Kendrick Hang

This week’s discussion question from class, and my tangential response…

How will globalization influence the gap between the haves and the have-nots?

The digital divide is the media catchphrase used to describe the widening gap between the have and have-nots, within countries and between countries. The “haves” benefit from globalization and get richer while the “have-nots” are suffering from the effects from globalization and getting poorer. Based on what we’ve been reading and hearing (in class as well as in the media), it seems like everyone agrees this gap between have and have-not is increasing. A question to ask however, is what exactly do the “haves” have access to?

The obvious answer might be technology — that is computer and communication systems. The late Rob Kling (Center for Social Informatics, Indiana University) realized there are actually two components of access: technological access and social access. Technological access refers to physically possessing equipment: computers, networks, wireless devices. Social access refers to possessing the knowledge and resources to use technologies to fulfill needs. In essence, the “haves” possess both technological access and social access.

It’s clear that having one without the other won’t work. For example, initiatives like putting a networked computer in every classroom, library, or household sound grand, but without a plan to do something with the equipment, what good is really accomplished? Without a social context, technology sits idle and unused. In the opposite case, if we know that technology can solve a certain problem in a society and it’s physically not available — immunizations and medical equipment in third-world nations come to mind — it doesn’t do any good either.

In regions that do possess both the technological access and social access, there is interplay between the technological element and the social element. Technology impacts the social environment — but that’s only half the story. The social environment also affects how technology develops. Hence, new fields such as cognitive systems engineering focus on what is now termed socio-technical systems: systems composed of technical components, affected by workers, within some organizational or management infrastructure, operating in some environmental context
(Vicente 1999). Sounds like a mouthful, but an example of a (very large) socio-technical system might be an electrical power system. Note also how each layer of the system can affect the other.

• Technical components: energy collection, generators, grid wiring network, switches, computers, etc.
• Workers: high-voltage line riggers, residential technicians, customer support specialists, software developers, energy traders, technical trainers, etc.
• Management infrastructure: Corporation, shareholders and investors, energy suppliers, energy buyers, residential consumers, etc.
• Environmental context: governmental regulation, industry regulation, federal and local taxation, land right-of-ways, competition, severe weather, consumer demand, etc.

Relating this example back to the issue of haves and have-nots, it’s pretty obvious bringing power to a region that doesn’t have involves a whole lot more than building a power plant. It involves a whole lot of people and infrastructure and is affected by political factors. Finally, as power technology comes online, it will affect how people do things in their daily lives, and as a result the power technology will be affected with change to meet new needs and demands imposed by the people. That is, the power system consists of both technology and people.

If we plan on addressing the gap between the haves and have-nots, we must consider the problem holistically. Time and time again, we find that simply giving technology to have-nots doesn’t help to close the gap. We’ve spent millions on bringing the computers and the Internet to every classroom, but science and engineering enrollments continue to decrease, not to mention a fair number of these computers go unused because teachers do not have the resources and guidance they need to leverage technology to enhance learning. We go to countries and build state-of-the-art sanitation systems to stem disease and health problems, but they go unused because the local residents don’t recognize a need to
change their habits. Warehouses of food and medicine sit full because logistical knowledge and distribution networks do not exist — and this doesn’t just happen in sub-Saharan Africa. If you recall, trucks loaded with food, water, and relief supplies sat in parking lots right here in the United States in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina — the physical resources and technology were there, but the social element was disastrously missing.

On the contrary, we also find successful programs to deliver needs to the have-nots. The Carter Center‘s campaign to eradicate Guinea Worm (a parasite found in water that grows up to three feet in the human body before bursting through skin) consists of distributing technology (a very simple filter cloth) as well as the social element: educating local residents on the disease, how it’s caused, how to prevent it by filtering their water, and encouraging the entire community to partake. Similar efforts by the Gates Foundation recognize and address the socio-technical needs in aiding the have-nots with respect to public health and education.

The bottom line is, if we plan on doing something to narrow or close the gap between the haves and the have-nots, it’s going to involve a whole lot more than dumping money and technology at the problem (the literal meaning of “redistributing wealth”). It’s going to require a serious personal level of involvement to guarantee that any technological contribution to the have-nots is met in kind with a social contribution.