In the Information Age, information is power. Who produces all that
information, how does it move around, who uses it, to what ends,
and under what constraints? Who gets that power? And what happens
to the people who have no access to it?Disconnected begins with a
striking vignette of two men: One is the thriving manager of a
company selling personal computers and computer services. The other
is just one among thousands of starving laborers. He has no way to
find the information that might help him find a job, he cannot
afford newspapers, rarely sees television, cannot understand the
dialect of local radio broadcasts, will probably never touch a
computer. These two men happen to live in Windhoek, Namibia, but
this is not a story about Africa--it is a story that could be
repeated almost anywhere in the world, even next door.With vivid
anecdotes and data, William Wresch contrasts the opportunities of
the information-rich with the limited prospects of the
information-poor. Surveying the range of information--personal,
public, organizational, commercial --that has become the currency
of exchange in today's world, he shows how each represents a form
of power. He analyzes the barriers that keep people
information-poor: geography, tyranny, illiteracy, psychological
blinders, ""noise," crime. Technology alone, he demonstrates, is
not the answer. Even the technology-rich do not always get access
to important information--or recognize its value.Wresch spells out
the grim consequences of information inequity for individuals and
society. Yet he ends with reasons for optimism and stories of
people who are working to pull down the impediments to the flow of
information.
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