The prediction, in brief:

These highways are going to be toll roads. YouÕre going to have to pay to play, pay to ride. That has some serious and significant implications for children. Many households and many children will not have access to the superhighway in ways that weÕre being told they will. Twenty-five percent of children in this country live in poverty. The story is even worse for children of color.

Predictor: Valdez, Armando

Prediction, in context:

A 1995 article for the Annenberg Washington Program Update from Northwestern University’s Communications Policy Studies program quotes Armando Valdez, founder and chairman of the Board of Directors of LatinoNet and principal of Vladez and Associates. Valdez says:”We are not going to build the information highway the way we built the interstate highway of the 1950s. These highways are going to be toll roads. You√ïre going to have to pay to play, pay to ride. That has some serious and significant implications for children. Many households and many children will not have access to the superhighway in ways that we√ïre being told they will. Twenty-five percent of children in this country live in poverty. The story is even worse for children of color. For Latinos and Blacks, 40 percent of children are living in poverty households. They will not be able to get this technology into their homes in the foreseeable future. In fact, significant numbers of these households do not even have telephones; 6.2 million Latinos in this country do not have telephones in their homes. So don√ït tell me that these folks are going to get the information highway and all these kinds of benefits. It√ïs not going to happen. For these communities – poor, minorities, disabled, and elderly – the national policy means they will have to rely on public institutions to provide access: public access.”

Date of prediction: May 25, 1995

Topic of prediction: Controversial Issues

Subtopic: Digital Divide

Name of publication: The Annenberg Washington Program: Update

Title, headline, chapter name: America’s Children & The Information Superhighway; May 25, 1995, Washington

Quote Type: Direct quote

Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://www.annenberg.nwu.edu/events/up6795.pdf

This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Little, Brandi W.