The "Information Poor"

While reading the 1st chapter in the book entitled "Reading" Cypercultures, I stumbled upon some points that Nayar brought up in regards to the flow of information in what is rapidly becoming, as Nayar puts it, our technocapitalistic  society. With all sorts of New Media infiltrating and replacing old forms of Media, Nayar points out  that in today's ever globalizing world that consumption demands technological linkages and synchronous, 24/7 communications. The flows of information that everyday people receive through the various forms of New Media are becoming more and more important in everyday life. But as these flows of information become more important in our everyday lives, what happens to the people who have limited to no access to this information?

Nayer states: "Increasingly, people, classes and territories that are not significant for the informational society are excluded from the wired world. The old, African nations, the mentally ill, the inner-city ghettos are all peripheral to the globalizing ICT movement. .... the high-tech age is driven by the need to posses ever greater amounts of information, and those who lack this (the "information poor") are left out of the race" (Nayar, 7). 

Automation, information gathering, and labor are analogous to mechanization from the early days of capitalism (Kellner, 1999). This was a time when a blue collar worker with a trade skill could provide food and shelter for his family, while keeping the peace of mind that his skill could be used anywhere in America.  But in today's technocapatilistic world, the information poor such as the poverty stricken, mentally ill and uneducated will fall through the gap, simply because they do not have the means to acquire the technology to keep up. It's like a digital divide in America, and one that cannot be boiled down to someone who has the internet vs. someone who doesn't. Other cultural factors such as language become problems as well, such as when a non-English speaker cannot find information about social welfare rules or job opportunities anywhere but online, and that information is in English only.

So what is to be done about the information poor? Government action? Media coverage? Free iPhones and "How-To" tech books shot out of t-shirt cannons to crowds of Apple-crazed homeless people? Do we have a moral obligation to provide these people with new forms of technology?

In an article I read about the information poor, Tim Mazur brings up the topic of moral rights. According to Mazur a moral right is an entitlement based on ethical standards rather than legal ones. An example of a moral right would be the right to subsistence, or to clean air. These are rights that everyone should have.The right to telephone service, on the other hand, would be considered a subsidiary moral right (a right which protects the conditions necessary to exercise a moral right). According to Mazur, since everyone has the moral right to safety, many states have made it mandatory to have phone service subsidized for low-income households to get help for a serious injury, because it is the moral right of those people to get help, and the only way to get help for a serious injury or tragedy would be to call 911 or the fire department through the use of the telephone. So in the future, should the information poor be allowed access to subsidized means of technology so that their moral rights are not violated? Mazur brings up the point that many ethicists "maintain that persons have a moral right to equal opportunity to jobs and college/university admission slots. Yet, if certain job opportunities are available only through electronic services, qualified candidates among the information poor may be shut out."


What are your thoughts?