Technology – a double-edged sword

ICT already influence the social and political life of all nations. However, their influence is not always for the better. The use of message-forming and transmitting technologies in some cases impedes justice and concentrates power by reducing reciprocity in communication. Emergence of huge media conglomerates is vivid evidence of this.
Even more impressive lessons, both warning and encouraging, can be drawn from the recent history of the fall of great totalitarian states. One might suggest that the fall of the Soviet communist empire had already begun when Joseph Stalin died in 1953. Not coincidentally, the change to a more liberal regime coincided with the proliferation of TV broadcasting and the introduction of home tape-recorders in the USSR. The impact of those types of ICT was equally significant but different in its directions and consequences. Television, owned by the state, became, and for the next forty odd years remained, another tool for vertical brainwashing and manipulation of public consciousness, exercised by the totalitarian regime.
The same historical period was marked by a rising tide of underground dissemination of the written word (and, if caught, severely punished). Forbidden manuscripts of prose, poetry, political philosophy, social critique, and reports on violations of human rights were duplicated on mechanical typewriters
that produced four carbon copies at a time. Photostat copying was too complicated and demanded special skills to be used widely. In the early 1970s, the old fashioned photostat copier was supplanted by the electrochemical Xerox copier, which was extremely fast and easy to operate, but kept under strict
police surveillance in governmental offices and inaccessible to private persons. Fax machines followed a decade later, giving additional impetus to the already visible process of decay and disintegration of the totalitarian stronghold. Toward the end of the 1980s, communication barriers (censorship, radio jamming, and all that) went tumbling down along with the Berlin Wall.
Future generations of historians may be tempted to interpret ICT as the main leverage for all these cataclysms. Needless to say, it would be an obvious exaggeration. History paves its way through time by much more complicated trajectories. In fact, Mikhail Gorbachev ascended to power and launched his
famous Perestroika (re-building) before such novelties as the Internet, and even phone-fax, had become common commodities in the USSR.
Nonetheless, it would not be too strong an exaggeration to say that the personal computer (with printer and modem to connect the Internet), neglected by short-sighted Soviet authorities, hammered the last nail into the coffin of communist ideological and political rule in Russia and Eastern Europe.
Similarly, we believe that the worldwide proliferation of ICT will help offset cultural imperialism, ideological totalitarianism, and information monopoly. The Internet and desktop publishing will play a crucial role in democratizing the dissemination and use of information. In addition, ICT create new options for the preservation and revival of indigenous cultural traditions and spiritual values.
Even a teacher with a class of students, can design a set of fonts for their native language, make a multilingual dictionary, record folk songs and dances, make pictures of handicrafts, and put everything together as an Internet page. We hope that linguistic barriers such as the historically and politically imposed dominanceof a few languages may be weakened by the worldwide availability of ICT and its thoughtful application for educational purposes.
Finally, ICT also change age and gender distribution and opportunities in the work place. Women and young people can learn to use ICT and work in ICT environments as well as men.
How ICT Can Create New, Open Learning Environments UNESCO, 2005 p16-17.