roundtable: Re: mobilization beyond commercial lobbying .....
roundtable: Re: mobilization beyond commercial lobbying .....
Re: mobilization beyond commercial lobbying .....
Rob Kling (kling@ics.uci.edu)
Sat, 13 May 1995 11:33:46 -0700
To: roundtable@cni.org
Subject: Re: mobilization beyond commercial lobbying .....
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Wed, 10 May 1995 09:39:24 EDT."
<950509192045_112846390@aol.com>
Date: Sat, 13 May 1995 11:33:46 -0700
From: Rob Kling <kling@ics.uci.edu>
Message-Id: <9505131133.aa07484@q2.ics.uci.edu>
Computerization Movements
and Tales of Technological Utopianism
Suzanne Iacono, Boston University
(siacono@acs.bu.edu)
Rob Kling, University of California, Irvine
(kling@ics.uci.edu)
March 8, 1995 (Draft 4.01)
-------------------------------
For: Computerization and Controversy: Value Conflicts and
Social Choices. 2nd Ed: Rob Kling (Ed). Academic Press,
1995.
----------------------------
INTRODUCTION
1993 was a watershed year for the promotion of
communications networks and computer technologies in the
United States. President Clinton and Vice President Gore
linked America's destiny with the creation of the National
Information Infrastructure (NII), a vision of universal access
to seamless computer networks and unlimited amounts of
information. The NII is a new concept for transforming the
lives of American people and revitalizing the economy (White
House, 1993). It promises to "unleash an information
revolution that will change forever the way people live, work
and interact with each other." While high-speed computer
networks, including the Internet, and related information
technologies have been widely used and written about by
computer specialists for many years, a recent explosion of
articles in the popular press has raised public awareness and
interest in the transforming potential of networked forms of
social life. Ordinary citizens, as well as those with special
interests in business or education, now resonate with the
government's framing of a national agenda to network the
nation.
This national campaign to promulgate social change
through the Internet and other communications networks is
also stimulated by organizations whose members have
long-standing interests in the development of networking
standards and other issues related to security, reliability and
civil liberties. Organizations such as the Internet Society
(ISOC), the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), Computer
Professionals for Social Responsibility (CPSR), and the
Center for Civic Networking (CCN) render new technologies
socially meaningful to the general public and advocate
positions in national debates about computing policy.
Beyond such organizations, there are coalitions of
organizations, such as the Federation of American Research
Networks (FARNET), an association whose members include
Internet service providers, telecommunications companies and
equipment vendors, and the Coalition for Networked
Information (CNI), a professional group which is supported
by three associations of academic institutions, EDUCOM,
CAUSE, and the Association of Research Libraries (ARL).
While the members and leaders of these diverse groups do not
agree on many issues (similar to differences among the
members and leaders of various environmental groups), they
are generally united in preferring a computerized future
premised on universal access over one that would perpetuate
the gap between the information haves and the information
have-nots.
Participation in these organizations has grown
considerably in the last several years. People who had
previously expressed little interest in computer networking
often want to be on the net even if they don't know exactly
what it is or what being on it will do for them. For example,
the Vice-President has promised to connect every classroom,
public library and health clinic to the NII. Many school
administrators and teachers eagerly seek to be connected, even
though they are not sure what kinds of materials will actually
be available for improving education. But being on the net has
become an important symbol of progress and accessibility.
Even the President and Vice-President have electronic mail
boxes and the White House recently announced a home page
on the World Wide Web. While some people may be drawn to
the excitement and transformational possibilities of computer
networking, others may simply fear being left out of an
important new social capability.
This discussion of the campaign to promote computer
networking illustrates how the spread of these technologies is
not simply the byproduct of ambitious marketing departments
in high-tech companies. The government, media, grass-roots
organizations and coalitions of organizations all communicate
favorable links between computerization and a transformed
social order which help legitimate relatively high levels of
computing investment for many potential adopters. While the
specific goals of these organizations and coalitions vary, they
all envision an extensively computerized future that is deemed
preferable to the less computerized world in which we
currently live.
Our argument challenges the belief that the adoption of
communications networks and computer technologies is based
solely on fine-grained rational calculations about how a
technology fits a set of tasks and the relative costs of
alternatives. The mobilization of support for extensive
computerization through loosely organized, but purposive,
collective action does not mean that computer technologies are
not useful to people and organizations. Many computer
systems have arguably made organizations more effective and
efficient. But large expenditures on the latest equipment and
systems are often out of proportion for the attained value
while social costs are typically ignored. What this suggests is
that computerization has important social and cultural
dimensions that are often neglected in discussions of the rise
of computer-based technologies and networking.
For example, the U.S. government's promise of universal
access to the NII and societal renewal through technology
resonates with key American beliefs about equal opportunity
and the pursuit of life, liberty and happiness. The government,
and others, construct utopian tales about these technologies to
render them socially meaningful and to mobilize large-scale
support. If the goal of the NII is to revitalize the economy or
enhance equal opportunity, who can disagree? Despite the fact
that goals such as economic renewal are complex problems
which continually elude us, people's hopes are renewed by the
promise of new technology. In fact, however, we know little
about how computer networking will be deployed, who will
benefit and who will lose.
The belief that computing fosters positive forms of
social life glosses over deep social and value conflicts that
social change can precipitate. Conflicts of interest among
groups such as labor, government, and higher education,
between workers and their managers, or between students and
teachers are ignored. Sacrifices that might accompany the
attainment of these goals, such as displaced workers or
teachers, are portrayed as minor unavoidable consequences.
Instead, computer technologies are linked to all socially
valuable behavior and are singled out as the panacea for all
social problems. We refer to these kinds of ideas and the
literatures that embrace them as "tales of technological
utopianism." They are easily spotted by the common, often
unexamined, assertion that computing technologies are the
single most important vehicles for moving us out of the "dark
ages" and into the 21st century. Such utopian accounts are
bloodless, portraying social change without reference to the
battles staged and the consequent winners and losers.
This paper is organized in the following way: in the next
section, we present several competing explanations for why the
U.S. is rapidly computerizing. Then, we describe the processes
by which computerization movements persist and recruit
members. Next, we illustrate these processes by focusing on
two specific computerization movements, computer-based
education and computer networking. We then discuss why the
emergence of a counter computerization movement is unlikely
and make some conclusions regarding the elite status of
computerization in the U.S. today.
WHY IS THE UNITED STATES RAPIDLY
COMPUTERIZING?
Computerization is the process of developing,
implementing and using computer systems for activities such
as teaching, accounting, writing, or designing circuits, for
example. Local actors make social choices about the levels of
appropriate investment, access to equipment and expertise, as
well as technical choices about what kinds of hardware and
software will be available. Many professionals, managers,
educators, and students are rapidly adopting computing
systems, while puzzling about ways to organize positive forms
of social life around them. By the early 1990s, computing and
telecommunications accounted for half of the capital
investments made by private firms (Dunlop & Kling, 1991).
The latest U.S. Census Bureau numbers indicate that
one-third of American workers used a computer at work in
1989, up from one-quarter in 1984 (Kominski, 1991). Today,
the Internet comprises over 31,000 interconnected networks
with 2.5 million computers attached (Wallich, 1994). Over
twenty million people currently have access to the Internet
and it is growing at a rate of one million new users a month
(Leiner, 1994). However, the most fervent advocates of
computerization have argued that the actual pace of
computerization in schools, offices, factories, and homes is
still too slow (Feigenbaum & McCorduck, 1983; Hodas, (this
volume); Lidtke & Moursand, 1993; Papert, 1980; Yourdon,
1986; also see Kaplan, 1983).
Why is the United States rapidly computerizing? One
common answer argues that computer-based technologies are
adopted because they are efficient economic substitutes for
labor or older technologies (Simon, 1977; Rule & Attewell,
1991). Rapid computerization is simply a byproduct of the
availability of cost-effective computing technologies. A variant
of this answer views computerization as an efficient tool
through which monopoly capitalists control their suppliers
and markets, and by which managers tighten their control
over workers and the labor process (Braverman, 1975;
Mowshowitz, 1976; Shaiken, 1985).
A second type of answer focuses on major epochal social
transformations and argues that the United States is shifting
from a society where industrial activity dominates to one in
which information processing dominates (Bell, 1979).
Computer-based technologies are power tools for information
or knowledge workers in the same way that drill presses were
the power-tools for the machinists of the industrial age
(Strassman, 1985).
These answers depend on two kinds of social actors:
computer vendors who devise and manufacture products for
sale and consumers (often managers or organizational
decision-makers) who purchase computer systems and services
because they meet an instrumental need which can be
determined by examining task structures or specific
organizational functions. Social influences from other
environmental actors, such as colleagues, trade associations
for the computing industry, professional societies, regulatory
agencies, and the numerous journalists who write about
innovations in computing are assumed to play minor roles. In
addition, the subjective meanings that people attribute to
computing, e.g., their value as cultural symbols, are
considered insignificant. This viewpoint has a strong
grounding in both the traditional bureaucratic view of
organizations in American sociology, and in conventional
economic analysis.
While each of these responses offers insight into
computerization processes, we believe that they ignore some of
the broadly noneconomic dimensions of computerization in
industrialized countries. The market assumptions of these
common answers have also shaped the majority of social
studies of computerization (See Kling, 1980, 1987 for a
detailed review of the empirical studies of computerization).
Over the past 15 years, our own research and participant
experiences have taught us that the adoption, acquisition,
installation and operation of computer-based systems are
often much more socially charged than the adoption and
operation of other equipment, like telephone systems,
photocopiers, air conditioners, or elevators. Participants are
often highly mobilized to adopt and adapt to particular
computing arrangements through collective activities that take
place both inside and external to computerizing organizations
(Kling & Iacono, 1984; 1988).
We argue that the rise of computer technologies and
networking is due to collective action similar to that of other
social movements, such as the environmental movement, the
antitobacco movement, the movement against drinking and
driving, or the woman's movement, for example. While each
has its own particular goals, e.g., clean air, elimination of
smoking in public places, reduced traffic accidents and deaths
from drunk driving, or equality of opportunity, they all focus
on correcting some situation to which they object or changing
the circumstances for a group that suffers some sort of social
disadvantage (Gamson, 1975). Similarly, advocates of
computerization focus on the creation of a new revolutionary,
world order where people and organizations use state-of-the
art computing equipment and the physical limitations of time
and space are overcome.
Not all movements are successful, however. Social
movement success has variously been defined as: social
acceptance, the accrual of new advantages, the creation of new
social policies or the implementation of new laws (Gamson,
1975). Still other analysts argue that the most important
outcome of a social movement is a shift in public perception.
For example, the movement against drinking and driving and
affiliated organizations like Mothers Against Drunk Driving
(MADD) have shifted public perception about "killer drunks"
so that state legislatures have raised the legal age for drinking
alcoholic beverages and lowered the acceptable level of blood
alcohol for drivers with little controversy or debate.
Similarly, organizations affiliated with computer
networking, such as CNI and CCN, as well as writers and the
popular press, have attempted to shift public perceptions
about computing technologies. Until recently, computer
networking was the province of serious scientists, nerds,
hackers and hobbyists. But new magazines, such as Wired and
ComputerLife, and writers, such as Rheingold (1993),
emphasize the "cool," often counter-cultural, side of computer
networking. Their articles focus on new-found freedoms, the
loosening of regulated behaviors or the emergence of
long-distance common-interest communities. Multi-user games
and chat rooms allow participants to take on identities from
other epochs or from fiction and play out their fantasies in
virtual night clubs and hot tubs (Quittner, 1994). Enthusiasts
of virtual communities argue that computer networking allows
people to expand their circle of friends and affiliate with them
at a community level (Rheingold, 1993). While virtual hot
tubbing and virtual communities are less visible than a march
on a state or national capital, similar to other social
movements, these activities challenge the status quo and offer
alternative visions of utopian social arrangements.
In this paper we examine how computerization
movements advance computerization in ways that go beyond
the effect of advertising and direct sales by the industries that
produce and sell computer-based technologies and services.
Our main thesis is that participants in computerization
movements, along with the media and the state, emphasize
technological progress and deflect competing beliefs, laying a
foundation for social visions that include the extensive use of
advanced computer systems. In this vision, computer users
actively seek and acquire the best computer technologies and
adopt to them regardless of their associated costs. These
processes also frame adopters' expectations about what they
should use computing for and how they should envision the
future. In the next sections, we focus our attention upon the
character of computerization movements and their organizing
beliefs, paying less attention to the ways in which social
movements serve as social worlds for participants.
Computerization Movements
Sociologists have used the concept movement to refer to
many different kinds of collective action. The most common
term found in this literature is social movement, often used in
a generic way to refer to movements in general. But
sociologists also have written about professional movements
(Bucher & Strauss, 1961), artistic movements, and scientific
movements (Aronson, 1984; Star, in press). What analyses of
these movements share is a focus on the rise of organized,
insurgent action to displace or overcome the status quo and
establish a new way of life. Computerization movements
(CMs) are no different. Large-scale computerization projects
are typically accompanied by political struggle and turmoil as
the established structure is threatened and powerful actors
fear being displaced (Kling & Iacono, 1984; 1988).
Historically, those who advocate radically new forms of
computerization find themselves in the role of challengers of
the status quo.
Our analysis of the development and maintenance of
CMs is focused on two key processes: 1.) the ways in which
movements persist over time through Computerization
Movement Organizations (CMOs); and 2.) the ways in which
computerization movements recruit participants.
COMPUTERIZATION MOVEMENT ORGANIZATIONS
In order for any social movement to persist over time,
pioneering activists create more enduring organizational
structures than those embodied in emergent and informal
groups. These organizations are entities capable of taking
social action. They can raise money, mobilize resources, hold
meetings and formulate positions (Gamson, 1975). For
example, the Moral Majority (an organization in the Christian
Right) raised 2.2 million dollars via mass mailing campaigns
during its initial year. These funds were used to appeal to
other religious conservatives and to tie them into the
organization's network (Snow et al., 1986).
Similarly, CMs persist over time with the help of
Computerization Movement Organizations. These are
organizations or coalitions of organizations like FARNET,
CNI and CCN which act as advocacy groups for the CM. They
generate resources, structure membership expectations,
educate the public and ensure the presence of recognized
leaders who can lend their prestige and interorganizational
connections to the movement (McAdam, 1982; McCarthy &
Zald, 1977). For example, CNI has task force members from
170 institutions and organizations, including major
universities and corporations, all of whom contribute
resources and time to the mission of the coalition.
Since movements are not monolithic, they may have any
number of organizations affiliated with them. For example, the
civil rights movement in the 1960s and 1970s consisted of the
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
(NAACP), the Black Muslims, the Southern Christian
Leadership Conference (SCLC), the Congress of Racial
Equality (CORE), and the Black Panthers, among others
(McAdam, 1982). Each had its own particular interests to
push and under some circumstances worked with the other
organizations to achieve their goals. In other cases, these
organizations were in direct conflict about strategies and
insurgent tactics. Similarly, the CMOs affiliated with
computerization movements have different foci. During
periods of crisis or opportunity, they may work in concert with
each other. For example, the NII has galvanized many CMOs
to form coalitions to insure a bigger voice in national policy.
At other times they may be in direct conflict with each other.
The number of CMOs affiliated with a CM is not
constant across time and space. Some time periods are more
favorable than others, due to resource availability and
historical conditions. Beginning in 1990 with the growth of
NSFNET and the passage of the High-Performance
Computing Act of 1991, more resources became available and
CMOs dedicated to computer-based education and networking
flourished. In addition, some geographical regions, such as
San Francisco Bay/Silicon Valley and Boston/Cambridge, are
hotbeds of innovation and centers of CM activity due to the
proximity of multiple universities, research centers, high-tech
startups and large numbers of computing specialists.
Relational networks and professional associations are plentiful
in these areas, fostering social intercourse across
organizations and the emergence of new CMOs. Recruitment
to Computerization Movements
The primary resources of all social movements are
members, leaders, and some form of communication network.
Shared beliefs are communicated along these networks and
lines of action are advocated. For example, organizations may
learn about and implement the latest computer architectures
because their members belong to professional associations
that recommend them. Alternatively, friends, classmates and
family members may be avid Internet users and mobilize
individuals to participate.
Since the social significance of technologies, like the
Clipper Chip, multi-user dungeons or hypermedia, are often
obscure, uncertain or uninterpretable, most people depend on
the analyses of their friends, known or self-described experts,
government officials and CM entrepreneurs to interpret,
frame and attribute meaning to them (Snow et al., 1986; Snow
& Benford, 1988). CMOs undertake much of this framing
work for constituents by amplifying current problems,
interpreting events, and emphasizing the advantages of a
transformed social order, where computerization and
networking are central, over the current arrangements. Once
these frames become publicly available, people can align their
own beliefs and actions with those of movement entrepreneurs.
A rhetorical form, which we call technological
utopianism, is a key framing device used by movement
entrepreneurs to envision the renewal of society through
technology. Specific technologies, such as groupware or
personal digital assistants, are key enabling elements of
utopian visions (Dunlop & Kling, 1991; Kling, 1994).
Technological utopianism does not refer to the technologies
themselves. It refers to analyses in which the use of specific
technologies plays a key role in shaping an ideal or perfect
world. For example, the Executive Summary of the NII:
Agenda for Action (White House, 1993) asks readers to
imagine a world where people can live anywhere and
telecommute to work, where everyone has access to the best
teachers via virtual classrooms, and where health care is
available on-line. With little or no articulation of the
underlying technologies, the costs associated with actually
implementing such a vision, or the political struggles that will
certainly ensue, the government invites public identification
with and participation in the mobilization of support for the
expansion of computer networking into every facet of people's
lives -- in their homes, workplaces, and schools.
Thus far, we have focused on positive identification with
new technologies and the rhetoric that accompanies it. But,
negative identification with technology is also available,
although somewhat less widespread today than in the past.
Technological anti-utopianism analyses examine how certain
broad families of technologies facilitate a new world order
which is relentlessly harsh, destructive and miserable. For
example, technologies embedded with artificial intelligence
(AI) are common focal points for science fiction scenarios
where humans have lost control to machines (cf., Gibson,
1984). Alternatively, the dark side of computerization can be
seen in the cyberpunk movement, i.e., the hackers, crackers,
and phone phreaks who exploit the weaknesses of
telecommunications systems. Cyberpunks wreak havoc,
engaging in hacking for profit (Edwards, 1991), espionage
(Stoll, 1989) or the pure pleasure of it (Hafner & Markoff,
1991). Whether portrayed as science fiction or actual exploits,
anti-utopian analyses focus on the central role of
computerization in the emergence of a dystopian future.
Technological utopianism and anti-utopianism signify
distinct poles in the framing and interpreting of large-scale
computerization projects and what they might mean to the
people that will experience them. While actual outcomes of
past computerization projects have fallen somewhere
in-between the two extremes, these visions serve to either
galvanize support for or the rejection of an extensively
computerized future. In the next section, we focus on the
beliefs and goals of two specific computerization movements,
computer-based education and computer networking, and the
CMOs and recruitment processes which enable them. Specific
movements are the various wings or submovements of a
broader, general movement (Blumer, 1969). Many movements,
like those that advance the Christian Right, Eastern religions,
antitobacco interests or computerization, are heterogeneous.
The distinction between specific movements and general
movements helps us to characterize the relationship between a
general computerization movement and some specific or
distinct wings of the larger movement.
Specific Computerization Movements
One theme in our discussion of computerization and
the specific movements that help produce it is the importance
of seeing how local practices and concerns, in schools, homes
or communities, are linked to external developments. By
distinguishing between a general CM and several specific
CMs, we want to draw attention to how similar conceptions
about modes of computerization found across many
organizations or social settings should be understood. The rise
of computing in general can be characterized as steady over
the past thirty to forty years with recent large growth.
Similarly, the two specific computerization movements that we
investigate here, computer-based education and computer
networking, are particularly interesting because of their recent
exponential growth. For lack of space, we do not focus on
other computerization movements such as artificial
intelligence, virtual reality and personal computing which we
have written about elsewhere (Kling and Iacono, 1988; in
press.) In addition, we expect that new CMs will continue to
emerge as new technologies are developed. If this were a book
length document, we could, at length, list the major CMOs in
each of these movements and describe their members and
communications. We could sample their publications, topics
from their conferences, describe their meetings, and excerpt
keynote speeches and reports. Instead, our descriptions of
computer-based education and computer networking will be
suggestive rather than definitive.
COMPUTER-BASED EDUCATION
Computer-based education refers to both specific
technologies, such as computer-assisted instruction (CAI)
programs, and the social arrangements in which they are
embedded, e.g., wired universities and virtual classrooms.
Technologies for computer-based education include a broad
array of applications such as computer-based simulations,
tutorials, and courseware. Advanced graphics capabilities,
hypermedia, and object-oriented features allow animation,
charts and tables to be linked by professors in presentations
or by students in computer labs. During classroom lectures,
systems can be connected to student response keypads
allowing for instant feedback. The key belief is that
interaction and dynamic adaptation of course materials will
maintain student interest, improve retention and enhance the
learning process.
The social arrangements for computer-based education
include all levels, from pre-school to college to life-long
learning, and all forums, from classrooms to research labs to
the Library of Congress and art museums (White House,
1993). In the mid-1980s, several private colleges and
universities required all their incoming students to buy a
specific kind of microcomputer to use at school. Other schools
invested heavily in visions of a wired campus, increasing
computer lab space and wiring the dorms, libraries and study
areas for network connections. There was also a major push
to establish computer literacy and computer science as
required topics in the nation's elementary and secondary
schools. In the mid-1990s, virtual classrooms have become the
focus, enabled by computer conferencing, digital libraries,
distance teaming, and global networking. These new
instructional vehicles are being promoted and funded by the
National Science Foundation (NSF), the National
Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA),
and the NII. The President's Fiscal Year 1994 budget
included $1.1 billion for the High Performance Computing
and Communications Initiative, including $100 million to
develop applications in areas such as education, health and
digital libraries, and $50 million for NTIA grants to
demonstrate application of the NII for non-profit institutions
such as schools and libraries.
To mobilize support and generate resources for enabling
these large-scale visions at the local level, partnerships and
collaboration among business, government, school and the
community are encouraged. Advocates of these social changes
argue that students will become active learners and
information managers rather than passive receptacles of
information transferred to them from the teacher (Hodas, this
volume). At the same time, the role of educators will be
expanded as they collaborate with other educators around the
world and move from a "chalk and talk " type of education
format to one where they act as facilitators, trainers and
innovators. Thus, along with the push for increased
computerization in educational settings, this CM advocates a
major shift in core beliefs about what students and teachers
actually do in the classroom and what constitutes learning.
This CM is very far ranging and includes numerous
organizations which promote special projects, publish
enthusiastic reports, and sponsor periodic conferences. Brief
descriptions of two CM organizations, CoSN and CNI, suggest
the scale of this CM. The Coalition for Networked
Information (CNI), was founded in 1990 to "promote the
creation of and access to information resources in networked
environments in order to enrich scholarship and to enhance
intellectual productivity." It is a joint project of the
Association for Research Libraries, CAUSE, and EDUCOM.
CNI's members are organizations, and it currently includes
over 170 colleges, universities, publishers, network service
providers, computer hardware and system companies, library
networks and organizations, and public and state libraries.
CNI sponsors several working groups. For example, one group
called for descriptions to identify "projects that use
networking and networked information resources and services
in the broadest possible ways to support and enhance teaching
and learning (Coalition Working Group on Teaching and
Learning, 1993)." This public call for descriptions also noted:
The Coalition will use the project descriptions it
receives in response to this call: (1) to build a
database that can be used to share information
and experience in this area; (2) to promote
awareness of individuals, institutions, and
organizations making important contributions to
the state-of-the-art in this area; (3) to attract
attention to and mobilize resources for this area;
(4) to plan a program in this area for the
EDUCOM...conference in Cincinnati...and (5) to
otherwise encourage individuals, institutions, and
organizations to use networks and networked
information resources and services to support and
enhance teaching and learning.
The organizers of this call are not timid in making
their interests in mobilizing support for network applications
very explicit. In order to mobilize more commitment and
loyalty to their cause, they encourage people with experience
to share information about their own projects and to network
with others who are interested but less experienced.
The Consortium for School Networking (CoSN), a
non-profit membership organization, is working with FARNET
to develop a model for the information-age school, one that
incorporates communications and computer technologies in a
new culture of active learning. They are promoting the use of
electronic networks as resources for kindergarten through
high school. Their long-term vision is of a transformed
educational system with empowered teachers and involved
communities, and of students educated to succeed in the
workplaces of the 21st century.
The Clinton administration supports this approach
arguing that what people earn depends on what they learn.
Consequently, the NII is dedicated to preparing children for
the fast-paced workplace of the 21st century (White House,
1993). This approach emphasizes the preparation of students
for new work which will require problem-solving skills and
creativity rather than order- taking and narrowly defined
specializations. Examples of programs that focus on the
acquisition of these types of skills include the Global
Laboratory Project in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and the
Texas Education Network (TENET). The Global Laboratory
Project is funded by the NSF and links students from 101
schools in 27 states and 17 foreign countries in a global
environmental monitoring study. TENET makes the Internet
available to Texas school districts. School children, especially
those in remote or impoverished school districts, are expected
to benefit from the additional resources and access to distant
learning opportunities. These schools without walls are
utopian visions of education transformed. Despite their actual
usefulness to the students and teachers in Cambridge,
Massachusetts and Texas, they may do little to change
education in the U.S. or alleviate critical problems, such as
illiteracy, high school dropout rates, and inner-city school
violence.
Mobilized by the belief that more computerization is
better, coalitions of administrators, teachers, and parents are
banding together to push for extensive computerization in
classroom settings and a basic shift in the educational
programs in public schools, universities and libraries.
Advocates of computer-based education promote utopian
images of information-age schools where students learn in
cooperative, discovery-oriented settings and where all teachers
can be supportive, enthusiastic mentors (Kling, 1986). In fact,
however, the deployment of technology in schools has
generally not affected the day-to-day values and practices of
teachers and students due to its threat to the existing social
order (Hodas, this volume). But utopian visions resonate with
parents, teachers and school administrators who are
concerned about how education will meet the challenges of the
future.
COMPUTER NETWORKING
The computer networking movement encompasses a wide
range of domains, some of which overlap computer-based
education. For example, the computer-based education
movement currently advocates extensive network links across
schools, libraries, art museums and research centers. The
computer networking CM pushes this vision even further,
advocating the weaving together of all institutional sectors
into one giant electronic web. This web is sometimes referred
to as cyberspace, a term first used by Gibson (1984) in his
science fiction novel, Neuromancer, to describe the electronic
realm where the novel's action took place. Today, we use the
term to refer to the place where all social interactions via
computer networks take place.
Prior to 1990, the physical manifestation of cyberspace
was the Internet and the primary users were government
employees, research scientists, and other academics in
research universities and centers throughout the United States
and western Europe. The Internet started as an ARPA
demonstration project on internetworking in the early 1970s
(Kahn, 1994). After splitting off from MILNET (the military
network), ARPA Internet became known as the Internet. The
National Science Foundation (NSF) paid for new computer
science sites to be added to the Internet through CSNET (the
Computer Science Network) and then commissioned the
NSFNET to link NSF-funded supercomputer centers across
the United States. The Department of Energy (DOE) and the
National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) built
HEPNET (high energy physics net), SPAN (space physics
analysis net), ESNET (energy sciences net), and NSI (NASA
science internet), all used primarily by research, academic and
government communities.
In the last few years two related events have helped
strengthen the public appeal of the Internet: the expansion
and growing commercialization of the Internet and the
promotion of technological support for the NII by the Clinton
administration. These actions have already expanded the
range of Internet services to most universities and colleges,
many libraries, and some elementary and secondary schools.
Government subsidy and other resources generated by CMOs
along with strong advocacy about the transformational
capacity of computerization by the media and popular
magazines help to fuel the increasing demands for computer
networking.
While most users connect to the Internet through work
or school, situations where the institution bears the financial
burden, increasingly people are willing to pay for Internet
connections out of their own pockets. Today, PCs can be found
in over 26% of U.S. households and many of them are
connected to local computer bulletin boards, on-line services
or the Internet (Brody, 1992). In 1992, New York City had two
providers of public Internet access. In 1993, there were seven.
More people have been connected to the Internet in the last
two years than in the previous twenty. It is currently estimated
that approximately four million homes in the United States
are now connected to some type of on-line service and these
numbers are growing daily (Eng & Lewyn, 1994). Current
scenarios of home use portray exciting social interactions with
distant people and places, primarily in the guise of
entertainment, home shopping and group game playing. The
NII: Agenda for Action (White House, 1993) states, "You could
see the hottest video games, or bank and shop from the
comfort of your home whenever you chose." Although the
Clinton administration consistently advocates universal access
and affordable prices for users, today only the rich can afford
the equipment and network connections required to be online.
A less entertaining but nonetheless utopian vision of
computer networking focuses on uses that empower and
preserve the public interest. Several networking CMOs, like
the Society for Electronic Access (SEA), and the Center for
Civic Networking (CCN) have focused attention on grass roots
networks and the recreation of civic life. The first civic
network was the Community Memory in Berkeley, California,
started in the mid-1970s to strengthen and revitalize the
Berkeley community (Schuler, 1994). Today, over 100 civic
networks are planned or are currently in operation in the
United States. They include the Cleveland Free-Net (Ohio),
Big Sky Telegraph (Montana), Electronic Cafe International
(Santa Monica, CA), and the Cambridge (MA) Civic Forum,
all based in and run by local communities in partnership with
networking CMOs. Global civil networks have also emerged.
Examples include PeaceNet, EcoNet, GreenNet and
ConflictNet, all of which are dedicated to peace, human rights,
and environmental preservation. In 1990, these networks with
the support of the MacArthur, Ford, and General Service
foundations and the United Nations Development Program
established the Association for Progressive Communications
(APC) with partners in ten countries and affiliated systems in
many other countries (Frederick, 1993).
The goal of participants in these civic networks is to
make information flows more democratic, break down power
hierarchies, and circumvent information monopolies. At the
local level, city- and region-wide citizen dialogue is considered
critical to the development of innovative solutions for the
improvement of government services, industrial
competitiveness and a revitalized democracy. At the global
level, network enthusiasts argue that the present flow of world
news is too regulated. Five news agencies around the world
control about 96 percent of the world's news flows (Mowlana,
1986). By providing low cost appropriate solutions, APC
networks can democratize cyberspace and provide an effective
counter-balance to trends in corporate control of the world's
information flows.
Computer networks are central to utopian accounts of
the next wave of human culture where much of life is spent
on-line. Participants are referred to as settlers or
homesteaders (Rheingold, 1993). Specialists are portrayed as
cowboys with keyboards rather than six-guns. Exciting images
of life at the frontier propel many into participation.
Networking activists imply that there are no limits to what can
be done in cyberspace by downplaying the actual costs of new
technologies and the continuing benefits of physical forms of
social interaction. Other media for learning, socializing,
working, or revitalizing the community are treated as less
important. Real life is life on-line. The physical world is
relegated to IRL (in real life) or life off-line (Rheingold,
1993).
The beliefs and strategies advocated by the two CMs have
changed over the past several decades. But both have moved
in the direction of increasing computerization and networked
forms of social arrangements. Helping to fuel this momentum
are utopian visions that downplay the actual social choices
that can constrain or inhibit institutions from making such
large-scale changes and the political challenges that will
certainly accompany them. These CMs require enormous
resources and their orientation is sufficiently elitist that one
might expect some systematic progressive alternative to it. In
the next section, we focus on some organizations that have
emerged to serve the public interest and which participate in
the forming of national policy about computerization. We also
discuss the challenges associated with the development of a
general movement to counter computerization.
COUNTER-COMPUTERIZATION MOVEMENTS
We have argued that CMs generally advance the
interests of elite groups in society because of the relatively
high costs of developing, using, and maintaining
computer-based technologies. This pattern leads us to ask
whether CMs could advance the interests of poorer groups or
whether there are counter-movements which oppose the
general CM. Many CM activists bridle at these questions.
They do not necessarily value helping the rich or perceive
themselves as part of the elite. In our fieldwork we have found
that CM advocates more frequently see themselves as fighting
existing institutional arrangements and working with
inadequate resources. While many CM participants may have
non-elite opinions and beliefs, they must develop coalitions
with elite groups in order to gain the necessary financial and
social resources to computerize with their preferred
arrangements. Given this elite status, one might expect a
counter-computerization movement (CCM) to have emerged.
There is no well-organized opposition or substantial
alternative, however. Such a movement would have to rest on
technologically anti-utopian visions of computerization in
social life. Societies or groups which have adopted
anti-utopian visions, such as the Amish in the U.S. or the
Luddites during the Industrial Revolution, are typically
marginalized and not considered as viable models of future
social life. However, some writers are clearly hostile to whole
modalities of computerization (Berry, 1991; Braverman, 1975:
Mowshowitz, 1976; Reinecke, 1984; Weizenbaum, 1976). These
writers differ substantially in their bases of criticism, from the
Frankfurt School of critical theory (Weizenbaum) to Marxism
(Mowshowitz, Braverman) to conservationism (Wendell
Berry).
Today, the major alternatives to CMs come from
relatively new and specialized advocacy groups such as
Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility (CPSR) and
the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). CPSR emerged out
of a Xerox/PARC antiwar distribution list in 1981 with an
original mission to oppose certain kinds of computer-based
weapons technologies such as the Strategic Defense Initiative.
Today, it is a national organization of computer professionals
with 22 chapters and a much broader focus on public issues
and computerization, e.g., workplace democracy, civil liberties
issues in networking, and broad public access to national
computer networks. CPSR has become an active participant in
national policy negotiations about information technology
policy and currently sponsors action-oriented research to
shape social change and social responsibility (cf., CPSR,
1994).
The EFF is a small organization started in 1990 by
Mitch Kapor and John Perry Barlow. They argued that
long-time advocacy groups such as the ACLU were not taking
seriously the violation of electronic publishers' and crackers'
civil rights. The Secret Service paid scant attention to due
process in their late night raids and confiscation of computer
equipment. The EFF supported the accused and continues to
support similar litigation, fund educational projects, protect
the public interest and insure that the Bill of Rights is
extended to include computer and network users.
Long-term advocacy groups such as the ACLU and
other social movements, such as the anti-war movement, have
tended to focus more narrowly on the specific areas where
technology intersects their central concerns. For example, the
ACLU has developed long-term projects in the area of
technology and privacy while peace activists have criticized
new technologies that they view as making war more likely.
Union spokesmen are especially concerned about how
computerization affects the number and quality of jobs
(Shaiken, 1985). However, they are all relatively mute about
many other kinds of computing applications. As a
consequence, each of these reform movements is relatively
weak and specialized, leaving many arenas of computerization
still unexamined and unprotected.
During periods of crisis or opportunity, members of
these groups may cooperate. For example, the EFF, CPSR and
the ACLU, among others, are responsible for shifting public
opinion against a hardware encryption device, the Clipper
Chip -- now called Skipjack due to a trademark conflict --
that they believe is potentially harmful. They have emphasized
its role in the government's ability to conduct surveillance on
the telecommunications activities of American citizens.
Computing activists such as John Perry Barlow and Mitch
Kapor have framed the technical, political and policy issues
involved so that its use is seen as potentially dangerous to
privacy rights and other civil liberties. People who before
knew little about encryption, are encouraged to think
negatively about it and to join the EFF or CPSR to reassert
"control over their own government (Barlow, 1993:26)."
Some groups have argued that the EFF effort in regards
to the NII is too narrow and they have organized to reach a
wider base of public support. The Telecommunications Policy
Roundtable, for example, is a coalition of organizations,
including the Center for Media Education (CME), American
Library Association (ALA), CPSR, ARL, and CCN. They are
interested in assuring that upscale elite groups associated
with the Internet are not the only groups involved in its
development. Their goal is to give consumers and low-income
persons more voice and power in the policy making process, to
build ties among the various groups and to motivate them to
broaden their scope and work together.
In part, the NII has stimulated these groups to form
coalitions to insure more say in the development of national
policy and the deployment of resources. They view appropriate
computerization as something other than the most
technologically sophisticated computer use at any price. Some
of these groups are trying to envision computer use which is
shaped by other values--such as the improvement of human
life and the preservation of civil rights. While these groups
challenge the most avid computerization enthusiasts, their
missions can not be characterized as counter computerization.
The general drift in most sectors of American society today is
towards increased and intensive computerization with CMs
playing the major enabling roles.
CONCLUSION
We have argued that the computerization of many facets
of life in the United States has been stimulated by a set of
loosely linked computerization movements guided by
mobilizing belief systems offered by activists who are not
directly employed in the computer and related industries
(Kling, 1983). We have characterized computerization
movements by their organizations and the ways in which they
recruit new members. In particular, a rhetorical form, which
we call technological utopianism, is a key framing device for
portraying societal renewal through technology and allowing
people, many of whom know little about computing, to identify
with the goals of the movement. Our analysis differs from
most analyses of computerization by considering movements
which cut across society as important sources of
interpretations and beliefs about what computing is good for
and what social actions people should take to secure the
future they envision.
A primary resource for all movements are members,
leaders and communications networks. Academics like Daniel
Bell, popular writers like Howard Rheingold, and the White
House stimulate enthusiasm for the general computerization
movement and provide organizing rationales (e.g., transition
to a new information society, participation in virtual
communities, and societal renewal) for unbounded
computerization. Much of the enthusiasm to computerize is a
byproduct of this writing and other visions of technological
utopianism. Not every computerization movement thrives and
the members are selectively influential. We believe that when
one studies the sites where new computing applications are
being adopted, it is common to find the influences of
computerization movements. Members of the adopting
organizations or people who consult to them are likely to
belong (or have belonged) to a number of organizations which
promote that form of computerization.
Computerization movements play a role in trying to
persuade their audiences to accept an ideology that favors
everybody adopting state-of-the-art computer equipment in
specific social sectors. There are many ways to computerize,
and each emphasizes different social values (Kling, 1983).
While computerization is rife with value conflicts, activists
rarely explain the value and resource commitments which
accompany their dreams. And they encourage people and
organizations to invest in the latest computer-based
equipment rather than paying equal or greater attention to
the ways that social life can and should be organized around
whatever means are currently available. With the recent and
notable exceptions discussed in the previous section, activists
provide few useful guiding ideas about ways to computerize
humanely.
There is unlikely to be a general counter
computerization movement, although some organizations, like
CPSR and EFF, have emerged with some interest in the
humanistic elements central to the mobilization of computing
in the United States. But more frequently, humanistic beliefs
are laid onto computerization schemes by advocates of other
social movements: the labor movement (Shaiken, 1985), the
peace movement, or the civil liberties movement (Burnham,
1983). Advocates of the other movements primarily care
about the way some schemes for computerization intersect
their special social interest. They advocate limited alternatives
but no comprehensive, humanistic alternative to the general
computerization movement. In its most likely form, the rise of
computer technologies and networks, while promising
technological utopias for all, will lead to conservative social
arrangements, reinforcing the patterns of an elite dominated,
stratified society.
Acknowledgements: Thanks to Leigh Star for her continuing
enthusiasm about this project. Jonathan Grudin has been a
stimulating discussant about social movements and new forms
of computerization. Vincent Janowicz, Paul Hower and
WooYoung Chung made helpful comments which made this
chapter more readable and provocative.
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