Note: For the last four years, OneWebDay has attracted a global network of partner organizations and individual activists committed to broadening the public’s awareness of Internet and Web issues while deepening a culture of participation in building a Web that works for everyone. In 2008, OneWebDay organizers documented volunteer-driven events 34 different cities across the world. In 2009, OWD hosted events in over 50 cities in 20 countries! The presentation below is from a OneWebDay event held in Washington D.C. on Sept. 22, 2009 sponsored by the Media Democracy Coalition.
OneWebDay Comments
Hello, and thank you for including me today.
My name is amalia deloney and I am the Coordinator for the Media Action Grassroots Network. The Media Action Grassroots Network (MAG-Net) is an advocacy network of more than 100 grassroots social justice, media, and cultural organizations. Together, we are developing advocacy strategies to improve media conditions for communities of color and poor people with universal broadband and digital justice among our goals.
BOLD IDEA:
We believe that we need to transform the social infrastructure of our communities to match the increasingly digitized and technologically mediated environment we live in.
This is no small idea, and we realize it.
- It means a massive overhaul of school curriculum—with a strong emphasis on digital and media literacy
- It means we need community-based technology centers with the goal of full employment and access to services in EVERY community
- It means we need to transform journalism—with a specific look towards new models that engage communities in real ways
- And it involves re-imagining the relationship between digital technologies and surveillance—acknowledging that our communities have very real communication needs and are often in situations where it’s unsafe to share
We are at a place in our society where we are undergoing a massive global communications restructuring. This requires a new framework for understanding Communication Rights and Media. Digital Justice includes a new understanding of “rights, access, and power.” And as history has taught us, a transformation of power requires deep change! Using a communication rights platform, coupled with grassroots organizing, is a vital part of this process.
To understand our relationship to this digital environment, MAG-Net and our allies use a framework we call “A Healthy Digital Ecology.” Through this we are working to build a digital ecosystem that is community-based, people-centered, and supportive of political, economic, cultural and technological justice. At the same time, this framework encourages us to explore and take into account how people interact with, are shaped by, and shape the mechanisms through which we produce, share, receive, archive, and access information. Though speed and price are important, our communities know that the Internet and other forms of digital communication have always been about more than a fast and affordable connection.
While the Pew Research Center reports that 63% of U.S. adults have broadband in their homes—the 37% who remain “disconnected” are disproportionately rural, people of color, poor people, migrants and refugees, and speakers of languages other than English. Raising the level of digital inclusion by increasing the number of people using technology must remain an important national goal—but we cannot simply bring our communities into a system, which will only exacerbate deep and pre-existing disparities. We need access. However, in keeping with our standards of justice, we also need a new infrastructure that provides our communities with:
- Full employment
- Safe and affordable housing
- Quality education, and
- Content that is relevant and useful to our lives and life plans
Communication is a fundamental human right! Good, comprehensive digital policy can connect rural and urban concerns and connect communities politically, technologically, and culturally. This is especially true given the involuntary migration of poor communities brought about by economic globalization and free trade. While 56% of Latinos in the U.S. use the Internet, only 1-in-3 Spanish speakers go online. Separated from their homelands and often working long hours in multiple jobs —Latinos need fast and affordable ways to communicate with their families and communities. Yet it’s not just about access. It’s also about finding a computer, knowing how to use email, feeling confident in your reading and writing skills and knowing how to upload or download content, all within the context of knowing that this connection might be the only connection you have to your home, for a very long time—and maybe forever. This “internet” connection is now more than just a “neutral online experience in the digital age,” it has become your lifeline. As I mentioned before: political, cultural and technological connections matter.
In closing, what is true for rural Latinos is also true for the more than 2 million people moving between communities, jails and prisons. It is also true for poor whites throughout the south and urban Blacks and Latinos forced to migrate by corporate land grabs and displacement. The vast majority of people not connected to the Internet have similar experiences of marginalization. However we can, with bold ideas, innovation, and real access and equity- also have a shared experience of justice.
Thank you.
