Getting IT Right – The Information Echo
January 1998
CONTENTS:
Nothing Feeds the Eternal Hope of Social Progression more than Technological Advances
The Internet as an arm of Government
Opportunities in IT
The Information Echo
In computing terminology, an echo means a reflection of transmitted data back to the source. In the context of this paper, the ‘information echo’ refers to the Australian community’s IT capability and how it is reflected and influenced by the parameters set by government policies.
The IT environment is full of terminology that is highly ambiguous, however this paper is using information services simply to refer to those applications delivered via the Internet.
In terms of government delivery of information services there are a number of challenges that Labor must address. The most important of these concerns is equity of access and the need to create strategies designed to break the socio-economic barriers that exclude many people from the ‘information revolution’. Opportunities provided through education will provide the foundation for the continuing growth in information services capability within the Australian community.
It is essential that we recognise that Internet usage will continue to escalate. Almost 20% of the Australian population already access on-line services. Australia now has the second highest uptake rate of Internet use in the world. This we must use as a base to expand Internet use for delivery of education, information and government services. Of particular significance is that 31% of Australian households have a computer, compared with 34% of US households. In other words, Australia has an inherent strength that augers well for strategic government policy to successfully transform the IT industry into one that is accessible to all Australians. This recognition of the collective willingness to adopt new technologies is potentially our developing IT industry’s greatest asset.
The challenge facing Labor is how we use these strengths to develop the information industry. The potential that exists for economic growth linked to information technology is well documented: Industry Commission estimates claim Australia’s IT revenues reached over $33 billion in 1995-6. While we export $1.5 million in software and content, we import a massive $8.6 million. This imbalance must be redressed if we are to add to the 300 000 Australians are currently employed in the IT sector.
Another significant challenge – one that is possibly the hardest to address – is the social implication of IT growth and how this is factored into all policy considerations.
These challenges must be defined and addressed specifically through our policies. They cross all portfolios and have special relevance to a number of existing departments. Information services and the phenomenal technological progression that underpins them must be considered in a policy sense in the same way that they are considered in the community and corporate sectors – that information is a determinate of power.
For the ALP, the information echo is alerting us to the opportunities that exist to create a society that is powerfully positioned to make the best use of information services. The objectives here go far beyond the known economic benefits of a highly educated and technologically proficient workforce. The objectives are to reposition Australia beyond the information age and into the learning age.
Nothing Feeds the Eternal Hope of Social Progression more than Technological Advances
The current fascination with information technologies must be tempered with an acknowledgment that almost every new telecommunication invention has at some stage been heralded as a social panacea. Yet every generation has been ‘let down’ as social gains are overridden by the needs of the market and the dictates of economic rationalism. Governments that allow market domination at the expense of participation have frustrated those who seek progressive social advancement through technology.
Communication and information technologies provide opportunities to redress structural imbalances and social inequities. However, the history of communications technologies belies the myth that the growing under-class is included in the information ‘revolution’. The underpaid, the unemployed, the elderly, the disabled and those in rural and remote areas are being excluded from participating in the advancement of modern society created by emerging technologies.
The historical lessons learned from technological developments are that communications applications have been monopolised by multinationals. Capitalism further entrenches itself as each new invention becomes available. The telegraph, telephone, radio and television all began as tools for the betterment of society and the advancement of humanity. As soon as their commercial potential became obvious the corporate sector stepped in and assumed control.
Thus on-line services are being championed for their commercial potential rather than their social benefits. For example, telemedicine and medical infomatics will revolutionise rural and remote medical practices, yet there is little evidence that these types of on-line services are being pursued over and above electronic gambling or adult chat lines.
The Internet cannot be allowed to follow the path of other communications devices. For example, the telegraph (the communications device that established the paradigm for modern telecommunications) was quickly engulfed by emerging American capitalists who used it to create the futures market and mail order services. Pioneers in the emerging American West paid for every word sent via the telegraph; and while it served to advance modern society, entrepreneurs and capitalists nevertheless hijacked the telegraph.
The global IT industry is in danger of being consumed by capitalist enterprises that have created monopolies or oligopolies whose interests are shareholders, rather than the promotion of information, choice or democratic participation. Consequently, technological progression is serving a diminishing market. Unless public policy is implemented to ensure that the march of technology is used for the progression of the nation, the benefits of equitable access to all citizens will be exponentially decreased.
In ‘dry’ terms, it will decrease because the potential recipient market for such advancements will shrink unless access is opened up. The participation of the collective community, if properly harnessed, will bring quantifiable benefits, including increased growth and industry development. It will also address the challenge of up-skilling a workforce in sectors that will deliver the greatest growth in the foreseeable future. Of particular importance is that if the community is empowered by equity of access and usage, then this will assist in preventing further disparity and, hopefully, contribute to reversing the growth of an information underclass.
In other words, Australia is uniquely positioned to reverse the trend of technological determinism and the march of capitalism over responsible government policy. It is possible to use modern communications applications for something other than profit, and it is possible to balance the wants of people to conduct commerce electronically with the needs of people to freely access information and services.
In the USA, for example, President Clinton and Vice President Gore have outlined a ‘new direction’ that attempts to redress some of the imbalances and contradictions between the corporate sector and mass participation and access. Their policies encompass job creation initiatives based on economic growth in IT by providing an environment for innovative R & D and business investment while stressing the goal of making government more efficient and responsive with regard to service and information delivery. The Clinton-Gore initiatives reposition the current debate about IT, removing it from being constrained within a corporatist straight jacket. They appear to be challenging the prevailing global ideology of market driven technological progression. Information technology and telecommunications are no longer being perceived as simply a means to reduce the labour force and limit expenditure.
Businesses tend to view IT as a means of centralising operations and reducing human labour costs. This is starkly illustrated by the banking industry, where on-line tellers (ATMs) replace human decision making and discretion. Paradoxically, as banks continue to introduce systems that supplant teller decision making, they are simultaneously advertising how new technologies are empowering managers with better information about loans and mortgages. Unless we intercede and create a suitable environment in which social progression flourishes then structures such as the finance sector will continue to pursue only one aspect of technology – its ability to reduce employment.
This does not have to be the case. We can accommodate the needs of the corporate sector without further raising unemployment or marginalising those in society that are currently excluded from the information revolution.
Social objectives must be considered alongside the push for higher levels of service, greater efficiencies and greater market share. And herein lies a fundamental contradiction within the IT world: do we allow the corporate sector to dominate or do we use information technologies to inform and assist human progress and employment. Clinton is one leader who appears to understand that job creation and social progression are borne out of the expansion of knowledge based industries. In seeking to produce a technologically capable and adaptive work force that will drive US economic growth, Clinton is demonstrating that competition between corporate and citizens’ needs can be managed by government.
Yet in Australia, intellectual debates are still raging between those who see IT as another avenue for corporate expansion and those who lament that information technologies are excluding those at the fringes of society. The information ‘have nots’ include older Australians, those on lower incomes and people living outside capital cities. Increasingly, Australians are looking at public policy to at least harness some of the benefits and potential common good that should be emerging from IT developments. Therefore Labor’s task is to set out the parameters within which communications infrastructure and IT services are available to all Australians on an equitable and affordable basis. This must include cultural and social policy directions with respect to telecommunications generally, and the Internet specifically. Many children today are more computer literate than their parents, meaning that we must act on this ‘generational change’ if the next generation is to have the IT skills needed for national and international competitiveness.
Our small population and unique culture lend themselves to Australia establishing itself as a leader in Internet services and the management thereof in the public interest. The popularity of Australian culture overseas is evidence that we have a real opportunity to direct on-line content domestically and internationally. Recent acclaim for Australian popular and indigenous music, along with a number of internationally acclaimed films, lends weight to the proposition that content should be the focus of our export drive. Domestically, the popularity of ABC youth radio network JJJ further underpins the need for government to financially support on-line content initiatives.
The global unemployment crisis forms part of a drier justification for policy attention to be paid in developing the sector on a skills and industry development platform. However, it would be a travesty if this constituted the extent of public policy on information technologies. Industry has so far failed to fully grasp how IT services can be used in a positive way with respect to employment. Governments must establish an environment and infrastructure that support the research and development of applications which create employment. If government shirks this task, then social progress will be subjugated by entrepreneurial capitalist ventures that will use IT and online services to reduce the labour force, rather than complement it.
Australia must not blindly follow the path established by Microsoft or other multinationals. We can forge a balance between the needs of all members of our society to access information and services on an equitable basis, and the needs of commercial enterprises. The ‘information echo’ will negatively rebound on Australia unless we look beyond corporatist applications of information technologies. Therefore Labor policy should be a mixture of technophile and technophobe.
The Internet as an arm of Government
By listening and responding to the needs of all citizens, not just those already enlisted in the information revolution, Labor is poised to transform the nature of government delivery by preventing an information underclass becoming entrenched in Australian society. The ‘echo’ is telling Labor to bring to its IT policy platform our traditional principles of equity and responsibility. Socio-economic status is becoming entrenched as a significant and determining factor in access and usage of information technologies. Computer ownership and access to on-line services is largely dependent on income. 63% of households with incomes over $84,000 have computers, compared with only 19% of families who earn under $44,000.
IT is about lifestyles and changes to patterns of socialisation, which are increasingly being directed by younger people. Labor’s IT policy should reflect the increasing generational divide in terms of IT usage and our policies must encompass older people within the emerging information-based society. Creating equitable access is a prerequisite to any effective policy that seeks to focus the intellectual property of the nation into economic growth. Currently, as the progression of information technology rebounds throughout our community, this ‘echo’ is already manifesting itself in the form of inequity of access to new information and communication technologies – creating a divide between information rich and poor.
Labor policy must balance the needs of two aspects of electronic services: commerce and information services. If commerce dominates then once again government will have given away an essential tool for the social progression and enhancement of our citizens. There is a range of areas where there is scope for comprehensive government involvement with Internet issues. These include: quality content, government services, regulation, infrastructure, education and industry development.
Creating an informed and information-capable society will only occur if corporate sector dominance of IT is balanced by government delivery of non-commercial services.
The Internet, a focal point of information services, is under-utilised by state and federal governments. As a tool for delivering government and educational information, Internet usage remains in an embryonic stage. Government sites are yet to match the domination of commercial or business Web sites. If the Internet is truly to be a unique opportunity to enhance cyber-democracy, governments must grasp this opportunity now. Otherwise the Internet will just be another refuge for commercialism and advertising.
Evidence confirms that acquiring data and government information is a priority for the majority of on-line users. In the United Kingdom, 63% of Net users seek information on government services or related public service material. For US on-line users, 86.03% of respondents to a recent survey used the Web to obtain ‘information’. It is therefore paramount that Labor policy reflects (or ‘echoes’) the requirements of all on-line users. The fact that commerce and trade are dominating the Internet represents a challenge to the Labor Party to formulate strategies to promote non-commercial use of on-line services.
One explanation for the increase in advertising and commerce on the Internet is that governments have traditionally been slow to utilise the Internet for service delivery, thus leaving a void easily filled by commercial sites. Recent announcements by state and federal governments, however, suggest that this trend is being reversed. For state, local and federal governments, the Internet offers more than simply an avenue for media releases or departmental policies. The Internet is capable of delivering a new style of interaction between constituents and politicians in the form of cyber-democracy. The notion of cyber-democracy has not been widely canvassed nor promoted in Australia, yet overseas examples confirm that cyber-democracy will challenge existing paradigms of government information flows. The Blair Government, for example, has already developed a vision of electronic government (government.direct) with the aim of canvassing the general public’s views on how IT should be used to better serve the British people.
Perhaps the ‘generational’ nature of technological developments has blinkered politicians’ understanding of the centrality of IT to democratic participation. Regardless of the reasons, it is imperative that Labor’s IT policy promotes cyber-democracy as a vehicle for better government through enhanced and direct communication.
Another problem regarding the Internet and IT is that statistics and data on Internet and computer usage continue to cloud the real issues that will face the next Labor government. It is not so much the numbers of people that are using IT, but the numbers who are not able to access or afford IT. The infatuation with statistics and escalating rates of Internet usage disguises the growing gulf between information rich and poor. On the positive side, Australia has one of the world’s highest ‘up-take’ rates of technology. About two million homes, representing 31% of all Australian households, frequently use computers. But statistics also reveal that 30% of households without computers cite cost as the main barrier to ownership.
In short, we have the knowledge base, consumer awareness and previous experiences with communications technologies to respond and adapt to the pace of technological change. Information technology represents a unique social and economic opportunity for the Labor Party. Unlike other ‘industries’, IT is not a pollutant or a danger to the environment. Indeed many IT applications are used for environmental research and land and water management. IT workers require a high level of skill and training. This in itself will transform not only how education and training are delivered, but also how governments respond to and provide for all of their citizens. Information technologies are our future. They will deliver enormous export income and create a new paradigm for democratic participation.
Opportunities in IT
The phenomenal pace of technological change has facilitated the globalisation of the world’s economies, with information technologies creating an imperative for the corporate sector to conduct operations in a theoretically seamless environment. Underpinning the phenomenal growth of IT is a corporatist frenzy to harness any new technologies through which business can advance in the marketplace. While the acceleration of computer and on-line services has transformed global commerce and industry, these same technologies can also be used to reshape delivery of government services and information. Information technologies will be the facilitator between corporate and commercial wants, and public sector needs.
To date, the emphasis in ‘information’ is slanted towards commercial utilisation of data. The information ‘market’ is deployed in the belief that supplying ‘perfect knowledge’ to buyers and sellers will enhance global economies. The Coalition Government signalled their philosophical support for this concept by titling their new IT portfolio The National Office of Information Economy (NOIE), as if economics alone are the preserve of information services. In their eagerness to adopt what Bill Gates calls the “race for gold” the Coalition view on-line services as nothing more than an avenue for targeting specific markets. The dangers of heading down this path is that the corporate IT sector want to control more than just the ‘pipe’ that delivers data – they want to control content as well.
The role of good government is to establish an environment in which participatory democracy and increased communications are enhanced by linking various and disparate groups within society. Good government involves more than promoting electronic commerce or letting school children ‘surf’ the Net. This form of technological determinism remains anathema to those of us who still see new technologies as delivering something other than increased conduits for capitalist expansion.
Opportunities in IT fall into four main categories: government structures, employment, export growth, and cyber-democracy. These are opportunities not only to present a distinctly different policy framework from the Coalition but also to present a policy platform that will deliver social progression, employment growth and financial rewards.
Recognising the centrality of information technology might entail restructuring portfolio responsibilities. ‘Getting IT Right’ requires more than an acknowledgment of the significance of information services; it involves placing IT within the highest echelons of public administration. In the US, Britain and Malaysia, IT is controlled from within Cabinet – a recognition that IT cannot be contained within a single ministerial position. The globalisation of trade, be it information or economics, demands that information technology and telecommunications be situated at the highest levels of decision making. Similar to the Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for the Status of Women, a Minister for Information Technology (or Information Services, Communications Services, Information Resources) must be positioned to respond to all policy decisions. As technologies converge, so too should the IT portfolio or ministry. A future Labor cabinet must avoid pigeon-holing IT into a single ministry.
With regard to employment opportunities, IT will significantly impact on our high levels of unemployment, provided that policies are designed to enhance job growth, not minimise the labour force. We must create an environment in which increased investment and R & D are fostered because this is the ‘engine room’ for job creation. The concept of a nation of ‘knowledge workers’ is possible provided that a future Labor government demonstrates national leadership and a defined regulatory infrastructure that promotes investment in human as well as technological capital.
There are a number of initiatives that Labor could adopt with respect to IT. Australia’s IT structure is currently conducted at federal, state and local levels, therefore any national policy must harness the various tiers of government to effectively coordinate the direction of our IT future. This challenge will be enhanced if we continue to expand research and development schemes, particularly in the area of long distance data transmission, where Australia has already established an enviable reputation in hybrid optic fibre technology (photonics).
Furthermore, Government control over broadband networks is essential. Bandwidth capacity and utilisation must be federally administered to ensure access and equity is maintained. Hence, the disadvantages of rural and regional communities can be addressed by subsidising on-line costs for remote communities and through implementing innovative social and economic policy initiatives to counter the decline of traditional economic, educational and transport services.
Subsidising Internet access in schools will unite classrooms and create a unique environment that brings a sense of community previously inconceivable. On-line and multimedia programs can provide students with an environment that approximates ‘real’ conditions. They further provide unprecedented opportunities for students to tackle complex ideas and issues. Disadvantages experienced by more poorly funded schools or colleges can be alleviated through on-line access and specific software applications used to aid students with particular disabilities or learning problems.
On-line content is one area where Australia can play a significant international role. Specific government assistance can foster and promote Australian content on the Internet and in multimedia. Essentially, content will drive our multimedia and broadband development.
