Brief

Brief
Build a website to inform youth leaders and young people aged 14 – 21 about Gracefest.

This brief is a live brief that I have set. I made significant progress in Communication Technology 1, and this enabled me to build the first website http://www.gracefest.org.uk/. There are many imperfections with it though, and it is essentially only a very basic website. I intend to fully deepen my practice and contextual understanding by building a more advanced and more ambitious website. As I am currently undertaking Gracefest at the moment anyway, it seems appropriate to use Gracefest to facilitate this as a live brief.

Context
We are at the dawn of perhaps the biggest revolution in history that is already changing not just the way we communicate, but the way we live, work and think. The internet gives us a technology whose power is unrivalled among other mediums of communication. For the very first time in history, anybody can publish anything, to anyone, anywhere. And most incredibly, it can be done within seconds.

It is changing the way we live. We are connected twenty four hours a day. When we are not at home on the computer, we are carrying mobile internet around with us on our phones.

It is changing the way we work. Many teachers and lecturers still advocate libraries as the best place to research, whereas those of the younger generations turn to the internet before any other method. How does one reach a balance; if there is one at all? We are also not commuting as much as we once were. The internet has opened up ‘e-business’, where one can host online meetings and conferences while each person works from home.

It is also changing the way we think. Younger generations no longer associate themselves with their county, but with the network they are part of on Facebook. They are less often associated with their country, but the online community they are part of. Friends have been redefined to mean the number of connections you have- even if it is to total strangers. Our concentration spans have shortened too. We do not think linearly anymore, but associatively. Surfing the web using hyperlinks hopping around information is a completely different way of researching to reading a book from cover to cover, working through chapters.

As society only starts to get to grips with this incredible new power, how do we embrace it to become an increasingly useful element of our day to day lives?

Written work to support project:
The BBC is currently running a series named ‘Superpower’, investigating the question ‘Is the internet the most powerful thing the world has ever seen?’ This is an article from that series:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8568681.stm
World wakes up to digital divide
By Jane Wakefield
Technology reporter, BBC News

The digital divide, like many other economic or social problems, is a global issue.

From the most switched on countries such as Sweden to the poorest nations in Africa there is a widening gap between those with access to technology and those without. The gap between countries on the same continent is also getting wider.

According to figures from the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) Sweden has a mere 12% of its population offline compared to 56.5% in Greece.

The scale of a country's digital divide reflects the condition of its economy, says ITU analyst Vanessa Gray.

"In Sweden there is a population that is highly educated and a culture of trying new things whereas in Greece income levels and educational levels are lower," she said.
League tables are important to keep nations on their toes, she thinks.

"Being able to compare gives them the incentive to do better. Governments need to know where they stand and learn from other countries," she says.

Finland, which currently has around 13% of its population offline, is so confident it can solve its digital inclusion problems it has recently declared internet access to be a basic human right.

Its public libraries have moved beyond being places where people can gain their first experiences online to offering laptop doctors who trouble-shoot a wide range of technology issues.

Wi-fi villages

Eastern Europe has traditionally lagged behind its western counterparts in terms of economics but countries such as Hungary are investing heavily in high-speed fibre-optic cables.

Despite the blue sky thinking on infrastructure, Hungary has no national e-inclusion policy and there are concerns that the networks will be far more sophisticated than citizens' understanding or use of them.

There are some efforts to conquer the problem and a wi-fi village programme is reaching out to those of its population living in rural poverty, 80% of whom are Roma or Gypsies.

So far 115 rural villages have been provided with wi-fi, offering internet access to 2,000 families living below the poverty line. The target for this year is to reach 30,000.

As well as providing the infrastructure, the project also sells recycled PCs to local Roma people for about 80 euros.

The PCs run Linux and users are trained to user Google's web applications such as Gmail and Google Docs.

One villager managed to make contact with an old friend and secured temporary jobs for himself and 20 other villagers on a construction site for a new road.
Others have started e-learning programmes while one resident used his new-found skill to make a movie about Roma culture which is on YouTube and has been watched by 90,000 people.
Barren deserts

Keeping people that are part of minority communities in touch with their culture is an invaluable service that the internet can perform.

As one of the world's most advanced economies, the US is often held up as a weathervane for the state of the internet. While internet access is high in America in general, use among Native Americans stands at less than 10% according to a study conducted by the New America Foundation (NAF).

Even analogue phone lines only reach one in three families in many tribal communities, while less than 10% of respondents to a major NAF survey had universal mobile phone coverage in their community.

"Tribal homelands have stood like barren deserts in pockets across the technology-rich lands of the United States," says report author Sascha Meinrath.

The NAF study drew together views from more than 120 tribes living in 28 states across America.
It found that connected Native Americans paid substantially more for their internet access but those who are connected, use their connection more widely than the national average.

RezKast, the first Native American YouTube is currently sweeping through the community and the internet has had some more life-changing impacts too.

Five clinics in Leech Lake, a reservation with 16 villages and 4,079 residents, is using telemedicine.

It allows individuals from remote communities to access specialised health care
"This is saving peoples' lives," said network director Frank Reese.

Mr Meinrath thinks the example of the Native Americans can be replicated around the world as long as there is a willingness to teach skills alongside making kit and access available.

"It is incredibly rare that broadband connectivity won't improve the lives of those who use it effectively, in much the same way that books improve the lives of the literate. However, providing books to everyone doesn't help those who cannot read in the first place," he said.
It could be time for a major rethink on how to deal with the digital divide he thinks.

"When it comes to broadband connectivity, the era of 'if you build it, they will come', is rapidly drawing to a close in industrialised countries," he said.

"Now we need to begin far more holistic interventions to reach those remaining offline. And if some folks claim to simply not want to be online, that's their choice - though I view it as akin to pridefully claiming that you don't read books."

Research:
Most of my research will be undertaken using the internet; when conducting a project about it, it seems the most appropriate place to start. There is also far more information available on the internet compared to other media. Some initial research I have undertaken includes the following:

BBC Superpower
http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/specialreports/superpower.shtml

Guardian Technology
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology

BBC’s ‘The Virtual Revolution’- a four part documentary series looking at the power of the internet. Aired February 2010: currently on iPlayer; also on YouTube.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NPD4Ep_J81k

Firth, L (2008) ‘The Internet Revolution’, Independence Publishing, Cambridge
Donnellan, C (2005) ‘Our Internet Society’, Independence Publishing, Cambridge