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take place in closed-door negotiations. that waits to be contacted by a client program and
Without doubt, it is important to set up prac- then exchanges information with the client, while a
host is a computer on which one or more servers are
tical projects that provide marginalized com-
running. Yet, pars pro toto, host computers on
munities with NICT access, but it seems that which the server software of a local computer net-
the resources of NGOs, especially in the work runs are often referred to in short-hand as
global South, are far too limited to fundamen- servers.
tally alter deep inequalities. Perhaps most 2 From the viewpoint of Microsoft Corporation,
the market for operating systems is characterized
crucially lacking are actors in civil society
by competition. Anyone could just write a new
who diffuse critical knowledge about the code for an operating system and compete with
stakes of legal regulatory issues, conceive of Microsoft’s Windows. The US Justice Department
democratic alternatives, and mobilize to exert under Clinton and Judge Jackson, who oversaw
pressure on governments to use national the Justice Department’s lawsuit against Microsoft,
saw it differently. In their view, Microsoft had
policy leverage and push for more equitable
assumed a dominating position in the market for
international treaties. operating systems and abused their market power
The dangers of digital marginalization and to prevent smaller players from even entering into
socio-technological misdevelopments are competition over other software applications by
acute. Similar to the extent to which decisions keeping crucial parts of the operating system code
secret and by bundling its platform with other
during the early periods of the establishment
applications.
of a new medium tended in the past to have a 3 Napster, once the most famous P2P network,
fundamental impact on its subsequent trajec- was shut down in July 2001 after an injunction by
tory, today’s social decisions about NICT are the United States Ninth Circuit Court and went into
setting the tracks for future developments that bankruptcy during the following year. In October
2003, Napster was re-launched as a commercial
might be even more difficult to adjust at later
online music provider, then competing with Apple’s
stages. The mode according to which NICTs iTunes store, which was opened six months earlier.
are being regulated has a decisive impact After Napster’s decline, KaZaA rose in popularity. It
upon the distribution of access chances, the was seen then as less vulnerable than Napster
distribution of access quality and the opportu- because it had no centralized server. Yet in
September 2005 an Australian court ordered KaZaA
nities for effective usage. The technological
to install filters that would prevent the exchange of
pre-conditions of social communication are copyrighted materials. While KaZaA has lost in pop-
too important for the actors of civil society to ularity to P2P rivals such as BitTorrent, eDonkey, and
leave the arena to others. Gnutella, it seems likely that any P2P networks will
The rapid pace of NICT development and be pursued in similar ways as Napster and KaZaA
once they have grown to a size significant to com-
its social shaping presents social research
mercial interests.
with urgent challenges. More research on the
emerging new global mediascapes is needed
to enable relevant actors to identify shape-
able policy aspects and make better choices.
Research about the roles of conflict, compe- REFERENCES
tition, and cooperation as analytically dis-
Abbate, Janet (1999) Inventing the Internet.
tinct modes of the structured interplay that
Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
shapes NICT can help in modeling digital
Amin, Samir (1977) Imperialism and Unequal
futures which are more desirable than the
Development. NY: Monthly Review Press.
alternatives pointed to by current trends.
Baran, Paul (1964) On Distributed Communications,
12 Vols. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Report Series.
Beck, Klaus, Glotz ,Peter and Vogelsang,
NOTES Gregor (2000) Die Zukunft des Internet:
Internationale Delphi-Befragung zur
Entwicklung der Online-Kommunikation.
1 Strictly speaking a host computer is not the
same as a server. A server is a computer program Konstanz, Germany: UVK Medien.