patients using the Internet to share information (Feenberg, cited in Agre,
1999b). An article recently appeared about how the Internet has helped make
possible an entirely new way of life among gays in China (Pomfret, 2000). And the
concept of social capital is especially important as regards non-governmental
organizations. Hirata (2000) just completed a five year study of the growing role of
NGOs in Japan involved in a range of international issues, including human rights,
environmental protection, and sustainable development. She’s found that such NGOs
have grown tremendously over the last two decades, and though she didn’t use the
term, it’s clear from her research that this is largely due to their increased social
capital. Most NGOs in Japan are small and lack funds. They’ve had a difficult time
getting information and have been isolated from NGOs in the U.S. or Europe. The
growth of the Internet and other new media technologies has, according to Hirata,
been one important factor helping NGOs to enhance their social capital. First, it
allows them updated sources of information. Secondly, it allows them to network and
organize better among the members of their own NGO, other NGOs in Japan, and
international NGOs around the world. And finally, the greater exposure to
international sources of information that new media technologies have introduced,
including not only the Internet, but also cable television, has helped introduce new
norms of international responsibility among the Japanese public, thus also
strengthening the social capital of those working for change. (For a more general
discussion of NGOs and networking, see O’Neill, 1999).
There are several important points to bear in mind when considering the
impact of new media technologies on social capital. First, networking online is not
isolated from other types of networking, but rather is mutually constitutive with it.
Agre (1997) explains this well in his discussion of academic networking online within
15
an overall strategy of academic networking. This is also seen in the situation of the
Women’s Solidarity Network in Indonesia, which I mentioned earlier, which channels
information back and for the between “online” and supposedly “offline” members in
order to best take advantage of different sources of information (Setyowati, 2000,
February 8).
A second thing is that the reproduction or enhancement of social capital does
not come spontaneously. As Bourdieu (1986) has pointed out, it presupposes “an
unceasing effort of sociability, a continuous series of exchanges in which recognition
is endlessly affirmed and reaffirmed. Online networking takes far more than an
Internet account. Often it takes a combination of financial capital (e.g., access to a
computer), human capital (e.g., literacy), and social capital to get started on using the
Internet, or to learn how to use it effectively. How many of us first learned to use the
Internet from friends and colleagues who showed us? This is another case way where
you may have to have resources in order to earn resources (see discussion in
Bourdieu, 1986) --- which is another reason why information technology is proving to
be a stratifying force, rather than an equalizing force, in society.
A third point I want to mention is the close relationship between social capital
and institutional reform. One of the reasons that institutional reform helps allow more
effective use of the Internet is that it can drastically increase the social capital of
members of an organization, thus strengthening the overall power of the group. But,
and here’s the tricky point, since the lower-rung members of the group start with the
least amount of social capital, in many situations it may increase their social capital
more than the higher-rung members, at least when compared relatively (Sproull &
Kiesler, 1991). This is a challenge for authoritarian institutions that value both
“growth” and “stability,” with stability defined as protecting the power of those in
16
power. This puts another light on the notion on the contradiction of knowledge and
authority discussed by Zuboff.
Related to this last point, not only does institutional reform help create more
social capital at the bottom rungs of an organization, but the reverse is of course true.
Those who are trying to change institutions to make them more responsive, can resort
to the formation or participation of new types of community, inside or outside the
institution, either to organize to change the institution or as an end-run around the
problems they are having within the institution. Indeed, one important question that
has been raised is whether the decrease in organizational participation in the US is in
part due to increased exchange of social capital outside organizational (e.g., on the
Internet; see discussion in Agre, 1998, October). This is also a question of further
examination.
To summarize, most people at the margins are there in part because they lack
social capital. The Internet can be a potential equalizer in this regard, by giving them
increased opportunities for social capital that they wouldn’t normally have---access to
information, a place to go for guidance or support, introduction to new norms and
expectations. However, those who already HAVE social capital, ironically, have a
better chance of getting more of it through the Internet. An important role for
progressive groups who want to enhance the social access of marginalized groups is
helping them find ways to use the Internet to increase their social capital. This is
much more labor intensive than just signing someone up for a free Internet account.
It means working with groups of people to help them define their needs, find
appropriate groups or organize their own groups, develop content appropriate to their
social situation and lives, etc.
17
Texts: Critical Multiliteracies
Social capital, and indeed institutional reform, are closely related to the last
point, which I will refer to as critical multiliteracies. Critical multiliteracies stems
from two traditions, that of critical literacy (e.g., Lankshear, 1994; McLaren, 1988;
Warschauer, 1997)and that of multiliteracies {(Cope & Kalantzis, 2000; New London
Group, 1996). Critical literacy is an approach to links literacy instruction to
becoming empowered to critically interpret and change the world. As Freire and
Macedo (1987)wrote:
Reading the world always precedes reading the word, and reading the word
implies continually reading the world…In a way, however, we can go further
that reading the word is not preceded merely by reading the world, but by a
certain form of writing it or rewriting it, that is, of transforming it means of
conscious, practical work (p. 35).
I believe that the concept of critical literacy is especially well suited for
thinking about the Internet for a number of reasons. First of all, the Internet is so
filled with worthless information that it is almost impossible to use without
substantial critical interpretive ability. Secondly, and quite importantly, the Internet
allows people the possibility of much greater agency than before through international
communication and publishing, again, if they learn forms of communication which
are powerful and which express their own sense of identity. My understanding of the
need for critical literacy in computer-enhanced education came from a comparative
study I did of technology and school reform in two schools in Hawai’i, one a wealthy
private school of mostly white and Asian students and one an impoverished public
school of mostly Hawaiian and Samoan students (Warschauer, 2000b). The study
indicated that both schools had carried out very similar type of educational reform,
encompassing collaborative project-based learning, flexible schedules,
interdisciplinary courses, etc.—all the things that educational reformers have found to
18
be of value for supporting effective use of new media technologies. But, the content
of what they were learning was dramatically different, with students in the wealthy
carrying out research projects which allowed them to critically interpret, and yes,
work toward changing their environment, whereas students in the poor school were
basically developing limited content newsletters and Web pages about their own
personal and social activities. This was evidence of the need to combine institutional
reform with critical literacy to make best use of new media technologies.
The second source of this concept is “multiliteracies.” Multiliteracies
emphasizes that the text-bound forms of communication in a single standard dialect of
English are no longer sufficient in today’s world (New London Group, 1996).
Students need to communicate effectively making use of a variety of media as well as
multiple dialects or languages. The first of these points will probably be obvious to
people in this audience. The days of “computer-assisted instruction” are over, when
the computer was thought of as an optional learning tool, but unrelated to the learning
outcome. Today, learning to master the computer for socially powerful forms of
creating multimedia and finding and analyzing information is invaluable for young
people’s future. The second point, of multiple dialects and languages, may seem less
intuitive, since a strong majority of the world’s most economically valued information
is available mostly in English. But if we are to truly work for access for people of
diverse languages, both inside the US and around the world, we have to look beneath
the surface. First of all, there is strong growth of other languages online, and English
will only represent a minority of international web sites in a few years (Graddol,
1997). But secondly, even for those who know English, the use of other languages in
online interaction is proving to be a resilient mechanism of intergroup
communication, and thus is valuable for allowing people to express their own identity
19
(Warschauer, 1998b; Warschauer, 2000a) and, to use the terms discussed earlier,
increase their social capital—since building a sense of trust and camaraderie is an
important part of social capital, and using ones own language or dialect is a critical
way to build trust. This has come up in my own research in Egypt, for example,
where we have found in our surveys and interviews that 100% of the young
professionals that we have interviewed use only English in their formal e-mail
communications, but fully half of them use a romanized form of colloquial Arabic in
their informal e-mail and chatting (Warschauer, Refaat, & Zohry, 2000). Language is
not a problem but a tremendous social resource, and by incorporating multiple
dialects and languages in a critical literacy perspective educators can help learners
draw on and share this resource. This was seen as well in my research in Singapore
(Warschauer, 1999b), where the government leaders seek to impose standard English
so that students can communicate better with the world using new media
technologies. The people themselves, however prefer to communicate to a large
extent in their own local dialect, called Singlish (see Pakir, 1997), precisely to better
protect and share their own cultural resource during the era of globalization and the
Internet. As an anonymous Singaporean poet wrote (in Singlish, on the Internet, of
course):
Wah! I heard we all now got big debate.
They said future of proper English is at stake.
All because stupid Singlish spoil the market,
want to change now donno whether too late…
Now we must play Internet otherwise cannot survive.
Next time the only way to make money, or sure to die.
When other countries' influences all enter,
we sure kena (to get) affected left, right and centre.
20
Sekali (all of a sudden) our Singaporean identity all lost until donno go where.
Even Orang-Utan Ah Meng starts thinking like a Polar Bear (cited in Warschauer,
1999b).
The last two paragraph refer to how all of a sudden, with the Internet,
Singaporean identity will be scattered all over, and that even Ah Meng, the country’s
favorite orangutan in the zoo, will start acting like he’s a Polar Bear. The antidote to
this, which the poet expresses later in the poem, is to continue to treat Singlish like a
legitimate language.
Turning to a US context, I found similar results in my research with Native
Hawaiians, where their use of Hawaiian on the Internet proved to be a source of
strength for them in their community—especially when combined with multimedia,
which many Hawaiians feel allows them to communicate their cultural values better
than straight text (1998b; 1999a; Warschauer & Donaghy, 1997). This was an
important finding result because Native Hawaiians suffer from extremely poor
educational outcomes (Barringer, 1995), with many educators finding that that is due
in large part to means of communication and learning in school that don’t match their
own cultural patterns of interaction (Au, 1980; Martin, 1996; Sing, 1986). The work
they have done shows an excellent means of extending access: by developing content,
educational resources, and telecommunications project in their own language and
reflecting their cultural and political values and purposes. Here, for example, is a
screen shot of the Leoki (Powerful Voice) Multimedia Bulletin Board System, which
is completely in the Hawaiian language, and includes discussion chat, and bulletin
board features; resources areas with Hawaiian language newspaper articles, stories,
and songs; and language resources such as dictionaries. You’ll note from the menu in
Hawaiian that Hawaiians do not use English transliterations for computer
terminology. They have chosen instead to use words based on their own cultural
21
background (see discussion in Warschauer & Donaghy, 1997). The word ho’ouka,
for example, which means “upload,” is the Hawaiian word used for uploading gear to
a canoe.
If Native Hawaiians can find cultural value in carrying out online multimedia
projects, and doing so in their own language, that’s an important tool to be used in
trying to develop a more culturally appropriate education, and we should investigate
22
the possibilities of similar approaches in the U.S. mainland with other language
minority groups, especially the large Latino population in California and elsewhere.
Spanish is one of the fastest growing languages on the Internet, thus strengthening the
social capital that can be gained from its fluent use, and initial research indicates that
Latinos in the US view the Internet as an important medium for cultural expression
(Lillie, 1998).
Language, then, provides one more example of the top down vs. bottom up
issue discussed throughout this paper. With the decentralized communication across
multiple channels made possible by the Internet, allowing people more control of their
own means of communication becomes valuable---and that extends to their ability to
use multiple dialects, languages, or media.
Conclusion
I’ve covered a lot of ground in this talk, perhaps too much for one talk. But I
wanted to put out an overall view of how I see access online. The main conclusions
that can be drawn are as follows. First, computers, the Internet, other Internetconnected devices, will all become cheaper by many fold in the coming years. As this
happens, it will become clearer that Internet access alone does not solve the problems
of social stratification in use of new media technologies. What really matters is not so
much an account, but a voice. And for people of diverse racial, national, cultural,
class, and linguistic backgrounds to have a voice, they need democratic institutions,
social capital, and multiple literacies. If we can use the Internet to increase people’s
opportunities to reform their institutions, connect to communities, and read and write
the word and the world, then we will be working for the right kind of online access.
23
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