I wonder whether it is the source of equity that we sometimes think that it is. Access is often confused with equity. We have overlaid new technologies across already embedded inequities and the promises of new relationships between the haves and the have nots have simply not materialised. In our passion for the tools we may have lost sight of our projects and be beuilding more edifices which reinforce the income and life style differences rather than dismantling them. People need social and intellectual capital in large quantities to be able To 'take advantage ' of the new technologies.
Access alone is no guarantee of increasing equity.
Those with the skills to exploit and profit from the new media will prosper and others will be users in precisely the same positions that they occupy now. A new set of tools doesn't mean a whole new order will appear. Struggling for your life in Ethiopia will not be altered by supplying technological access. 2.I too am concerned that the critical skills that allow humans to decode and assess the validity of the medium and the information disseminated are not regarded as passionately as the medium itself. This breeds sometimes a kind of technological amorality.