History and Past Activities
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History and Past Activities |
ESA Conference: Ageing Societies, New Sociology
September 23-26, 2003 in Murcia, Spain
Two streams of sessions of the
Research Network 18: Sociology of Science and Technology (SSTNET)
Convenors:
Raymund Werle: Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies, Köln, Germany (werle@mpi-fg-koeln.mpg.de)
Marja Häyrinen Alestalo: Dept. of Sociology, University of Helsinki, Finland (marja.alestalo@helsinki.fi)
Luísa Oliveira: DINÂMIA/ISCTE, Lisboa, Portugal (luisa.oliveira@iscte.pt)
Maarten Mentzel: 38 Johan de Wittstraat, 2334 AR Leiden, The Netherlands (m.a.mentzel@planet.nl)
First Stream: Governing Science and Technology in the Era of Globalization
Tuesday Sept. 23
14.00 - 16.00 session 1 (Campus de La Merced)
Chair: Raymund Werle
1.4. Author(s): McSorley, Kevin
Institution: Department of Sociology, School of Human Sciences, University of Surrey, Guildford
Professional Category: Lecturer in Sociology
City: Guildford
Country: United Kingdom
E-mail: k.mcsorley@surrey.ac.uk
THE SECULAR SALVATION STORY OF THEGLOBAL DIVIDE
Despite much discussion of the digital divide, little academic work has directly analyzed the specific political and policy contexts in which the concept is being developed and deployed. This paper undertakes an analysis of one such initiative, the activity of the G8-initiated Digital Opportunity Task Force (DOT Force). The analysis provides a critical discursive analysis of the final report of the DOT Force, together with thick description of the processes by which it was produced. The DOT Force endeavours to present itself as supporting and exemplifying an innovative and inclusive process of global consensus formation as a necessary condition of its credibility. However, an extended analysis reveals numerous antagonisms between the participants whose resolution in the narrative of the final report reflects the field of power in which the DOT Force operates. The issue of the digital divide can be best understood as providing a generative resource through which the various political interests represented in the DOT Force process normatively reconfigure the conceptual and ethical possibilities it signifies in order to extend and renew a dominant, singular ‘secular salvation story’ of the global and inevitable technoscientific globalization. The specific closure, articulation and legitimation of the digital divide instantiates an action-oriented temporality and a transformed moral agenda, from a concern with inequality to a pressing inclusionary imperative to connect with the promise of technology and development.
Sociology of Science and Technology NETwork - last update: April 2006