Frederick Noronha wrote:
I agree... What would be worse is if the "systemic bias" follows the traditional fault lines, which we have been so concerned about for so long. After all, the New Media and its bottoms-up approach was meant to make things "different". That's why we have so much faith in it, and would like to invest our volunteer efforts here. Maybe, it is time we recognised this problem and began to deal with it: how do initiatives like the Wikipedia deal with non-English, non-visible, largely non-digitised and oral societies (which have wealth of their own, but not in a traditionally 'recognisable' sense)?
There's a kind of village mentality at play. I think it would be reasonable to guess that there are people living in the small rural villages of India who would be frightened to have anything to do with big cities. They are happy with their simple lives. It is nearly impossible to get them to think in bigger terms.
The New Media are indeed bottom-up (not bottoms-up ;-) ), and should make things different ... in theory. An effective bottom-up approach requires an ability to see a bigger picture, and recognizing that there are other villages far away that you will never see but where life is just as important as in your own village. Seeing this involves looking away from one's comfort zone, and risking the possibility that you may encounter other ideas that will turn your world upside down. It forces you to reconsider the paradigms that your ambient top-down culture has worked so hard to inculcate in you while you were a child.
The city has many villages. The net has many villages. It's just that unlike the rural village it's not as clearly defined. But the small village mentality is still there.
Ec