it is "analysis of a bilingual communication forum"

Analysis of a bilingual communication forum

Keniston: One of the great questions of the "information age" is how will computer technologies affect the existing disparities of rich and poor -- both within and between nations. Two major political and philosophical issues embedded in this question are equity and diversity. By equity, I refer to how resources, power, wealth, influence and access are distributed within a country and between countries, particularly between the developing countries and theso called "northern countries." Diversity refers to the extent to which the enormous number of historical cultures in the world will be enhanced and enlivened by the information age, or to what extent they will be obliterated and replaced. As a way of dramatizing these issues, I want to present two bad dreams.

My first bad dream is what I call the "rule of the digerati," where "digerati" refers to people who are digitallysavvy -- ashort hand definition of this is having a computer with access to e-mail and the web, in addition to other enabling technologiessuch as mobile phones or palm pilots. The "digerati" make up about 1% of the world's population. In the Unitedstates, about 47% of households have computers, and about half of those have Internet connections, andstill fewer have all the qualities of the "digerati." In India, about 2 tenths of 1% of the population has a telephone line, whilesignificantly less have the qualities of the "digerati." The bad dream is that in some future world, perhaps not too far away, there will essentially be a new ruling class made up of "digerati" that will consist of the tiny fraction of the world's population who will control the financial, economic and political resources, as well as the entertainment industry.

Mysecond bad dream involves the emergence of what I call global "monoculture," which issimilar to "cultural imperialism" -- that is tosay, it involves the hegemony or dominance of the English language and an Anglo culture with roots in the entertainment and advertising from North America and related countries. In true "cultural imperialism," the use of any other language is forbidden, and there are countries where this happens. But this bad dream is not aboutsuch "cultural imperialism." Instead, it is about a defacto "monoculture" in which the chief images in the media ultimately come from the Anglo culture. There might be advertisements for cultural diversity, and MTV might appear in Hindi orspanish, but the underlying culture is an Englishspeaking Anglo culture.such a "monoculture" subtly, but nonetheless effectively, puts other languages and cultures intosecond place, and makes those who are part of those cultures feelsomehow inadequate.some people think of this as an extension of American technological, military and economic power, while others take a less conspiratorial view. Either way, the consequence is that unless you are part of this Anglo culture, you tend to feel as if you are really not "with it".

I have deliberately given you two dark visions--one being the rule of the "digerati" which entails the widening ...