Page 329 - The ISA Handbook in Contemporary Sociology

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300 THE ISA HANDBOOK IN CONTEMPORARY SOCIOLOGY

There are also signs of an alternative CONCLUDING REMARKS
future development of the Internet driven by
the principle of cooperation. This model is This chapter has argued that conflict, compe-
supportive of the vision that the global medi- tition, and cooperation are the fundamental
ascape belongs to a global community and modes of creating future society. It traced
that there should be a social right for commu- these three categories from the beginning of
nication. Parallel to the 2003 Geneva World the sociological discipline in the nineteenth
Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), and early twentieth centuries and demon-
NGOs organized their World Forum on strated their applicability in an analysis of the
Communication Rights, in which they social shaping of the NICT, focusing espe-
affirmed the social right to communication cially on the Internet.
and demanded a more equitable framework The values and cooperative mode of
for global communication. On a practical Californian computer engineers and
level, a non-proprietary operating system has researchers have had a profound impact on
been developed under the name of Linux by the shaping of computer networks. Their lib-
a network of computer programmers who ertarian convictions and practices translated
embrace cooperative values and share a com- into horizontal networking, free sharing of
mitment to an open source code that can ideas, and cooperative interaction. The
be freely used by anyone. Brazil, Peru, Internet’s predecessor, the ARPAnet, was
and Venezuela are among the countries able to flourish largely due to funding pro-
most strongly promoting the use of Linux, vided by the Pentagon with its aim of bolster-
though Microsoft has threatened costly law ing the technological lead against the Cold
suits, claiming that Linux would violate War adversary. The later privatization of
copyrights. As a result, the city of Munich, what was to become known as the Internet-
Germany felt it necessary to put its led entrepreneurs to compete with one
Linux program on hold. The International another over clients and customers, resulting,
Telecommunication Union (ITU), which had among others things, in the invention of
been largely on the sidelines of the Internet’s email-spam and spam-blocking software and
development, published the results of a web in the battles between file-sharing software
survey on the question: ‘Should Cyberspace and record companies. Not only does the
be declared a resource to be shared by computer code, narrowly conceived, matter
all?’ Of the 1250 online respondents 94.2% in the shaping of digital futures, but also the
voted ‘yes’, and 5.78% ‘no’ (ITU, 2004). legal code, as established by lawmakers and
The percentage of ‘no’ votes was higher in interpreted and applied by courts. Whether
better connected world regions than in the the values of citizens should have been given
less well-connected ones. Although the higher regard than the values of record labels
survey does not qualify as strongly represen- appears to have been debated only in circles
tative, it does indicate a new level of aware- too small to exercise any great pressure on
ness within the ITU. the USA policy makers who voted on the
Whether the future Internet will follow the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
path of a ‘Future I’dominated by commercial However, views that look only at develop-
and national security values and the modes of ments in OECD countries are too limited.
competition and conflict, or the path of a When taking a more global perspective, we
‘Future II’ inspired by an alternative agenda come to acknowledge that it is only a small
based on the social right to communicate in fraction of the world’s population that has
the mode of cooperation, is up to the actors access to the new digital media. What values
who are getting involved in the process of its are behind such an unequal distribution of
social shaping. human goods? How does it come about that