Last week representatives from The ALP, The Coalition and The Australian Greens took part in an ‘election communications debate’ at the National Press Club in Canberra. The debate went for about an hour and focussed mainly on the government’s proposed National Broadband Network (NBN), the Coalition’s alternative policy and the proposed net filter. For those of you interested, the debate can be seen in full here.
My own concern lies in the assumptions made by all three speakers on some of the specific benefits that any kind of broadband system be it the NBN or otherwise would automatically bring to bear. These assumptions have to do with the perceived benefits of access. In the words of the ALP Minister for Broadband, Communications and Digital Economy Stephen Conroy, widespread access to high speed broadband in Australia would ‘bring an end to the tyranny of distance’.
This idea has been generally considered to be a self-evident truth. For Australian politicians from both sides access = equality. This assumption is a dangerous one. On September 3, 2009 Social Media Researcher Danah Boyd gave a speech on the emergence of social inequalities and divisions online, especially in regard to the social media sites Facebook and MySpace. Boyd’s speech was aimed at an American audience and focussed on social media, but some of the observations that she makes can be placed more generally in a debate about the benefits of access to promoting social equality.
As Boyd states, “For decades, we've assumed that inequality in relation to technology has everything to do with "access" and that if we fix the access problem, all will be fine…Yet increasingly, we're seeing people with similar levels of access engage in fundamentally different ways. And we're seeing a social media landscape where participation "choice" leads to a digital reproduction of social divisions”.
Looking at the differences between Facebook and MySpace Boyd first noted that the perception that MySpace was a fading force was based on the remarkable growth of Facebook rather than the decline of MySpace. In fact, over 2008/2009 MySpace received 70 million visitors in the US alone. Boyd argued that rather than this being simply a case of overlap of users, it was possible to detect a social barrier evolving between the two sites. Over 2006/2007 while studying the social media practices of teenagers in the US Boyd noted that some of the reasons for why teens chose one or another social media site generally had to do with things like value perception, aesthetics and the practices of their friends. As Boyd states these things are “inherently intertwined with issues of race, socioeconomic status, education and other factors that usually make up our understanding of "class."
Essentially, what she found in the differences between Facebook and MySpace users was a digital variation of traditional class based urban migration, or ‘white flight’. “Whites were more likely to leave or choose Facebook. The educated were more likely to leave or choose Facebook. Those from wealthier backgrounds were more likely to leave or choose Facebook. Those from the suburbs were more likely to leave or choose Facebook. Those who deserted MySpace did so by "choice," but their decision to do so was wrapped up in their connections to others, in their belief that a more peaceful, quiet, less-public space would be more idyllic”.
Now at first the exposure of a racial and class based divide in US digital cultures might seem a little bit removed from the implications of widespread broadband in Australia, but take a moment to think about it. Our social frame of reference, or homophily, is what we structure our lives around. It has an effect on the ways we engage with people and the way that we formulate our ideas. To assume that once 97% of Australians have access to high speed internet we’ll all have equal access to health, education and economic benefits (which is what the parties are assuming) is way off the mark. To assume that once we can all watch Julia Gillard’s latest YouTube video we will be equally politically enfranchised misses the fact that social divisions existed in Australia a long time before people in the city had high speed broadband. As Boyd states, “If you want people to connect around politics and democracy, information and ideas, you need to understand the divisions that exist”.
In the same way that Habermas’ Public Sphere was never equal, neither is the internet and policy makers would do well to understand that, rather than place an unfounded sense of optimism in the development of net based communication.
- Conroy & Smith took part in another debate on Lateline last night, read the transcript here.
- Danah Boyd has a website which gives you a bio, links you to her blog, Twitter, published articles and Ani Difranco lyrics, among other things. Check it here.
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