Tuesday, April 26, 2011

The coming clash between elites and global IT culture

From a survey of over 5,400 adult Internet users from 13 different countries, conducted by the Oxford Internet Institute (OII) and INSEAD, in collaboration with comScore, “designed to better understand cross-cultural differences in user behaviour and attitudes”, it appears that there is emerging a global consensus around “core Internet values of freedom of expression, privacy, trust, and security”.

For a discussion of the survey, which is “a contribution to The Global Information Technology Report 2010-2011”, see: http://tinyurl.com/3ug4rxq

A couple of questions arise, to which I cannot immediately see an answer in the report:

If a global Internet culture is emerging, with the "values" of freedom of expression, privacy, trust, and security, how come different elites/ governments/ countries continue to have totally different levels of actual commitment to such values?

And what of the future, as a clash develops between the values of elites (e.g. in China) as against the values of the internet world, not only at the global level but specifically at the level of their own populations? Sphere: Related Content

1 comment:

Joanna said...

Not sure if it is just me but I seem to be unable to see the link. It is a pity you didn't post this earlier it would have been very useful for an assignment I was doing