Commentary One: Communication Infrastructure.
The term media ecology is designed to capture the ethos of a kind of digital “environment” that examines a constantly evolving mode of communication. Taffel writes: ‘ecology comprises the study of patterns of interconnection, interaction and transferences of energy’ (2013).
In the quote above, there are a number of words that come up as key concepts bolstering the very essence of what an ecology is. Those words are: interaction and interconnection. This implies that an ecology, any ecology, is ultimately a “social” structure. And when thinking about media ecologies, at all levels including global, national, local and household (Wilken et al. 2013), it could be suggested that the internet is somewhat of an exclusive clique within the broader communications structure.
The digital divide plagues us at all levels of online communication. On a global level, there are countries that are far less active in the online sphere: ’14 percent of the world’s population lives in Africa, but less than 3 percent of the world’s geotagged Wikipedia articles originate there’ (Lefrance 2016). Locally, we have members of our communities that are lacking in computer literacy skills, access to the internet and/or computers which stops them fully participating online: ‘studies have reported age as one of the significant sources of the digital divide in addition to gender, salary, education, and professional practices’ (Miwa et al. 2017, p. 14).
Inequalities in the digital sphere lead to programs like Facebook’s Free Basics (2018). Free Basicsprovides limited access to websites free from additional costs under the guise of increasing access and decreasing inequality. But to use Free Basicsa device and an internet connection are still needed. Also, the limited access provided is an indication of the power structure that is being exploited. Here on Medium, Dr Vandana Shiva writes that ‘The right to the internet is the right to choose what spaces and media we access; to choose spaces that enrich us — not what companies think should be our “basics”,’ (2015) (emphasis in original).
Ultimately, the digital divide reinforces societal and global power structures and continues to disempower less privileged people and societies (Willis & Tranter 2006; Broadbent & Papadopoulos 2011). So, when words like ‘interconnection’ or ‘interaction’ are used in relation to media ecologies, the internet or our communications infrastructure, perhaps it would be worth mentioning the extreme limitations and the people they exclude.
References
Broadbent, R & Papadopoulos, T 2011, ‘Bridging the digital divide — an Australian story’, Behaviour & Information Technology, vol. 32, no. 1, pp. 1–10
Lefrance, A 2016, ‘Facebook and the New Colonialism’, The Atlantic, 11 February, viewed 15 August 2018 <https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/02/facebook-and-the-new-colonialism/462393/>
Miwa, M, Nishina, E, Kurosu, M, Takahashi, H, Yaginuma, Y, Hirose, Y & Akimitsu, T 2017, ‘Changing patterns of perceived ICT skill levels of elderly learners in a digital literacy training course’, Library and Information Science Research Electronic Journal, vol. 27, no. 1, pp. 13–25
Shiva, V 2015, ‘“Free Basics” will take away more than our right to the internet’, Medium, 30 December, viewed 15 August 2018 <https://medium.com/@drvandanashiva/free-basics-will-take-away-more-than-our-right-to-the-internet-4d39422fe122>
Wilken, R, Nausen, B, Arnold, M, Kennedy, J & Gibbs, M 2013, ‘National, local and household media ecologies: The case of Australia’s National Broadband Network’,Communication, Politics & Culture, vol. 44
Willis, S & Tranter, B 2006, ‘Beyond the ‘digital divide’: Internet diffusion and inequality I Australia’, Journal of Sociology, vol. 41, no. 1, pp. 43–59
2018, Free Basics Platform, Facebook viewed 6 September 2018 <https://developers.facebook.com/docs/internet-org>
