DEMOCRACY AND INFORMATION : A CASE STUDY OF NEW LOCAL GOVERNACE STRUCTURES IN BANGALORE

The phenomenon of rapid urbanization is posing challenges to planners in developing countries. As it becomes harder and harder for planners to disentangle the global from the local, it is increasingly recognized that without a solid local base, city governments will not have the strength that is needed to navigate global circuits. This social integration requires democratized political mechanisms based on administrative decentralization and the participation of citizens in municipal management. Our paper focuses on the role of information in the democratic process looking at a case study of new local governance structures in Bangalore. The city has become a focal point for software development regionally and globally.Such regional and global interconnections are taking place simultaneously with a number of local level initiatives aimed at encouraging democratic decisionmaking via legislation and by introducing new local governance structures.     

THE NEW MEDIA AND OUR POLITICAL COMMUNICATION DISCONTENTS: DEMOCRATIZING CYBERSPACE

This article argues that the new interactive media have a 'vulnerable potential' to enhance public communications and enrich democracy, which can be realized only through appropriate policy support and imaginative institution building. After outlining the main shortcomings of the prevailing political communication system, certain elements of redemptive potential, inherent in distinctive features of the Internet, are identified. The policy implications of this analysis are then drawn for the public-service obligations of mainstream media, to ensure open access to new media platforms, and to create a 'civic commons' in cyberspace.     

THE CONSTITUTIONAL CONTEXT: UNIVERSITIES, NEW INFORMATION TECHNOLOGIES AND THE US SUPREME COURT

The legal context in which universities operate is among the forces shaping the ways in which new information technologies are taken up and used. In the USA, constitutional law - that law which addresses how society is to be structured and what types of processes should be permitted within it - is particularly important in determining what institutions can do. The ultimate arbiter of constitutional law is the US Supreme Court, the decisions of which establish basic principles for the US legal system. This article reviews the entire body of US Supreme Court decisions that deal with higher education and mines them for their implications for the use of new information technologies by universities.     

VIRTUAL LEARNING AND THE NETWORK SOCIETY

A wide variety of organizational structures and technologies are associated with the 'virtual campus'. This paper compares the UK's two largest distance learning initiatives: the Open University (OU) and the University for Industry (UfI). The comparison suggests four alternative approaches to 'virtualization' and shows that debate has often under-estimated the variety of possible approaches. The relationship between ICTs, knowledge and organizational structure is complex, reflecting a diversity of values and rationalities embodied by learning institutions.     

Bridging Temporal and Spatial "Gaps": The role of information and communication technologies in defining communities

The diffusion and use of digitally based information and communication technologies (ICTs) offers the opportunity to redefine and reconceptualize 'community' both in terms of delineating the boundaries of community, as well as the modes of communication used between members. The creation of an electronic infrastructure, the Internet, permits the possibility of widespread public communication that is inexpensive and relatively easy to access. A second consequence builds on the first; the emergence of (virtual) communities based on geographically distributed sources of information production and exchange rather than the geographic proximity of community members to one another. An assessment of three cases of ICT-linked communities suggests that one component of sustainability of these virtual communities of interest may be a geographic linkage. While interests not based on geography are, at least at present, more transitory and less important than those created by the use of the Internet and similar kinds of ICTs. While we may join a virtual community because of an interest we have, unless that interest affects us in our daily lives, in our lives as physically-instantiated and geographically-centred individuals and citizens, there is no good reason to believe that we will long continue an active membership in the virtual community. Indeed, this is precisely what the three case studies presented in this paper suggest.     

WHEN 'VIRTUAL' MEETS VALUES: INSIGHTS FROM THE VOLUNTARY SECTOR

Electronic networking can support strategic re-positioning within organizations seeking to respond effectively to deep shifts in the social, economic and political regimes in which they operate today. Evidence, though, from our large-scale survey of core UK voluntary organizations suggests that voluntary organizations do not always seek to exploit this capability. Instead, our survey indicates that voluntary organizations are exploiting information and communication technologies (ICTs) in conventional ways to enhance administrative and operational efficiency and effectiveness. There is little evidence of more strategic applications supporting reconfiguration of the organization internally, redefinition of relationships across organizational networks or the extension of business scope. Further research based upon in-depth case studies demonstrated that social conditions are active in shaping the uptake and application of information and communication technologies within voluntary organizations. Within volunteer-intensive settings in particular,founding philosophies and the deeply rooted values that accompany these can have a profound effect. Ultimately,the technologically supported transformations, which occur within the organizations that we examine here, emerge from the inter-play between historically institutionalized values, strategic objectives and technological capability.