(A version of this item - with live links - is also available at <http://blog.deborah.elizabeth.finn.com/blog/_archives/2005/10/1/1271793.html>).
Dear DDN Colleagues, In 2003, James F. Moore proposed the hypothesis that the internet is emerging as the second superpower. Lately, John McNutt has been documenting online volunteer responses to Hurricane Katrina, and hypothesizing that the internet is (if not the second superpower) the new social welfare delivery system. John says that a network is more effective than a conventionally structured agency during an emergency. I'm not entirely certain that this is always the case; I'm a Weberian at heart, and when phone service and electricity go down, I take comfort in knowing that there's a rational-legal bureaucracy working to restore it. However, as John points out that the latter is a model better suited to the industrial age, and that in the current information age networks will rule. I'm intrigued by this argument, and admire those who are taking the lead in testing its validity in the nonprofit sector. I usually think of "further research is needed" as weasel words, but when it comes to understanding whether the internet is the new social welfare delivery system, it seems to me that further research is our best hope. Best regards from Deborah Deborah Elizabeth Finn Boston, Massachusetts, USA [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://blog.deborah.elizabeth.finn.com/blog http://public.xdi.org/=deborah.elizabeth.finn _______________________________________________ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list [email protected] http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message.
