The humanITy Digital Inclusion Manifesto
Executive Summary
Often new, major technologies are regarded as panaceas but they frequently create or exacerbate socio-economic differentials. This expectation greeted cheap, personal computing but the evidence of its real effectiveness has been limited; it has not been fully utilised in its areas of key capacity such as pattern recognition, the enablement of creativity and convergence with broadcasting. Policy makers were aware of a potential 'digital divide' but thought people could be 'trained out' of it. This strategy has failed, inter alia, because of a lack of incentive and an emphasis on skills rendered redundant by automation at the expense of emerging skills such as digital photography. (Section 1.)
Poorer citizens have been rightly sceptical of the internet's benefits, seeing it as 'top/down' and not 'relevant' to their needs. The concentration on the PC-based platform and the problems of usability and accessibility of eGovernment sites have been serious obstacles to users; more than 80% of Government transactions are undertaken by people without a home PC and most of these people use mobile phones. Concentration on 'top/down' consumption has relegated the importance of content creation (2.1-2.6).
The 'skills ratchet', the falling cost of graduates, a neglect of 'soft skills', emphasis on autonomous consumption rather than collaborative creation and a limited vision of creativity have all contributed to the limitation of benefits of the digital society. Government needs help to understand these phenomena (2.7).
Our educational curriculum is based on the primacy of autonomous, transformative creativity; and this needs to be modified through a bipartisan approach (2.8).
WEB 2.0 raises issues in respect of intellectual property rights and new models are needed (3.2).
Although there has been some political concentration on the 'final third', this 'low hanging' fruit' has now largely been harvested and we are left with the 'Struggling Seventh' which needs its own, resource-intensive policy agenda (3.4).
The problem of engaging people in ICT requires an understanding of incentive (3.5). There are opportunities and challenges in the use of ICT to enhance community cohesion (3.6). Disability has not been taken seriously enough (3.7), particularly in the area of the need for creativity tools (3.8). Data protection and child safety are issues which still require substantial attention (3.9).
There are some challenges on the horizon which require early intervention, particularly, the 'hegemony of the image', the changed nature of learning, content regulation, solid printing and globalisation (3.10).