Digital as an alternative
Those who tend to think that the cyberworld has no sociological gravity, and float in political weightlessness, are very naive.
There are as many power struggles, political, economic, social and cultural conflicts and feudalisms in the virtual as in the real world. The digital reflects the real.
Better said, both are closely woven together. Therefore, the digital industries of the northern countries are mainly serving technoscience, finance, economy, managment, trade and entertainment retailtainment, as we say today.
But we dont give enough attention to the other face of the digital, an emerging alternative strategic tool, able to foster major developments in the southern countries.
The digital technologies have become basic for public health, education, cultural diversity, democracy and even the economy in these poor countries, where the needs and possibilities of the digital look huge and even more strategic than in the industrial world, much more urgent for the suffering populations than for the rich one.
Hervé Fischer
