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ACCESS FOR ALL: Net neutrality and the Digital divide in the U.S.

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This week we take a look at Net Neutrality and the Digital Divide in the United states:

• What is 'Net Neutrality'?
• Obama's FCC takes a stance on Net Neutrality
• The Net Neutrality debate: What are the pros and cons?
• What is the Digital Divide?
• Statistics and specifics of our Digital Divide
• What could be done to end the Digital Divide?
• What is currently being done to stop the digital divide
• Municipal WIFI - what and where?
• Access for all: Summing Up the Digital Divide in the United States

Access to all -municipal wi-fi

Municipal wi-fi is a connection to a wireless web access through a network, With the goals of making access to the internet a universal service. Municipalities are spending millions of dollars on city wide networks targeting low cost for the wireless access but providing fast service. Wi-fi projects went sky rocket increasing dramatically it went from 50% to more than 300 nationwide. The united states market would experience year to year growth rates.

 Not only is wireless connection increasing in homes its increasing in public facilities. No more commuting back and forth trying to find someone else connection and trying to use it. Wi-fi is now in public facilities. There are approximately over 605 free hot spots in the New York metropolitan area. Some popular hot spots are, Mc Donald’s, colleges campuses, bookstores, airports, hotels, and star bucks which is a very popular hot spot that has millions of customers come not only to consume coffee but also to sit and enjoy the web at the same time. There is also free wi-fi access at New York public park, which is sponsored by time Warner, and cable vision. This network is expanded and advancing every day.

Email used to mobilize voter

The use of technology to get voter's ,after all traditional methods have been implemented.

 

            "Last-minute campaigning via the Internet is sort of like an iceberg," by NY Times.

 

Nowadays election candidates use the internet as a means to campaign and advertise themselves to

voters.Its a cheaper way to get supporters to vote because thousands of people could be reach with just

one click of the send mail tab and the cost is zero, before the invention of social networks like facebook

twitter, myspace etc... E-mail was a popular and somewhat effective way to reach voters.

Information such as meetings,political rallies,and important events are communicated through this

media. Voters also use this media to interact with their friends to get more support for the election

candidates. The article explained how President bush used the E-mail during his campaign for election

and how mass E-mails were sent to 150 million people.

  The article also commented on the effects of using E-mails as a campaign tool to urge for vote. There

are chances that plenty people will not read or receive the E-mails sent  by election candidates because

of spam and other email filters, this is the downside of using E-mail.

 

What Can We Do to Overcome Digital Divide?:How To Fight Digital Divide

For  those of us that still dosen’t get the idea of digital divide this is how wikipedia defines it (digital divide refers to the gap between people with effective access to digital and information technology, and those with very limited or no access at all. It includes the imbalance both in physical access to technology and the resources and skills needed to effectively participate as a digital citizen. knowledge divide, both reflecting the access of various social groupings to information and knowledge, typically gender, income, race, and by location.^[1] The term global digital divide refers to differences in access between countries.)

in my first post about the Digital Divide i mention a program named C.A.P. (Computers Assisting People. heres there website C.A.P.  C.A.P. mission statment is " 

The mission of CAP Inc. is to reach those elements of society that may not have the opportunity to benefit from the technology that many of us take for granted. Thus our focus is in assisting organizations (schools, churches, community centers, etc.) that deal with children, seniors, the poor, the disabled and others that can really be empowered by computer technology. " according to their website.  Cap has help many differnt people around Clevland and they wish to expand more and get more people on board with their plan.

C.A.P. isnt the only people that are trying to help with the Digital Divivde. heres a video of High School Students that are very involed with the fight the good fight of the Digital Divivde war.

these kids have a plan...but it is up to "us" to follow up with it and lower the numbers.

The Art of Persuasion

 

 

The technology industry is a never ending, rarely slowing down, always updating itself business. We are all fascinated by these new devices (i.e. Apple products) that keep your eyes glued to a screen and your fingers busy.

The development of social networks has increased our interests in staying connected via internet and has decrease our physical social skills.

In the past few years, the demand for easier access to social networks like Myspace, Facebook and Twitter has increased.

Why wait until you get home to check your notifications on Facebook just go to your Facebook application.

Or what’s my best friend from high school up to right now, just follow them on Twitter.

We have become unconscious stalkers and addicts to tweets, updates and videos.

There are many businesses that see this vulnerability and exploit it with advertisements, and newer, lighter to carry, and hippy devices.

They want you to want them more than their competition.

They want you to remember them, and spread the word among your friends and family.

Unfortunately businesses are not the only ones demanding for your attention.

There is a whole new wave of politicians that are looking to attract voters on-line and its working.

In a November 2008 post, the British website, Webcredible, analyze the United States' 2008 Presidential Election race between Barack Obama and John McCain. The post, "Digital politics - engaging voters online," discussed the latest digital approach to voters.

Obama was believed to be the overall victor in the digital environment.

It was reported that he was linked to 17 social networks like Facebook, which he apparently had 2.1 million fans.

McCain was also linked to Facebook and Myspace but his presence was more discrete. According to the article, both candidates used numerous Google Ad-words during their campaigns.

The main goal in using these social networks for both men was to attract the majority, which simple refers to the citizens of the United Stated who had access to not just a computer but the Internet as well.

Obama and McCain focused on key battleground states in the 2008 election with the most Electoral College Votes.

They were Florida (27), Pennsylvania (21), Ohio (20), North Carolina (15) and Virginia (13). In each of these states there were more than 65% that had access to the Internet.

These men understood that even with access to the Internet without constant appearances on different websites voters would not care.

Another use of digital politic during this election was the use of fan based campaign videos on You Tube.

Characters like Obama Girlwere posting videos with funny skits and understandable terms of significant events in the race.

All showing support for their candidates of choice and encouraging the younger generation of voters to get involved.

After all the money is spent and the votes are casted, people like President Barack Obama can thank most of his success to the media.

Future of Digital Politics

    Digital Politics plays a huge role in today's society.  There are going to be some major problems that are going to be taken place over the next couple years.  Since the Internet is becoming more popular pretty soon people are going to start using it to place voice calls.  Wireless location systems and radio frequency identification devices are likely to have many opposition by a whole host of groups in private areas.  Since global telecommunications are becoming more advance many jobs are starting to be moved off shore. 

    Technologies are changing so fast that many of the digital politics's problems are still left to be unformed because of how successful they have been as well.  Both political parties both believe that the economy couldn't expand without promoting its technology.  Computers with the internet have became the main stream in today's society.  Digital politics will always play a role in today's world and definitely for the future as well.

Twitter Helping Get Votes

I was surfing the net the other day, when I discovered an article called Digital Politics: What Mattered in 2009. And it started talking about how Twitter was used as a campaign tool. And that political office holders, and candidates all had Twitter Accounts as a means to get more votes. This was very surprising to me. I knew That they put ads up and promoted them selfs that way, but I never knew that they had Twitter and Facebook accounts.

And now that I've read that article it makes sense because rappers and music artist use twitter and Facebook to promote their new albums and songs. And that helps them so much, so I can see how this can help get you votes. I also think that by them having Twitter and Facebook accounts that they have more of a chance to gain the votes of younger people.  
 

Presidential Scandal Breaks Online

 In January of 1998 one of the biggest sex scandals in American history hit the internet with millions of people watching closely. President Bill Clinton's involvement with Monica Lewinsky spiralled out control due to mainstream exposure.

News of the scandal first broke on the Drudge Report website, which reported that Newsweek editors were sitting on a story by investigative reporter Michael Isikoff.On Saturday Mr. Drudge published the story to his website which at the time had over 85,000 subscribers.

By the early hours of Sunday, the news had hit Internet news groups. It moved from alt.currentevents.clinton and then to the more mainstream politcal discussion groups. It wasn't until three days later on that Wedsnday that newspapers finally ran the story. 

Our First Webcast: A Trip to Bangalore with Digital Revolution News

 

Click Here to Listen to Our First Webcast!

What makes Bangalore a global hotspot in the digital revolution?

Global Media: Digital Revolution is proud to present our first webcast of this season.   Digital Revolution News took a virtual trip to Bangalore to learn about the global digital divide.

The History of Net Neutrality

Last week for my blog, I posted on what net neutrality is. Since now we have an understanding of what it is, I wanted to give a quick little background on how the concept came about.

 Back in 2003, a professor at Columbia Law School, Tim Wu, published a proposal for a net neutrality rule in his paper Network Neutrality, Broadband Discrimination. The paper is over 170 pages long, and it considered net neutrality in terms of neutrality between applications, as well as between data. In the paper, Wu proposed some legislation to possibly deal with these issues.

Before 2004, most of the debate over net neutrality occurred within FCC proceedings. Throughout 2004 and into 2005, several more academic pieces were published on the topic, and in 2005 the debate broadened as newspapers and trade journal articles on net neutrality began to appear monthly. 

 
 
Tim Wu