Despite the normative description of science as an arena of fully-open communication, the new communication technologies exacerbate the practical problem of some groups of people having more access to information than other people.
Predictor: Lewenstein, Bruce
Prediction, in context:In his 1993 article on the way people segregate themselves online, Mike Holderness quotes Bruce Lewenstein. Holderness writes: ”Research has always involved ‘invisible colleges’, whether they meet at conferences or exchange ideas in the post – what the electronic community refers to as ‘snail mail.’ Does the age of electronic communication herald newer, more invisible and more exclusive colleges? ‘Despite the normative description of science as an arena of fully-open communication, the new communication technologies exacerbate the practical problem of some groups of people having more access to information than other people.’ That’s the conclusion of Bruce Lewenstein, of the departments of communication and Science & Technology Studies at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York state … Lewenstein concludes that though electronic communication ‘will not replace traditional face-to-face interaction … researchers with access to these forms of communication [are] making progress while other researchers, still awaiting information through more traditional slower channels, have not yet begun to work.’ For them, the ability to use computer communication is an essential part of literacy.”
Date of prediction: January 1, 1993
Topic of prediction: Controversial Issues
Subtopic: Digital Divide
Name of publication: Times (London) Higher Education Supplement
Title, headline, chapter name: Greetings from the Twilight Zone
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://www.poptel.org.uk/nuj/mike/articles/the-invi.htm
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Anderson, Janna Quitney