Element 2: Learning science and technology in society (STS) as a new approach to science education

2.1 Develop a better understanding of STS concepts to enhance his/her capacity to deal with change,
uncertainty, and unpredictability

The Need for Radical Overhaul of Science Education.

 Optimists believe they live in the best of all possible worlds, while Pessimists are afraid, they might be right.
 We are living in an increasingly complex, rapidly changing, uncertain and challenging world, with
extraordinary possibilities and opportunities brought about by scientific discovery and technological
innovation.
 We are faced with rapid growth in social, economic, political and environmental problems at the local,
regional and global levels.
 There is massive and growing disparity between societies and within societies in terms of
o Income,
o Access to proper housing,
o Food and water security,
o Educational opportunity,
o Health care,
o Freedom,
o Justice and safety
 Many of these disparities are a consequence of
o Geographical location,
o Climatic conditions
o Levels of political and economic stability
 Many are also closely linked to
o The practices of the global industrial complex
o The consumerism it promotes,
o And to restriction of opportunity,
o Persecution and outright violence related to racial, ethnocultural and religious differences, sexual
orientation, values and political leanings.
 Many people are quick to exploit others and to engage in corrupt practices, unethical conduct of all kinds and
both overt and covert distrust and intolerance of those different from themselves.
o Five key purposes for science education at the school level.
1. Economic purposes - ensuring a steady supply of people with strong backgrounds in
science and technology.
2. Utilitarian 1 purposes – ensuring that all members of society have sufficient knowledge of
science to operate effectively and critically.
3. Personal development purposes – ensuring that all members of society benefit from the
contribution that the analytical skills, investigative strategies and values of science can make to
their ability.
4. Cultural Purpose - ensuring that all members of the society develop a robust understanding of
the history, development and contemporary scope of science and scientific practice.
5. Democratic purposes – ensuring that all students develop sufficient scientific knowledge and
skills, familiarity with scientific language and argumentation, capability and confidence in

1 Made to be useful rather than to be decorative or comfortable.

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 appraising scientific reports and media literacy to be active participants in debate and decision-
making about scientific and technological issues.
 Are we doing enough to meet the challenges of the contemporary world in terms of these five purposes?
o Emphasis on preparing students for later study of science or subsequent
employment in science-based careers.
o Little or nothing to prepare them for responsible and active citizenship
 For the past 2 decades
o There has been major emphasis on competition between students rather than cooperation and
collaboration among them.
o Too much emphasis on pre-specified and highly detailed (but often educationally trivial) learning
outcomes.
o Too much emphasis on rigorous and systematic testing for so-called educational standards.
o Too much emphasis on teacher-centered education.
o Many students have been led to distrust and devalue their own knowledge, skills, values and
experiences.
 John Dewey is reputed to have said: “If we teach today as we taught yesterday, we rob our children of
tomorrow.
 The Science Curriculum we need
o Ensures all students acquire a robust understanding of scientific knowledge, scientific practice and
the language, norms of behavior and values that guide scientists in their work.
o Equips all students with the knowledge, skills and confidence to make judgments and reach
decisions on the complex socio-scientific issues (SSI) that confront them.
o Develops their capacity to deal with change, uncertainty and unpredictability.
o Cultivates their ability to ascertain what is desirable/undesirable and what is possible in both the
long and short terms.
o Pays much more attention than has been usual in the past to values issues in the deployment of
scientific developments and technological innovations and to the active promotion of democracy
and social justice.
o Prepares students for taking direct and indirect action in pursuit of changes they consider desirable,
both individually and collectively.

Enter Science, Technology, & Society

 STS (Science, Technology and Society)
o The current megatrend in science education.
o A paradigm shift for the field of science education.

What is STS (Science, Technology and Society)

 An interdisciplinary field of study that seeks to explore and understand the many ways that modern science
and technology shape modern culture, values, and institutions, on one hand, and how modern values shape
science and technology, on the other.
 Ziman (1980) identified STS as a kind of curriculum approach designed to make traditional concepts and
processes found in typical science and social studies programs more appropriate and relevant to the lives of
students.
 Yager (1990), STS may be defined as an integrated approach to science teaching.
 Yager (1996) STS means “dealing with students in their own environments and with their own frames of
reference.”
 Wraga and Hlebowitsh (1991) have defined STS as a topical curriculum that addresses a broad range of
environmental, industrial, technological, social, and political problems.

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  Heath (1992), STS can be referred to as an instructional approach that
incorporates appropriate STS knowledge, skills, attitudes, and values.
 Hofestein, Aikenhead, and Riquarts (1988) define STS as teaching science content in the authentic context2
of its technological and social milieu.
 National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) views STS as the teaching and learning of science in the
context of human experience.
 Starting from the real-world problems included in the students’ perspectives, instead of starting with the
basic concepts and processes (NSTA, 1990).

STS as a Paradigm3 Shift on Science Education

 Focused for a long time on imparting knowledge in the different branches of science.
 Teachers continued to use teaching methods that involved the memorizing by students of the largest amount
of knowledge, and the science curricula continued to view the human cognitive heritage as the aim to which
one should adhere.
 (Kliebard, 1979). Traditional paradigm of the science curriculum began to take shape in the 19th century,
and its form was highly influenced by the social and political realities of that time.

STS and Aims of Science Education

 A major goal of education is, to improve the quality of human existence.
 (Longbottom & Butler, 1999; Quicke, 2001). Promotion of rational ways in which citizens can influence
the conduct and direction of human affairs and can live in a democratic society.
o In democratic societies, the quality of the decision made by the laity4 is of fundamental importance.
Lay people’s abilities to promote their point of view on socio-scientific issues are therefore
significant.
 Longbottom and Butler (1999) argue that these assumptions link education in general and science education
in particular.
 Longbottom and Butler (1999)
o Refer to science education should be designed for the general population rather than for a specialist
group of future scientists.
o Should lead to empowerment in some general sense of giving citizens more control or decision-
making ability.
 Science education is the production of citizens who are creative, critical, analytical, and rational.
 (Kolstoe, 2001) Science for citizenship has been discussed as an important goal of science education
 Price and Cross 1995) infer that science education should give pupils a basis for
understanding and for coping with their lives.
 They should be given applications and effects of science in their personal and social life.
 The National Science Foundation Advisory Committee for Science Education recommended that the
traditional approach to science education in science be rethought with more
o (Hurd, 1998) “Emphasis on the understanding of science and technology by those who are not and
do not expect to be professional scientists and technologists”.
o (Hurd, 1998). Notions of scientific literacy should be embedded in contexts that promote a socially
responsible and competent citizen.
 Jenkins (1999), citizens need to be “scientifically literate” in order to be able to
contribute to decision making about issues that have a scientific dimension.

2 The words that are used with a certain word or phrase and that help to explain its meaning.
3 Theory or group of ideas on how something should be done, made or thought about.
4 People of a religion who are not priest, ministers, etc.

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  As future citizens, students have the enormous responsibility of making decisions that require an
understanding of the interaction of science and technology and its interface with society.
 (Mansour, 2007a) putting theory into practice has so far been difficult.
 (Eijkelhof & Lijnse, 1988) it has been argued that science education should pay more attention to the STS
interface.
 Project Synthesis (Ost & Yager, 1993) an overt effort by science teachers to help students develop into
scientifically literate citizens
 (Bybee, 1987; Dimopoulos & Koulaidis, 2003; Hart & Robottom, 1990; Kolstoe, 2001; F. P. Ramsey,
1993; Wiesenmayer & Rubba, 1999; Yager, 1993) Scholars have argued that inclusion of socio-scientific
issues through the STS movement in the science curriculum will help in developing the scientifically literate
citizen.
 This is clear in NSTA’s definition of STS: Basic to STS efforts is the production of an informed citizenry
capable of making crucial decisions about current problems and taking personal actions as a result of these
decisions. STS means focusing upon current issues and attempts at their resolution as the best way of
preparing people for current and future citizenship roles. (as cited in Ost & Yager, 1993).
 (Waks, 1987). The primary objective of an STS education is to present contextual understanding of current
science and technology and provide students with the intellectual foundations for responsible citizenship.
 J. Ramsey and Hungerford (1989) and Wiesenmayer and Rubba (1999) showed that an STS issue
investigation with an action instructional model that addresses each of the four STS goal levels is crucial in
promoting citizenship actions on STS issues.
 (Kolstoe, 2001) It has been argued that to empower the students as citizens, there is a need to emphasize STS.

Science is Political/Technology is Social: Concerns, Concepts, and Questions

 Science and technology are central features of the lives of people worldwide.
 Citizenship in this technoscientific world demands that we learn to grasp the issues raised by our environment.
 Citizenship in this technoscientific world demands that we learn to grasp the issues raised by our environment.
 We do not mean to imply that these are the only concepts that can be used to analytically engage the world
of science and technology.
o They are one lens through which to study, analyze, and evaluate the practices and products of
technoscience.
 STS approach in teaching.
o Preceded by a discussion of why it is so difficult for many people to think critically about science
and technology.
o The remainder of the manual uses these concepts in discussions of several distinct cases that deal
with matters of science and technology.
 We pay special attention to farming and the relationship between farming and agribusiness.
 Recent developments in biotechnology are affecting the social organization of agriculture.
 Later, (“rethinking information technology: caught in a world wide web”),
 Digital divide in computer and internet access.
 The digital divide is any uneven distribution in the access to, use of, or impact of
information and communication technologies (ICT) between any number.
 The digital divide is an economic and social inequality with regard to access to,
use of, or impact of information and communication technologies (ICT)
 Here, we analyze the ways in which computer and information access
are stratified across different social groups and regions.
 Investigate the use of information technologies in educational settings.
 We consider what information technology means and is likely to mean
for politics and civic life in different parts of the world.

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 
 Bacillus thuringiensi - is a Gram-positive, soil-dwelling bacterium, commonly used as a biological pesticide.
B. Thuringiensis also occurs naturally
 Techno-Science –
o The study of how humans interact with technology using the scientific method
o Refers to the entire long-standing global human activity of technology combined with the relatively
recent scientific method that occurred primarily in Europe during the 17th and 18th centuries.
 Techno-Scientific Society -
o Citizenship in this Techno-Scientific Society requires us to:
 Learn to grasp the issues raised by our environment.
 Nurture the building of tools that will allow us to engage in a critical understanding of
developments in science and technology.

Why is thinking about science and technology so hard?

 Two features of our discursive (Debate) landscape – The realm of ideas, concepts, categories and the many
beliefs we take for granted.
o Scientism –
 Is an ideology that promotes science as the only objective means by which society should
determine normative and epistemological values.
 The term scientism is generally used critically, pointing to the cosmetic application of
science in unwarranted situations not amenable5 to application of the scientific method or
similar scientific standards.
o Technological progressivism -
 Is a stance of active support for the convergence of technological change and social change.
 Techno-progressives argue that technological developments can be profoundly
empowering and emancipatory6 when they are regulated by legitimate democratic and
accountable authorities to ensure that their costs, risks and benefits are all fairly shared by
the actual stakeholders to those developments.
o There is an inherent divide between facts and values
 This idea can be seen in Plato’s claim that contemplative thought and practical action should be separated.
o Seventeenth-century European natural philosophers protect their work from attacks by the church
and the state.
o Early Twentieth-century (Proctor, 1991) debates in Germany over values in social science.
 This way of thinking, demands bracketing values and studying only facts.
 Facts are superior to values in terms of credibility and cognitive 7authority.
 Only trained scientists – experts at unearthing facts
 (Kleinman & Kloppenburg 1991) where data (the facts) is the product of the scientific method.
 (Nelkin 1995; Proctor 1991) the authority of science rests on its claims to be value-free and politically
neutral.
 (Nelkin 1995) the interpretations and predictions of scientists . . . [are] rational and immune from political
manipulation because they are based on data gathered through objective procedures” .
 As a result, we accept that science and scientists are the best possible arbiters of controversy, clearing away
the tangle of politics and opinion to reveal the unbiased truth.

5 Someone who is agreeable or willing to be persuaded.

6 Something that relates to liberation or giving freedom
7 Relating to, or involving conscious mental activities (such as thinking, understanding, learning and remembering)

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  Those who oppose the technology because of the expected undesirable social effects or moral/ethical
concerns gain legitimate entry into the debate only when they focus on issues, such as the environment or
health and safety.
o (Nelkin, 1995) reduction of moral concerns about fetal research into technical debates about the
precise point at which life begins.
o Genetically engineered foods have found it strategically effective to focus on their environmental
impacts and on worries about food safety.
o The socioeconomic impacts on small farmers or moral opposition to the commodification of nature.
o (Kleinman 1986; Kleinman and Pastor 1989) Social impacts and moral concerns are typically
considered to be based on value-judgments and are, therefore, viewed as less credible; by contrast,
debates about health and safety issues are viewed as adjudicable (where an arbiter will regulate the
discussion) in scientific terms.
 The second discourse “Technological progressivism”.: Often inhibits the ability of citizens to view science
and especially, technology as reasonable subjects for wide-ranging public debate.
o (Schatzberg 1999; Smith 1995) This is an idea with roots in the Enlightenment, when progress
became a synonym for the good and technology came to be viewed as a tool in all progressive
projects.
o (Smith 1995) Founding leaders of the United States viewed new technologies as a means of
realizing the goals of the American revolution.
o (Noble, 1983; Smith, 1995; Hard & Jamison, 1998; Schatzberg, 1999) the nineteenth century,
the equation of technology and progress was firmly established in the American imagination.
o There are no social choices, as technology has only one path, which is intrinsically determined, and
there is no point in blocking the road down, which technology proceeds, as it is always for the
good.
o Certain technologies come to be viewed as progressive, while others are seen as old fashioned.
 (Schatzberg, 1999) engineers were captivated by the idea of replacing wooden parts with
metal, despite evidence for the virtues of wood, because metal “symbolized progress and
science” while wood was viewed as outmoded.
 (Sophia, 1998) Analysts have pointed to “technological utopianism (an imagined
community or society that possesses highly desirable or nearly perfect qualities for its
citizens”)8 as responsible for pushing computer technology, with relatively little critical
examination, into primary and secondary educational settings.
o Despite the often-thoughtful assessment of developing industrial production by nineteenth-century
Luddites9.
o In recent years, proponents of biotechnology have attempted to marginalize critics by referring to
them as Luddites, alarmists, and champions of technological stagnation.
Technoscience is Social
 What does it mean to say that science and technology are social phenomena10?
 Since science is undertaken by and technology developed by people, and people are social, science and
technology are social.
 About all we can say is that since science is undertaken by and technology developed by people, and people
are social, science and technology are social.
 Traditional view of science understands knowledge to be the product of reading reality off of nature.

8
(Often called techno-utopianism or techno-utopianism) is any ideology based on the premise that advances in
science and technology could and should bring about a utopia.
9
A radical faction which destroyed textile machinery as a form of protest.
10
Is anything which manifests itself. Phenomena are often, but not always, understood as "things that appear" or
"Experiences" for a sentient being, or in principle may be so.

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  Because scientists are human, they might, for example, commit fraud, self-consciously misrepresenting their
reading of nature, and science could be said to be social in this sense.
 A traditionalist might view science as social in the sense that what research gets done is determined by what
funders – the government, foundations, industry – are willing to support.
 We believe that technoscience is absolutely and thoroughly social.
 We never look outside ourselves and see phenomena through entirely naive11 eyes.
 What we actually see – is shaped by a wide array of prior assumptions, commitments, worldviews,
 (Haraway 1988) We are not infinite beings capable of what one analyst calls the god trick – of seeing
everything from nowhere.
 If we study a prairie, the kinds of facts we will see will depend on, for example,
o Whether we are looking at a Macro level –
o Exploring the relationship between weather, flora, and fauna –
o Micro level, training our sight on the interactions between bacteria in the soil and the plants growing
in the earth.
 Some philosophers have argued that facts are theory-laden. By that they mean that something we might call
“reality” is never seen independent of the theories that allow scientists to think about what they see.
 Theory lies between experience/reality and facts.
 Scientists are exposed to theories during their training, and again, these; shape where scientists look, how
they view what they see, and what they see.
 (Bloor, 1976; Angier, 1988) Consequently, as many analysts have noted, it can happen that unexpected
events take place before a scientist’s eyes and provoke no response. When no meaning is attached to an
experience, the experience may be ignored.
 The values on which scientists draw are affected by their disciplinary orientation.
o Ecologists are likely to look at a biological environment as a system, paying special attention to the
interaction of its many components.
o A geneticist might, instead, be interested in the role that a particular gene plays in the life or fitness
of an animal, plant, or microbe.
o Epidemiology12, Epidemiologists study health and disease in populations.
 Some randomly determined subjects are given a drug and others are given a placebo13.
 (Wing, 2000) the orientation of epidemiology does not typically lead analysts to ask questions about “why
some individuals but not others were exposed, or what other changes occurred in order to produce the
exposures”.
 (Wing, 2000) They did not integrate the role of the tobacco industry, commercial sale of cigarettes, or “the
social circumstances that make smoking a rewarding habit” into their analysis.
 There are many other cases that illustrate how disciplinary orientation affects what a scientist sees
o (Busch, Tanaka, & Gunter, 2000) the case of toxicologists who work on food safety issues. These
researchers often model their work on the metaphor that “rats are miniature people.” This allows
toxicologists to study how rats react to suspected food toxins in a controlled experimental setting.
 Difficulties that might result if human exposure to the suspected toxin led to serious illness.
 Rats offer other practical advantages:
 They have a short life-cycle.
 Relatively inexpensive to maintain.

11
Having or showing a lack of experience, or understanding sophistication, often in a context where one neglects
pragmatism in favor of moral idealism.
12
The branch of medicine which deals with the incidence, distribution, and possible control of diseases and other
factors relating to health.
13
In medicine, an inert substance (such as sugar) used in place of an active drug.

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  Thus, ethical, temporal, and financial considerations affect the decision to treat rats as
people.
 Beyond disciplines, professional norms can affect the ways in which scientists look at phenomena14.
o Scientists talk about two varieties of error: type I and type II. Type I errors amount to false positives.
 The epidemiologist who makes a type I error might, for example, conclude that a
particular environmental contaminant is the cause of a cluster of cancers in a community,
when it is not.
 The researcher who makes a type II error, by contrast, would conclude, in a similar case,
that a specific factor is not causing disease, when in fact it is.
o (Brown & Mikkelsen, 1990) Publishing research containing
 A type I error could be professionally embarrassing when it is revealed and leads the
scientist to retract his or her findings. This could have future impacts on the scientist’s
career.
 A type II error would lead a scientist to mistakenly miss a discovery, but her or his
reputation would not be harmed. Unlike professional epidemiologists, one could imagine
that citizens in a community that might have been affected by an environmental carcinogen
would have preferred scientists to err on the side of caution and make a type I error, instead
of a type II error.
 (Gieryn, 1999) What we see is struggled over what should count as science and what should not.
 Victorian England, one leading scientist simultaneously stressed the abstract 15 character of science to
distinguish it from mechanics, and the concrete nature of science to distinguish it from religion.
o Arguing to the religious establishment that science was abstract would have suggested that science
might interfere with the theological realm.
o Suggesting to mechanics that science was concrete would have led mechanics to believe scientists
were likely to encroach on their territory.
 Mid-twentieth century, natural and physical scientists differed with social scientists in the United States
over whether social science was, indeed, science.
o In the first skirmish, natural and physical scientists argued that social science was not science, while
many social scientists suggested it was.
o (Gieryn, 1999) Social scientists arguing for difference and natural and physical scientists arguing
for similarity.
 (Kloppenburg 1988; Stokes 1997) Along similar lines, the definitions of basic and applied science do not
reflect the intrinsic character of the work, but are social products.
 Artifacts – those things, we commonly understand as technologies – their social nature can be seen in many
ways.
 In the late 1940s, users of machine tools were faced with two types, one called numerical control and the
other termed record playback.
o Numerical control technology was favored by the military because it was more precise than record
playback, and the parts the military needed crafted depended on this higher level of precision.
o On the other hand, numerical control technology was not affordable for small machine shops, and
because this technology removed control from the shop floor, workers opposed it.
 These cases illustrate the social nature of technology by showing that there was a choice to be made and that
the criteria for making the choice were not in any reasonable sense technical.
 (Winner 1986) There are also cases where artifacts seem to literally embody values. Take, for example, the
overpasses that cross Wantagh Parkway to Long Island, New York, and in particular to Jones Beach.

14
An observable fact or event.
15
disassociated from any specific instance, difficult to understand.

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 o Consciously decided that they should be built at a height above the parkway that would make it
impossible for buses to pass under them.
Technoscience is Political
 If we see that selection and choice is involved in the practice of science and technology, we must ask why
one selection is made over some other.
 (Marx 1977; Foucault 1972, 1980; Lorber 1994; mackinnon 1989; Lukes 1974) Social theory abounds
with approaches to power.
o University where the Professor is in power where students tend not to disagree with the instructor.
o In congress there is no rule on how a congress man can discipline his unruly constituents.
o Gender itself can be understood as a social structure. Judith Lorber understands gender as a
structure “that establishes patterns of expectations for individuals, orders the social processes of
everyday life, is built into the major social organizations of society, such as the economy, ideology,
the family, and politics, and is also an entity in and of itself” (1994).
 A focus on power does not imply that social actors always act strategically and self-consciously to achieve
their ends.
o A small group of citizens appointed by a local government to make policy recommendations on
biotechnology gathering to discuss the issues at stake.

2.2 Appraise reported socio-scientific phenomena to be active participants in debate and decision-making about
scientific and technological issues.

Ceding Debate: Biotechnology and Agriculture

 (Kenney & Florida, 1993; Graham, 1995) Many countries in the northern hemisphere are moving away
from their post-Second World War foundation in heavy industry, and to some extent, the smokestack firms
that remain are replacing rigid mass production models with various forms of flexible organization.
 Much unskilled work is being farmed out to countries in the southern hemisphere.
 At the same time, the US and other western countries are shifting increasingly to a high-technology,
knowledge-intensive mode of production.
 (Kleinman & Vallas, 2001) The industries that feature centrally in this new economy
o Information technology
o Biotechnology
 These sectors promise increases in economic efficiency and productivity where they could lead to;
o Reductions in pollution,
o Improved transportation safety,
o Lifesaving drugs
o New foods.
 Countries in the south, the advantages of the new economy are less clear;
o Disputes about ownership of biological materials crucial to the economic revolution underway.
o Dangerous working conditions in firms owned by US or Europe based multinationals,
o Growing disparities of wealth and access to new technologies cloud optimistic visions of a high-
tech future.
 Agricultural Biotechnology.
o Provided is a general introduction to biotechnology and the structure of American agriculture.
o Consider how recent developments in biotechnology are affecting the social organization of
agriculture.
 Attention is directed at farming and the relationship between farming and agribusiness.

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  Agriculture is the science and practice of growing crops and rearing animals for human
consumption. ... Farming is a more individual practice involving an area of land with
buildings on it (as well as fencing, water facilities, etc.), that is used to grow crops and/or
rear animals for human consumption.
o Look at the way in which the public controversy over agricultural biotechnology has been framed
by the proponents and opponents of the technology, and we explore some of the implications of this
framing.
 Agriculture is the science and practice of growing crops and rearing animals for human
consumption. ...
 Farming is a more individual practice involving an area of land with buildings on it (as
well as fencing, water facilities, etc.), that is used to grow crops and/or rear animals for
human consumption.
Biotechnology and the Social Organization of agriculture and Agribusiness
 Rdna - A technique developed in the early 1970s by Stanley Cohen of Stanford University and Herbert
Boyer of the University of California – San Francisco.
 Recombinant DNA, or rdna, is the term used to describe the combination of two DNA strands that are
constructed artificially. Genetic scientists can do this to create unique DNA strand for different purposes,
using several types of techniques.

 Rdna can be understood as a method for isolating and making multiple copies of a DNA segment or entire
gene and for moving DNA from one organism and combining it with genetic material from another.
o It creates to circumvent “natural” barriers of biological incompatibility.

 (Kloppenburg & Kenney, 1984) rdna makes it possible to combine genetic material from two different
species of animals or even to combine genetic material of a plant with that of an animal or bacterium.

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  The series of important breakthroughs that followed in the early years after Cohen and Boyer’s discovery
include:
o The first rdna-based animal vaccine (approved for use in Europe in 1981),
o The first rdna pharmaceutical product (human insulin approved for use in the US and Great Britain
in 1982), the first expression of a plant gene in a different species of plant (1983),
o The creation of the first transgenic animal (a mouse created in 1988 with genes from another species),
o The introduction of a foreign gene into a human (1989)
 Biotechnology being developed in a variety of ways in the agricultural context.
o It might be used primarily as a supplementary tool by researchers seeking to understand agriculture
as part of a larger biological system and hoping to use traditional plant breeding to develop a low-
input, but highly productive, farm sector.

o It might be utilized to build on an already productive chemical-intensive agricultural system of

questionable sustainability.
o The technique might be deployed in the service of companies aiming to control their products, and
researchers might be attentive primarily to the role of individual genes and not to agriculture as part
of a larger biological system.
 The many possible routes of development are social choices, but they are choices constrained by social
structures which give certain actors more power than others in shaping the trajectory that technology will
take.
 In terms of understanding how agricultural biotechnology has developed to date, several aspects of the social
organization of agriculture prior to the advent of biotechnology should be borne in mind.
o First, ongoing efforts to promote sustained productivity gains are a central feature of the modern
history of US agriculture. US agricultural productivity gains are underpinned by an array of
developments in science and technology. Combined with developments in plant breeding,
agricultural chemicals introduced in the period after the
o Second World War substantially increased.
 Corn production per acre nearly doubled from some;

Crop Before After

Corn 36.5 68
Wheat 16 26

 (Doyle, 1985) Between 1947 and 1960, synthetic pesticide production increased five times and had reached
nearly two billion pounds annually by 1981.
 (Palladino, 1996) By 1991, US farmers were spending close to two billion dollars on insecticides, herbicides,
and fungicides.
 Thus, many US farmers have come to expect productivity gains and to assume that the means to these
productivity improvements is agrichemicals – always new and improved.

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  From 1915 to 1945, the number of farmers in the US declined by only 8 percent,
 Between 1945 and 1975, there was a 55 percent drop in the number of US farms from 5.9 million to 2.8
million (Busch et al. 1991). By 1999, there were fewer than two million farmers in the US,
 Mid-1970s, there were some 30 US companies developing pesticides, but only 12 by the late 1980s.
 (Busch et al. 1991) At the same time, the division between seed companies and pesticide producers is
blurring as mergers and takeovers become the order of the day.

Herbicide resistant crops and technology protection systems

 In 1997, just 15 percent of the US soybean crop was from genetically engineered seed.
 (Simon 2001) By 1998, the figure had grown to 44 percent, and by 2001 the figure was roughly two-thirds.
 (Doyle, 1985) Between 1947 and 1960, synthetic pesticide production increased five times and had reached
nearly two billion pounds annually by 1981. By 1991.
 (Palladino, 1996) By 1991, US farmers were spending close to two billion dollars on insecticides, herbicides,
and fungicides.
 Agrichemicals - a chemical used in agriculture, such as a pesticide or a fertilizer.
 As US farmers became more dependent on purchased inputs – seeds and chemicals – in the period after the
Second World War, the structure of agriculture was undergoing a dramatic change.
o From 1915 to 1945, the number of farmers in the US declined by only 8 percent,
o Between 1945 and 1975, there was a 55 percent drop in the number of US farms from 5.9 million
to 2.8 million (Busch et al. 1991).
o By 1999, there were fewer than two million farmers in the US, and the vast bulk of all farm receipts
were received by only 6 percent of farms, primarily large “super farms” (Lacy 2000).
 In “Agribusiness” mid-1970s, there were some 30 US companies developing pesticides, but only 12 by the
late 1980s.
o (Busch et al. 1991) the division between seed companies and pesticide producers is blurring as
mergers and takeovers become the order of the day.

Herbicide resistant crops and technology protection systems

 (Simon 2001) In 1997, just 15 percent of the US soybean crop was from genetically engineered seed.
 By 1998, the figure had grown to 44 percent, and by 2001 the figure was roughly two-thirds (Simon 2001).
 According to one source, across the globe, between 1996 and 2002, the total area planted in genetically
modified crops increased from less than 2 million acres to some 145 million acres, and the byproducts of
gmos are found in around 70 percent of processed foods sold in the United States (Kloppenburg 2004).
 Jack Kloppenburg speculates that “Since high fructose corn syrup, and soy, cotton, and canola oils are
ingredients in a high proportion of processed foods, nearly every resident of the United States has probably
consumed food stuffs containing gmos or their products” (2004).
 Mid-1980s paid for by the Monsanto Corporation, a single stalk of corn is pictured growing in a parched
landscape; the ground is cracked, the stalk appears to be the only thing living.
o According to a 1999 Monsanto brochure, “Population is increasing rapidly worldwide, yet the
amount of arable land available for the production of food is diminishing”.
o In order to produce enough food, farmers everywhere will need crop plants that are high yielding
and require fewer inputs, such as insecticides, fertilizers and herbicides” (1999).
o Research on some of the traits most needed in the developing world such as the ability to tolerate
low soil fertility, the ability to tolerate soil Salinity16 or Alkalinity, 17and techniques for producing
biological pesticides has gone unstudied” (Lacy, 2000).

16
The condition of soil pertaining to the salt content.
17
The condition of soil pertaining to the substance that neutralizes acid.

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 o Today, more than 90 percent of transgenic plants grown worldwide depend on Monsanto seed
technology (Simon, 2001)
o Daniel Charles, in the early days, the company was confronted over and over again by a persistent
question: how could biotech be made profitable?
o By 1992, Monsanto’s senior management told its research staff that they wanted evidence that
biotech could produce value for the company by the year’s end, or the company’s commitment
would need to be radically scaled back (Charles, 2001).
o The way to make money was not to develop drought-resistant crops or plants that would thrive under
conditions of low soil fertility or high soil salinity or alkalinity.
o The company developed seed that tied farmers in the US and Europe tightly to the company and
that reinforced the model of chemical agriculture that already dominates crop production in the US
and elsewhere.
o Herbicide Resistant Crops (HRC’s). – Crops that can withstand herbicide after they brake the
topsoil.
o Genetically Modified Crops (GMC’s) – Crops that are genetically modified to withstand
conditions that would naturally damage or destroy it.
o As Krimsky and Wrubel note, “A company will gain substantially if it can increase the market
share for an herbicide to which it holds the patent.
o Glyphosatebased herbicide known as Roundup - Glyphosatebased herbicide known as Roundup.
o Herbicide tolerant crops account for nearly 80 percent of the total worldwide area plant in
genetically modified seed.
o We see two things clearly in this case on how monsto was able to profit off GMC’s and HRC’s.
 Development of biotechnology appears to follow the existing agrichemical trajectory
 Monsanto’s market domination has forcefully allowed the company to shape this path.
o There are two ways in which the hrcs shift the balance of control from the farmer to the company.
 While in earlier periods farmers might have selected crops and pest control technology,
with hrcs the two come as a package purchased from a single company.
 Hrcs are patented technologies, and farmers must have licenses to use them.
o Monsanto require farmers who purchase their seed to sign a contract that forbids the farmer from
saving seed from harvest for planting in the future.
o Mitchell Scruggs, a soy and cotton farmer from Mississippi. Scruggs openly defied the contract,
believing that he has a right to save some of his harvest for replanting.
 According to Scruggs, “They’re trying to control all the food and fiber in the world by
nopolizing the seed industry” (quoted in Simon, 2001).

Recombinant bovine growth hormone: the first product of agricultural biotechnology

 Recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone (rbgh), often called recombinant Bovine Somatotropin (rbst).
 The social issue here is not so much about increased corporate control as about perpetuating a technology
treadmill in which the market pushes farmers to
o Adopt the latest technology
o Exacerbates competition
o Pushes prices down
o Forces a sectoral restructuring in which small-scale family farms are most likely to be casualties and
larger, managerially more sophisticated farms are likely to survive.
o In short, this technology is likely to reinforce existing trends toward sectoral concentration, at a
time when the need for increased production is debatable at best.
 Somatotropin is a hormone produced by the anterior pituitary gland in mammals.
o Plays a role in mammal milk production

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 o In the 1920s found that lactating laboratory animals treated with the hormone had increased milk
yield.
o In the 1930s, injections of the hormone given to lactating cows produced similar results.
o In 1993, the US Food and Drug
o Administration approved the use of one form of rbgh (Krimsky & Wrubel, 1996).
o He conclusion that large herds will benefit more from BST” than small herds (Krimsky & Wrubel,
1996)
o “rbst adoption in Wisconsin in 1999 has a dramatic size-bias, with the average adopting farm having
well more than twice the mean herd-size of the non-adopters.”

Bacillus thuringiensis and “genetic drift”

 The issue is whether corporate practices will hurt organic producers, where these producers are not
purchasing genetically engineered inputs.
 Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) is a common soil bacterium. It produces proteins that have highly specific
insecticidal activity.
o One group of the proteins is toxic to caterpillars, while another is toxic to beetle larvae (Krimsky &
Wrubel, 1996).
o Bt was discovered to be toxic to the silk moth in Japan in 1902.
o Bt’s selectivity, apparent lack of short- or long-term toxicity to animals, and the ability to apply the
substance just before harvest are seen as important advantages of Bt over many chemical
insecticides (Krimsky & Wrubel 1996).
o May of 1995, the US Environmental Protection Agency approved commercial release of Bt
potatoes.
o Produced by Monsanto, this was the first commercial release of transgenic crop plants containing a
pesticide.
o Companies are currently attempting to develop Bt fruit trees (Jenkins, 1998).
o Some argue that the development of resistance to the Bt endotoxin would be particularly slow were
the substance only sprayed onto plants the way it has been since the 1950s, because the Bt spray is
used only occasionally and degrades quickly.
o But some environmentalists and sustainable agriculture advocates worry that resistance may
develop more rapidly where the toxin is part of the plant itself as a result of genetic engineering
(Krimsky & Wrubel, 1996).
 “Genetic drift” refers to crosspollination between biotech crops and non-biotech crops from separate fields.
o In 1998, “genetic drift” is believed to have contaminated organic corn in Texas.
o Anthony Shadid, It was not discovered until the corn had been processed and shipped to Europe as
organic tortilla chips under the brand name Apache.
o In 2000, Nebraska farmer David Vetter found biotech contamination of his organic corn. Susan and
Mark Fitzgerald, who farm outside of Hancock, Minnesota, set up barriers to stop “genetic drift”
– bushes, shrubs, and trees – a recent harvest revealed contamination of their organic corn crop by
GMO – Bt corn.
o In April 2001, the Wall Street Journal tested 20 food products labeled “GMO free.” Of these, 16
were found to contain at least traces of GMO ingredients (Lilliston, 2001).
o Insurance companies say they do not cover genetic contamination, and it is not clear whether farmers
using GM crops and companies producing them can be held liable for contamination due to “genetic
drift.”

Conclusion
 Provide a critical analysis of some of the early developments in agricultural biotechnology.

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  We have not explored the possible human health effects of these emerging technologies or their conceivable
environmental impacts
 We focused on the social processes that explain the particular trajectory of development of agricultural
biotechnology, especially in the United States.
 The path of development that agricultural biotechnology has followed has been shaped by agribusiness in
ways consistent with developments since at least the Second World War.
 The beneficiaries of these developments are likely to be large-scale producers whose farm organization and
orientation is consistent with historical trends.
 We do not intend to replace technological determinism with a kind of social determinism.
 A technological progressivist argument suggests that it is the technology itself that automatically propels
development down a singular path.
 We do not mean to say instead that social forces inevitably push development down an inescapable road.

2.3 Apply information and mobile technologies usage in various segments of society
High-technology education

Information technology in primary and secondary schools

 Driven by something that looks a lot like technological progressivism and, in particular, the idea that new
technology is invariably better and means progress, educators and education administrators for all levels of
schooling have jumped on the IT bandwagon.
 It seems fair to say that the current approach to computer and internet use in primary and secondary schools
reflects the deeply entrenched character of schooling in the US and current trends in education.
 Nearly 40 of 50 US states had programs of statewide competency testing. While the purpose of such exams,
as is regularly noted, “is ostensibly to guarantee some form of ‘quality control,’ one of the major effects of
such state intervention has been to put considerable pressure on teachers to teach simply for the tests” (Apple
& Jungck, 1998).
 According to Servon, “Rather than using IT as a tool to foster creative thinking and problem solving, many
schools have employed it as another way to do rote work such as math and spelling drills.”
 There is little evidence that computer usage is associated with improved learning (Cordes & Miller, 2000).
According to Servon, possession of IT skills is crucial for success in later life and work (2002).
 Basic computer-use skills – typing and word processing, spreadsheet use, web search skills – can be taught
to older students in very little time.
 Teaching analytic, problem-solving, and literary skills and promoting creativity are more likely, in my view,
to lead to success on the job market than teaching specific, concrete computer skills.
 Evidence that fundamental analytical and learning skills, rather than basic computer skills, are what should
be taught to children is made clear in a list of skills that students at New Technology High School in Napa,
California, must master before graduation (Servon, 2002)..
o Collaboration
o Problem-solving
o Oral communication,
o Written communication
o Career-building
o Citizenship and ethics
o Technological literacy
o Content literacy
 Even those who push IT-oriented education implicitly recognize that the crucial tools students need are not
related specifically to the technology.

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  Programs stress such general orientations as following a project through from start to finish and teaching
children to work in small groups (2002).
 General orientations that are important independent of computer technology and the IT revolution.
o Self-confidence,
o Determination,
o Teamwork,
o Problem-solving
 Servon stresses the importance of high-quality IT training in allowing young people and workers to get ahead
economically, the nature of the courses she views as successful and the level of technological proficiency for
the occupations she discusses do not seem to support this.
 Servon stresses the importance of high-quality IT training in allowing young people and workers to get ahead
economically, the nature of the courses she views as successful and the level of technological proficiency for
the occupations she discusses do not seem to support this.
 The precise technical skills can be attained in a relatively short period of time (from 3 months to 2 years).
 Recognizing the site-specific character of skills as well as the rapid change in required technical knowledge,
firms are increasingly recognizing the importance of inhouse training, as against teaching IT skills in school
(Servon, 2002).
 While it might be possible to thoroughly integrate IT into existing curricula – to use these tools creatively –
and not just for rote exercises or developing facility with the technology itself, the current fiscal climate
means examples of such usage are few and far between.
 Schools are understaffed and teachers are undertrained in the use of computers.
 According to Apple and Jungck the teachers they followed did not have time to give students individual
assistance in computer usage.
o “lack of comprehensive curriculum-planning time is characteristic of the structure of most schools”
and teachers and administrators, according to one analyst, “have not been taught to think about how
to integrate technology into what they do.
o Schools are spending much less time on training than most analysts say is necessary.
o Teachers need 3 to 6 years to learn how to effectively integrate computers into their classrooms.
o “lack of Comprehensive curriculum-planning time is characteristic of the structure of most schools”
and teachers and administrators, according to one analyst, “have not been taught to think about how
to integrate technology into what they do.”
o Teachers need 3 to 6 years to learn how to effectively integrate computers into their classrooms.
 We have shown that the concern with standardization, a commitment to preparing students for the world of
work and fiscal crises are shaping the use of computer technology in primary and secondary schools.
 There are what we might term “opportunity costs18” to the use of computers in classrooms across the United
States.
 One might argue that such interaction is crucial for the development of skills necessary to work successfully
in groups.
 According to one source, some research suggests that building student–teacher bonds and a strong sense of
community in schools can improve educational performance (Cordes & Miller, 2000).
 Heavy reliance on IT in schools is likely to weaken student–teacher interaction and time for community
building.
 Basic analytic skills, interactive capacities, and negotiating abilities all have longer shelf lives than basic
computer skills.
 Students preparing for working-class jobs were trained to be disciplined in their work practice and to follow
orders.

18
The loss of potential gain from other alternatives when one alternative is chosen.

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  Those destined for white-collar employment were more likely to learn general analytical and leadership
skills.

Universities, computers, and the internet

 Like public elementary and secondary schools, public universities are confronting a fiscal crisis, and
administrators and faculty members are expected to do more with less.
 Online education is a sensible reaction to fiscal belt-tightening.
o Commercial entities can be persuaded to invest in such initiatives, and advocates believe that the
per student cost of such efforts can permit budget trimming.
 David Noble notes, “The foremost promoters of “online education” are the vendors of the network hardware,
software, and ‘content’ – Apple, IBM, Bell, the cable companies, Microsoft, and the edutainment and
publishing companies Disney, Simon and Schuster, Prentice-Hall, et al.
 Unlike what happens in a traditional university classroom, the infrastructure and content for online education
can be bought and sold. It can be made into a commodity.
 Does online education offer the same quality as face-to-face higher education?
o This new educational mode mirrors and reinforces the approach to teaching one finds in large lecture
classes in universities throughout the country.
o To do more than ingest information, students must interact with faculty members as well as with
fellow students.
o It is perhaps not surprising that dropout rates for online distance education are much higher than
those for students enrolled in classroom-based programs (Noble, 2001).
 However, true education is labor intensive and depends on low student–teacher ratios.
o We should ask if schooling – higher education, in particular – is about education or training.
 Training is about “honing of a person’s mind so that . . . [it] can be used for the purposes
of someone other than that person” (2001).
 Education aims to promote the integration of knowledge, critical analytical skills, and, for
Noble, self-knowledge through bringing together knowledge and self.
o Online education is likely to reinforce trends toward training students. Education will be available
to fewer and fewer students.
 Professors can use electronic mail to prompt discussion outside of classroom hours and can develop
 Websites with links to sources faculty members want their students to have access to. On the other hand, we
have come across too many students in recent years who have never been to the university library and have
no idea how to access the array of resources available there, and those students who turn exclusively to the
internet as the source for their research material typically have no idea how to assess the material they find.
 Warschauer suggests, in the internet age, the ability of students to critically assess their information sources
may be more important than it was when students relied on published sources.
 Books are vetted19 twice:
o Once by publishers
o Once by the librarians who purchase them.
 Without such vetting, it is more important than ever that students learn to evaluate the
credibility and viewpoint of the sources on which they draw.
 Universities and the commercial entities with which they contract are likely to own the lectures and materials
prepared by faculty. This could make well-trained faculty increasingly disposable.
 The use of electronic mail and chatrooms is likely to extend and intensify the working time of faculty, as
students increasingly expect their professors to be available at all times of day and night and expect near
instantaneous responses to their requests and queries.

19
make a careful and critical examination of (something).

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Politics, civic action, the internet, and mobile technology
 Most of those who consider the place for the internet in politics and organizing for social change contend
that the internet will strengthen democracy, by expanding possibilities for accountability of policy-makers
and reducing the economic and other costs for political participation (Norris, 2001; Boyd, 2003).
 We believe that generally, the internet seems to mean more politics as usual, but that the technology has
created some opportunities for making political action in a different way than it has generally been made and
that this should give us tempered hope.
 We review developments in the use of the internet by government agencies, elected officials, political parties
and nongovernmental organizations - recent studies have found that the Internet now figures prominently in
political strategies.
 Looking at the Philippines and how new mobile communication technologies are gaining popularity in the
study of political communication, as political actors across the world exploit their applications in the hope
of affecting voting behavior.
 GABRIELA - General Assembly Binding Women for Reforms, Integrity, Equality, Leadership, and Action.
o GWP - Gabriela Women Party
 won two legislative seats
 secured the most votes in the overseas absentee voting system
o It symbolizes the growing power of Asian women and provides an illustration of the use of new
media technologies for electoral campaigning.
o The GWP was not able to maximize the potential of the Internet in its campaign, yet the party was
able to make effective use of mobile phones to reach voters.
 The Internet and mobile media should not be seen as a replacement for traditional campaign strategies.
o But rather as integral parts of a holistic20 political communication network
 the mobile phone deserves greater attention as a tool of personal communication with the electorate.

Social networking sites in political campaigning.

 Social networking sites have been defined as a category of Websites with profiles, semipersistent public
commentary on those profiles, and a traversable, publicly articulated social network displayed in relation to
the profiles (Boyd, 2006).
 Williams and Gulati (2007) discuss the role of Facebook during the 2006 congressional and gubernatorial21
campaigns in the United States and conclude that Facebook played a role in the electoral process.
 MpURL Membersnet, which provides each “Labour Party” member with a blog and enables constituents
to participate in discussion forums.
 While social networking sites are increasingly used in political campaigns, their role in affecting electoral
outcomes is a matter for further research.
 There is some very preliminary evidence of positive effects for candidates who engage with these sites
(Conners, 2005).
 We examine how the GWP used the Internet and social networking sites as lowcost campaign tools for
reaching young voters and those based overseas.

Political hyperlinking
 Foot, Schneider, Dougherty, Xenos, and Larsen (2003) see links as the essence of the Web because they show
the structure of connections among sites.

20
Characterized by comprehension of the parts of something as intimately interconnected and explicable only by
reference to the whole.
21
Relating to a state governor or the office of state governor.

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  Park, Thelwall, and Kluver (2005) concur that hyperlinks are used to build public recognition,
 Ackland and Gibson (2006) argue that hyperlinks can bring about a set of new and important communication
functions that would help project a candidate’s presence and make her or him more accessible.
 Hyperlinking is said to have a two-way function due to the structure of outlinks and inlinks (Park et al., 2005).
 Linking is especially important for political discourse, because it encourages deeper, more interconnected
understanding of public affairs (Williams, Trammell, Postelnicu, Landreville, & Martin, 2005).
 “Web sphere”
o conceptualized as more than just a collection of Websites, but as a hyperlinked set of dynamically
defined digital resources involving several sites that are seen as relevant or related to a central theme.
o Analytic strategy that includes relations between producers and users of Web materials, as induced
and mediated by the structural elements and features of Websites, hypertexts, and the links between
them.
o Ackland and Gibson (2006) examined 118 political party home pages in Australia, Austria, France,
Germany, Italy, and the UK and found that political parties’ use of hyperlinks reveals differences in
how they perform communicative functions:
 network building
 audience sharing
 information provision
 image creation
 force multiplication
o The former (Leftist) favors linking to international organizations and those from different “sides of
the political spectrum,”
o The latter (Rightist)favors building smaller networks and national presence. Here, we assess the
Websites of the GWP for their hyperlinking practices.
 The party’s Website has more than 600 pages and was mapped using Powermapper
Standard software.

o The lack of both inbound and outbound linking may have reduced the party’s reach, especially
among younger women voters.

Maximizing YouTube
 YouTube is very popular among young Internet users in the Philippines.
 logical for the GWP to turn to these sites to expand its networks and to establish its presence among voters.
 since buying airtime is expensive, the GWP ad ran for only three days on national television and for only a
week on provincial stations.
 YouTube helped the organization reach out to the middle class and the young urban poor who had access to
the Internet.
 GABRIELA Sec., General Joms Salvador agreed: “This [YouTube video] helped our campaign a lot. It got
wider exposure since our resources for putting up these videos on TV [were] very limited and we could only

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 afford very few exposures on TV and radio.” The ad emphasized the essence of an average Filipino woman,
her plight, and survival against all odds.
 (Bayan Muna is closely affiliated with the GWP and
o came second in the elections in terms of overall number of votes among the party list groups,
receiving the maximum three congressional seats).
o Bayan Muna established a YouTube account listed as “bayanmunadotnet” and uploaded nine
videos: a political advertisement, a music video, two items of what appeared to be television news
clips discussing Bayan Muna, and five videos showing its representative.

Mobile phones in politics

 The mobile phone is fast becoming the most popular medium of communication across Asia, and it now has
high penetration rates in both urban and rural settings
 Mobile phones have a wide reach, because even people who do not have adequate reading skills find it much
easier to use a mobile phone compared with the Internet (Steenson, 2006).
 . Steenson (2006) suggests that mobile phones reconfigure relationships among people and places.
 Pertierra (2005) adds that although there are similarities between new media technologies, their impact at the
national level depends largely on culture, economy and “power structures” unique to each country.
 Pertierra also refers to the interplay of mobile technology and the socio-cultural22 context of the Philippines.
 Wei (2005) examines how the interaction of the state and the market in China gave birth to a new culture of
Short Message Service (SMS) text messaging that now shapes political discourse.
 In Italy, Menduni (2005) found that politicians are the heaviest users of mobile phones (some members of
Parliament own more than one mobile phone), and this has accelerated the pace of political communication.
 mobile technology can help in information dissemination and communication with the public,
 e-mail is still seen as a more acceptable method when compared with text messaging. In the United States,
Dale and Strauss’s (2007) experimental study showed that text messaging could be an effective tool in
encouraging young Americans to vote.

THE MOBILE PHONE CAMPAIGNS

 While they expressed mixed feelings about the Internet, interviewees made generally more positive
assessments of their mobile phone campaign.
 A writer would compose messages and send them out during special occasions observed by the party.
 “We sent “a text message” to our friends and urged them to send it to five of their friends.
 Overseas Absentee Voting (OAV) started in April 2007
 The GWP appealed to its supporters in the Philippines to send text messages to their relatives abroad to urge
them to vote for the party.
o A “Text Back” campaign, mounted a week before Election Day, reinforced this approach.
o it was reported that the GWP had around 500 members in Australia and 1,000 in Hong Kong, each
of whom sent a text message to their relatives in the Philippines.
o The GWP sent these chain text messages at least five times during the campaign period, beginning
on Valentine’s Day 2007, which they called “Mahalin Mo Ako (Love Me) Day.”
o also sent messages on International Women’s Day (March 8).
o The next set of messages was sent when the OAV voting began in April, on Mother’s Day,
o Finally, before the campaign ended on May 12, 2007.
 “Cell phones appear to be a rising agent of democracy”. By expanding access and communication, the
widespread use of mobile devices among voters allows for the greater involvement of the people in politics.

22
Combining social and cultural factors.

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CONCLUSIONS
 Proponents of computers, the Internet, and other platforms tell us that the revolution in IT will bring us a new
world.
 Why should we have expected an equitable, much less equal, distribution of computer technology and internet
access, when none of the more basic resources in our society is allocated in that fashion?
 Income, wealth, and access to quality primary, secondary, and tertiary education are all very unevenly
distributed in the US today.
 there is little reason to believe that equalizing access to information technology will be the solution to all of
society’s ills – most particularly poverty.
 there is equally little reason to believe the computer revolution will replace poverty with paradise.
 In classrooms too, optimists – technological progressivists – imagine that computers and the internet will fix
a system of education that is widely acknowledged to be broken.
 The computerization of primary and secondary education reflects increased standardization and formalization,
and, thus, creative uses of these tools are often overlooked in favor of the routine and mundane.
 budget shortfalls, computers can become babysitters for students, and many teachers acknowledge their
training is not up to the task of using computers in an innovative and agile manner.
 diffusion of online campaigning in parts of Asia, particularly in the Philippines, is unfolding at a slower and
more complex pace.
 Kluver and Banerjee (2005) list three constraints on the impact of the Internet in democratizing politics in
Asia:
o political culture,
o regulatory regimes,
o unequal levels of access to IT.
 This study reiterates that these forces constrain the use of the Internet for political campaigning. Access to
the Internet is dependent on available infrastructure and skills.
 The Philippines has until now lacked a comprehensive national government project for encouraging people
to use computers and to go online.
 With the GWP study, it reveals that campaign officials saw mobile phones as more effective for the party
than Web sites.

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