No Yorker 7
need to show erin
Confirmed: The Internet Does Not Solve Global Inequality
If you live in a rich country, the Internet has probably changed the way you consume (and produce) information. But when you look at global-scale knowledge production, things are as they ever were: the Anglophone world dominates with the United States doing the lion’s share of academic and user-generated publishing.
Those are the messages of the Oxford Internet Institute’s new e-book, Geographies of the World’s Knowledge, from which the above graphics were drawn. The book’s authors, Corinne Flick of the Convoco Foundation and the Institute’s Mark Graham and Viktor Mayer-Schonberger, reluctantly conclude that the Internet has not delivered on the hopes that it would make knowledge “more accessible.”
“Many commentators speculated that [the Internet] would allow people outside of industrialised nations to gain access to all networked and codified knowledge, thus mitigating the traditionally concentrated nature of information production and consumption,” they write. “These early expectations remain largely unrealised.”
We’re not only talking about publishing in academic journals or Wikipedia. The researchers also sampled user-generated content on Google and found that rich countries, especially the United States, dominate the production of user content.The fact of the matter is that people without money can’t afford to get the education necessary to publish in academic journals, Internet-enabled or not. The other fact of the matter is that the vast majority of people in very poor countries don’t spend their time producing content for free. Hope as we might, the Internet isn’t a magic wand that makes the world more equal.
Read more. [Image: Oxford Internet Institute]
This empyrean and paradisiacal work of art was made by my good friend and roommate. Secretly, this is the work of a prince; it is not well known that A. Ashbrook is the sole male heir descending from a long line of princes. Actually, he is averse to this knowledge arbitrarily giving a “boost” to his struggle for international and interplanetary fame; a very modest and hard-working being. The image is worth many words, probably equal to or exceeding at least two thousand words.
This is a collage that I made with some paper from a spin magazine, a time life book, a rival schools game guide from japan, a tiny picture of andrew wk, a wolverine comic, and a Gene Defcon album cover + misc. etc. Andy Bogard and Joe Higashi are in the bottom right corner. My name is Andrew so I could always relate to Andy. The black guy is Dizzee Rascal, whom I’ve never heard in my life. I don’t know what you’re doing right now. Gene Defcon is a good musician but is he as good as Andrew W.K.???????????? Send me your thoughts and questions today from the internet.
(via allydavis)
