470CIS-2

SOCIAL CONTEXT OF COMPUTING

Chapter 7
Social Context of Computing

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 The Digital Divide

The technological inequalities among peoples in one

country and between countries, commonly known as
the digital divide.

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 Global technological divide (Source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_digital_divide)

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 Digital Divide

Digital divide indicators: access, technology, human-ware,

infrastructure, and enabling environment.

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 Access

 Access is a crucial element in the digital divide which faces

obstacles.

 Such obstacles may include, but not limited to, cost, facilities
availability, ability to join or to travel to low-cost points such as
libraries and community centers, capacity to utilize ICT.

 These obstacle can broadly be grouped into 5 categories:

geography, income, ethnicity, age, and education.

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 Access: Geography
 According to the UN Human Development Report 2000, there
is a digital divide among the developed (northern hemisphere) ,
developing, and least developed countries (southern
hemisphere).
 The poor and developing countries are deprived of the access to
information in all 8 information access categories (TV, telephone,
public pay phone, international pay phone, mobile, fax, Internet, PC ).
 Data shows that people in the developed countries enjoyed
increased percentages of every category of information access.
 However, the corresponding ratios are very law for all
developing countries and almost nonexistent in some categories in
the least developed.
 Geographical disparities are not only between countries but
also within countries (rural, suburbs, and central cities). 7
 Access: Income and Ethnicity

 According to different reports issued from various

organizations, data indicate that income greatly affects one’s ability to
the access to ICT (PC, TV, Internet, mobile, fixed telephone) .
 Globally, irrespective of the geographical locale, people with
high incomes have a higher percentages of ICT access than those
with low incomes.

 Also, one’s ethnicity, race, has a great influence on ICT access.

 Although there has been no comprehensive study of global ICT
access based on ethnicity and race, one can make a
generalization based on certain studies that there are significant gaps in
ICT access among groups both inter and intra countries.
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 Access: Age and Education

 There is a myth that young people use ICT far more than any
other age.
 There is also conventional wisdom that young people under 18
age do more surfing of ICT than any other group.
 However, contrary to this wisdom, there is consistent data from
two organizations showing that the highest using of ICT is
among people between the ages of 18 and 49 and older people and
those under 10 years use ICT far less than any other age group.

 Since the earlier reports, study after study has shown that the
higher education level one achieves, the more likely one is to
use ICT.
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10
 Technology

 Studies observed that all developing countries, including the

poorest, are improving their access to the use of ICT with
different growth rates of all categories.
 While developed countries registered a significant growth rates,
developing countries registered a very low rate and almost zero
in the least developed countries.
 The gap is even larger for the new technologies where
developing countries registered zero growth against developed
ones.
 This situation is referred to relevant inputs that include
investment capital, infrastructure, and human-ware (human capacity;
skills and know-how).
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 Technology: H/W, S/W

 Because capital investment in ICT is usually in form of H/W

and S/W, let us focus on those here.

 With the ever increasingly access to the use of ICT throughout

the world, there is a trend of production, acquisition and
maintenance of H/W, S/W, and qualification of human-ware.
 However, relevant obstacles, difficulties, and challenges are
still incorporated.

 All the above aspects need to be searched via the Internet and
analyzed.
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 Human-ware

 Most important than the availability and easy access to ICT

related to digital divide is human capacity development.
 Human capacity development is limited to the aspect of human
qualification for using and maintaining ICT, but it is a complex
multifaceted endeavor consisting of many other parts including:
 Creating awareness of the potential for ICT to meet one’s needs.
 Creating, developing, and strengthening capacity to use information
and ICT effectively, using local inputs.
 Building capacity to produce and package information so that it adds
value to local inputs.
 Ensuring ongoing technical capacity development, and developing a
formal for knowledge and information sharing.
 Preventing the local capacity from being drained to other, usually
developed countries. 13
 Human-ware

 The challenge, therefore, in tackling human capacity

development is to deal with each these issues so that the locals
using ICT may find meaningful answers to their local problems.
 ICT capacity development should take into account equity,
fairness, and cultural and other contextual factors at local level.

 This human side in developing countries should be

investigated.

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 Infrastructure

 For some, digital divide infrastructure mean fixed

communication structures.
 These include electricity, telephones, good roads, and airports.
 While the availability of such resources helps to speed up the
development of ICT structures, their lack hinders them.
 ICT access enablers such as PCs, PAs, Internet, mobiles, and
other miniature in developed countries and the urban areas of
developing countries, have all been hailed in advancing global
communication.
 But in order for them to work, there must be a basic
communication infrastructure in place.

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 Enabling Environment

 An ICT enabling-environment is an environment in which ICT

can thrive.
 There are several things that can bring about such an
environment, including politics, public policy, and management
styles.

 Politics: According to Rodriquez and Wilson, ICT thrives in a good

political environment that ensures:
 A climate of democratic rights and civil liberties conductive to ICT
adaptation.
 Respect for the rule of law and security of property rights.
 Investment in human capacity.
 Low levels of government distortions.
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 Enabling Environment

 Public policies and management style: dealing with regulations and

licensing for handling ICTs. So government must do the following:

 Put in place regulatory policies for the importation and licensing of

ICTs. .
 Enact and enforce laws uniformly so that NGOs and other
organizations interested in investing in ICT economic activities do so
with ease. .
 Finally, establish transparency in government to create a moral
bar for whole country.

 In developing countries, there are currently ICT-related

laws and policies on the books which are not enforced.

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 Enabling Environment

 Such policies must updated where necessary and enforced

strictly and fairly through the following:

 New competitive policies such as the liberalization of telecom and

energy sectors must be developed.
 These ICT regulatory policies need to be efficient, predictable, and
easy to understand.
 Licensing bodies must need to be staffed with professionals.
 There must be government support for taxing policies that grant
favors like tax holidays to ICT equipment and investment firms.

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 ICT in the Workplace

 Despite the original fear that workplace automation would

mean the end to human work, except in a few areas, workplace
automation has proceeded hand-in-hand with increase
employment numbers.

 But overall numbers are steady, and according to International

Labor Office report, the introduction of computers into offices
did not bring about any significant dismissal of personal, nor
did it result a decline in the general level of employers.

 Among all the different technologies that have thus far entered
the workplace, computer technology has entered at an
astonishingly high rate of speed.
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 The Electronic Office
 Definition: a ICT-augmented office with knowledgeable
employees.
 This ICT include computers, computer-driven device,
telecommunication device, and its associated S/W.
 These ICTs support management activity, decision-making
process, and social communication electronically.
 With ICTs development the workplace has been undergoing a
rapid transformation if its own.
 ICTs have either replaced most of used tools or created new
uses.
 For example, ICTs have replaced the filing cabinets, the files,
typewriters, rotary, even fixed, telephones. 20
 The Electronic Office

 Electronic notepads, automatic answering systems, office

intercoms, copiers, and fax machines have moved in.
 Living plants and AC have become standard.
 Increasingly, office jobs descriptions at all levels and in all
professions are being transformed to incorporate ICT skills.
 Two factors have been and are still fueling the growth of
electronic office:
 Increasing productivity of office employees, both clerical and
professionals, to counter the rising costs of office operations.
 Acquiring of technology necessary to handle the ever-increasing
complexity and modernization of office communication, management
activities, and decision-making process.
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 The Virtual Workplace

 Definition: due to the advanced developments in ICTs virtual

workplace in general means no a fixed or specific workplace
that employees have to stuck to with working very briefly in their
corporate workplaces.
 Virtual workplaces could any place such as home, road, beach,
transportation mean, etc….. from or in which employees often
telecommute using personal or company-provided equipment.
 For some researchers, the most important element of the virtual
workplace is to use ICTs facilities to link up employees and the
massive worldwide databases of vital information and other
human resources.
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 The Virtual Workplace

 For others, this is called virtualization which means hiding the

physical characteristics of ICTs resources from their users such
as making a single server, OS, applications, or storage device
appear to function as multiple virtual resources.

 Virtual workplace or virtualization can improve ICT resources

management, increase flexibility, saving cost, creating jobs for
disabled, minimizing physical workplaces, etc…

 Despite the above benefits, virtual workplaces create some

difficulties such as lack of collegiality, community spirit, experts
loyalty, lacks of moral force and legitimacy, etc….
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 The Home Worker: Growing Concept
of Telecommuters
 Studies show that the largest number of workers doing their
work outside their primary place of work do it in their homes.

 Example: assignment to students

 As office technology improves, a large number of workers

outside the self-employed professions of artists, writers, and
craftspeople are potentially able to work at home.

 This helped by shifting in global economies from

manufacturing- based to information-based.

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 The Home Worker: Categories of
Telecommuters
 There are three categories of telecommuters:
 Workers who use their homes as an adjunct to their conventional
office jobs. These workers are usually in white-collar jobs in areas
such management, research, market studies, and education.
 Workers who use their homes as the base for their businesses. The
majority of these are in telemarketing, small start-up companies, and
human services such as child and elderly cares. These individuals are
less educated than those of first category and less likely to use a fully
equipped e-home office.
 Workers who have full-time jobs with large companies, but prefer to
work from home. This category includes programmers, sales
specialists, editors, writers, and those whose work depends on a high degree
of creativity such as artists, musicians, and composers. This category is a
mixed of bag of highly educated, independent, and specialized workers, and
those are not educated but very talent and skilled.
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 The Home Worker: Effects and
Benefits Telecommuting
 As effects generate benefits, it also provoke negative aspects
for both employees and employers.
 Some of telecommuting for both sides are reported as follow:
 Saving time, avoiding troubles, and expenses for employees, hence
increasing productivity for employers.
 More discretionary time, less stress, and general health improvements
for employees.
 More autonomy in work decision and having more control over time
and more flexibility in jobs variations.
 Employers save expenses, improving productivity.

 Among the issues negatively for both sides are

employees’ morale due to the lack of professional contacts.
This lead to less productivity of the company.
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 Scenario 5
Electronic Surveillance and the Bodyguard

Jon Kiggwe is a young aggressive entrepreneur, with a bright future. With several busi-
nesses doing well and a few start-ups with promising financial status, Jon is on his way
to making a million dollars before his 25th birthday. Jon’s business meetings take him
into tough neighborhoods. So, for him to feel secure, Jon uses a team of professional
security bodyguards to shadow him almost 24 h a day.
In his big 10 million dollar home, Jon receives a stream of guests, including both
business associates and friends. His bodyguards, besides keeping an eye on him, also
see to the orderly arrival and departure of the guests. Because of this, the bodyguards
keep a permanent office and sleeping quarters at Jon’s mansion.
Without informing them, Jon installed video recording and listening gadgets in the
guards’ office and sleeping quarters to record their every conversation and movement.
He feels safe that way!

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 Scenario 5
Electronic Surveillance and the Bodyguard
Discussion Questions

1. Is Jon violating any law?

2. Do the bodyguards have any right to privacy on
Jon’s premises?
3. Does Jon have a right to know what the bodyguards
are doing in their private quarters?

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Thank You

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