Message-Id: <3.0.1.32.19970519174214.007019cc@osf1.gmu.edu>
Date: Mon, 19 May 1997 17:42:14 -0400
To: socgrad@csf.colorado.edu
From: "Jeanne A.B. Calabro" <jcalabro@osf1.gmu.edu>
Subject: Re: virtual communities -- a skeptical note
Cc: daniel.ryan@yale.edu
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At 08:58 PM 5/14/97 -0400, DJR wrote:
> In other words, we project our
>problems and our solutions (and even more so when we are purveyors of
>the solutions) onto others rather than trying to understand the actual
>situation of others.
I agree that this sometimes happens.
>
>Think about it: where in the hierarchy of
>problems facing a poor family would you find the ones for which email is
>a good solution?
I and my son have used the internet to access an encyclopedia. We can't
afford to own an encyclopedia, and our library does not have a *current*
set because of budgetary constraints. He had a very poor chemistry teacher,
but he could access the science magnet school by e-mail and ask his
question, or any of a number of listservs used by chemists. Ability to
access information that is unavailable in one's physical community is one
important benefit of the internet. However, when I mentioned *potential*
equality of access, and its *potential* elimination of many barriers, I was
not speaking of poverty, which is mistakenly believed to be the predominant
or ONLY basis of inequality (with gender or racial or even age inequality
sometimes also recognized, but there are of course no necessity for race or
gender or age to be part of virtual identities unless desired). I was
speaking of disabilities, which are far more predictive of discrimination
in employment and access, among those who can demonstrate an ability to do
the job. For people with speech impairments, due to cerebral palsy, throat
cancer, or MS or for other reasons, or for people who are deaf, they may
not be able to communicate with others without a sign language interpretor
at all. For these people, the internet affords easy access to communication
that is otherwise impossible. In many communities, grocery orders can be
faxed in and delivered to homebound people or people with immune
deficiency.  Attendance at meetings via the web can be used to accommodate
people who cannot otherwise attend for a variety of reasons: mobility
impairments, inability to express themselves except electronically, parents
with small children and inability to afford childcare, or an unavailable or
sick babysitter, a temporary or chronic illness and so on. Actually, I
don't know how it is in New Haven, but it is so violent in DC, and the
ghetto neighborhood I grew up in Boston (Dorchester), that to show your
face was to risk death, especially if you were a good student. No-one
suspected that my son stayed after school to access the internet on the
computer, because he could just as easily have been serving detention. He
was able to explore a whole world without actually being able to go anywhere.
	I am legally blind half the time, but I can "read" journals by scanning
them in and having the computer read them to me. The same goes for e-mail.
When I teach, I have my students send their questions to me by e-mail. Then
I can answer them and distribute my answers if appropriate, to all the
students in the class at once, many of whom probably had the same question,
or perhaps misunderstood the assignment totally and did not even realize
they needed the question answered. I have them submit papers on disk. I
have screen magnification software and I can then easily grade them and
annotate my comments or corrections at the same time. If the roads are iced
and snowed over (the university never closes!), they know they can send
assignments due by e-mail. Not all limitations are physical disabilities!
Students with cognitive disabilities or learning disabilities can often
compensate by use of a computer, and there are even programs specifically
designed to develop targetted areas of the brain to help correct these
disabilities.
	Frankly many with visual or other impairments would not be able to work
without a computer. I know a man who became a quadriplegic due to an
automobile accident, who was able to continue his job by telecommuting from
home with his computer. I would not be able to teach college without my
computer. There are many more needs searching for solutions than you
realize! And many more inequalities than poverty! And there are many people
with rare diseases, who can't even find a doctor who can explain what a
diagnosis is or what it means, or whether a treatment exists, but they can
perhaps connect with NORD's (National Organization of Rare Diseases)
database, and locate a researcher doing a study on that disease or with
knowledge or expertise in it. Or they can perhaps link up with other people
with a similar diagnosis and perhaps find a simple treatment that works, or
something that helps them live with their situation. At the very least,
they will find someone who can validate their experience. This is how
experiential knowledge emerges. Experiential knowledge does not exist as
long as people only understand their experiences to be idiosyncratic and
anecdotal. But experiential knowledge develops by people with similar
experiences coming to see those experiences as being shared by others in a
similar situation, and as bearing knowledge important to understand a
shared condition. Experiential knowledge can develop from listservs devoted
to common themes, i.e., via the internet. Experiential knowledge also
empowers.  That is the point. Inequalities of all kinds equate to
inequality of power and unequal access to the knowledge required to gain
power, to gain employment and to gain economic stability. Parents of
children with disabilities are all the time sharing things that work to get
the educational resources their child needs. If computer access were more
readily available poor parents of children with disabilities would be able
to gain the same knowledge.
	The day will (hopefully) come when poor people can get their food stamps
printed out by the computer at the public library down the block, rather
than having to pay bus fare or walk miles to line up for hours at the
welfare office across town, or maybe where they will have an ID card to
swipe at the console at the grocery store rather than have physical food
stamps at all. The day will perhaps come where a single mother will be
loaned a computer to study from home rather than being unable to access an
education or have to find childcare of wait for years on a waiting list for
an ESL program, or a GED program at the high school across town, or give up
on a chance for a college education as training programs become limited to
six months prior to job placement. I am however not sure that a lot of
focus in the area of computer development and programming is being placed
on addressing these needs at present, but perhaps as people with needs gain
understanding of the potential, they will start thinking about the
possibilities. 
	Your point about computers being a solution in search of a problem
overlooks the problems experienced by people without physical access at
present. However, it is a point well-taken in reference to our society at
large. Other than those with disabilities, does computer access accomplish
anything that could not be accomplished by other means, albeit more slowly?
I think it does but only for a few things, not the many that the computer
has become popular for, but by having a computerized society, or one that
communicates and accomplishes other tasks by computer, more complete
integration of those with disabilities becomes possible, since those with
disabilities may only be able to perform many, even basic, functions with
computers, whereas others who could do some or maybe most of these
functions without computers (thus segregating or making conspicious or
isolated those with disabilities) use computers for these functions because
it is easier, faster, more fun, more popular, or they just prefer, to do so.
	It is obvious that you use a computer, and use e-mail. If you didn't like
to do so, didn't want to do so, or found no purpose or benefit in doing so,
it is fair to presume that you would not do so. If you are doing so under
duress, because you are "required" to do so, then it is fair to assume that
if you could succeed in this world without using the computer or e-mail
that you would. Would it not be arrogant to assume that those "less
fortunate" than you, are less likely to like using a computer, or to
benefit or find purpose in using a computer? Isn''t it unrealistic to
assume that, if you need to use the computer to succeed in this world that
others "less fortunate" can succeed without it? Or should? Are you assuming
that they don't want to succeed in the same way you want to? When talking
about inequality it is important to not incorporate the problematic
distinctions into the sociological response. There is not really much
difference between the poor and the nonpoor, or those with disabilities and
others in society, all of which are subject to some kind of limitation. As
those with virtual identities meet in electronic communities, differences
in economics, appearance, gender, age, race, physical ability and so on are
not apparent, and do not factor in unless they are asserted. People with
common interests, or aspirations will exchange e-mail and share opinions,
who would not even shake hands or even meet in the real world.
	Just a little food for thought.
Jeanne Calabro
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Jeanne A.B. Calabro			Home Phone:  703/450-5460
104 Norwood Place			E-mail:      jcalabro@osf1.gmu.edu
Sterling, Virginia 20164-8503	Affiliation: Brandeis University
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"Sociology changes the world." Personal opinion
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