Networking is a technology for citizen and public utilization. Today’s environment is largely characterized by commercial applications of the technology and not by public ones. It is like trying to understand the implications of the impact of automobiles on society by studying the role and function of trucks and buses. One has to start with an assumption that in the long run the principal application of networking will be for the average citizen and the public at large. Digital-based networking will become as widespread as the phone. It will be viewed as necessary for a citizen in a democratic society, as the telephone and television are viewed today.
Predictor: Hiltz, Starr Roxanne
Prediction, in context:In a 1992 paper they presented at a workshop titled “Rights and Responsibilities of Participants in Networked Communities” for the Computer Science and Telecommunications Board of the National Research Council, researchers Starr Roxanne Hiltz and Murray Turoff say: ”It is not the current trends, but the changes that will be introduced by the technology that will result in the principal impacts on society. No one contemplated that the automobile would change the geography of urban American and radically alter the social and demographic patterns of marriage. For the area of digital communications there are a number of normative assumptions about the future of this technology that set the stage for understanding its implications, and for how we need to view it today if we are to gain the long term benefits it has to offer society. Networking is a technology for citizen and public utilization. Today’s environment is largely characterized by commercial applications of the technology and not by public ones. It is like trying to understand the implications of the impact of automobiles on society by studying the role and function of trucks and buses. One has to start with an assumption that in the long run the principal application of networking will be for the average citizen and the public at large. Digital-based networking will become as widespread as the phone. It will be viewed as necessary for a citizen in a democratic society, as the telephone and television are viewed today. No government agency would survive long if it took actions that prevented reasonable access by citizens to telephones. Yet when it comes to digital communications, there is often an unspoken assumption in the minds of those concerned with the policies and regulations governing communications that the major use of this technology is the commercial sector of the economy.”
Biography:Starr Roxanne Hiltz, the co-author of a seminal book about the electronic frontier, “The Network Nation: Human Communication Via Computer” (MIT Press), was a professor of computer and information science at the New Jersey Institute of Technology and the author of many Internet research studies. In 1994, Hiltz received the “Pioneer Award” from the Electronic Frontier Foundation for her “significant and influential contributions to computer-based communications and to the empowerment of individuals using computers.” She was among the first to note that computer conferencing could form the basis of new kinds of communities. (Research Scientist/Illuminator.)
Date of prediction: November 1, 1992
Topic of prediction: General, Overarching Remarks
Subtopic: General
Name of publication: Rights and Responsibilities of Participants in Networked Communities Computer science and Telecommunications Board National Research Council (NRC)
Title, headline, chapter name: A Normative View of Networking Applications
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://web.njit.edu/~turoff/Papers/dcgov.html
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Anderson, Janna Quitney