COMMUNICATION-CUBA: South Must Boost Web Presence

By Dalia Acosta Reprint | | Print |

Dalia Acosta

HAVANA, Jun 13 2001 (IPS) - The Internet could be a very useful tool for developing countries if they become active producers of quality web sites rather than mere consumers of information, said a leading Cuban expert.

José Ramón Vidal, an expert on the global information superhighway, said that above and beyond the question of the developing world’s limited access to the latest technologies, the real challenge for the South was training “well-educated people with a capacity for analysis.

“The decisive thing in the digital era is not the technological devices themselves, no matter how important and impressive they are,” Vidal told IPS, commenting on his study “Digital Networks: Are We Interacting or Still Broadcasting?”

The work, which discusses Cuba’s experience in using the worldwide web to spread information “on the island, from the island,” was presented at the second International Congress on Culture and Development, which took place in Havana Jun 4-7.

Vidal, a psychologist who also holds a doctorate in information science from the University of La Laguna in Tenerife, Spain, said that what was essential were “the content and applications that technology makes it possible to share and use, and the people who generate and consume that content.”

Studies indicate that by last year, less than 10 percent of people worldwide had access to the Internet, while just four of every 100 users lived in Latin America and one in 100 in Africa or the Middle East.

The International Telecommunications Union (ITU) estimates that 23 industrialised nations account for 62 percent of the world’s telephone lines, while the developed North also concentrates 97 percent of Internet services.

But Vidal believes the challenge raised by the so-called “digital divide” between rich and poor countries goes far beyond the search for national funding to make access to advanced technologies possible, and to expand telephone coverage.

Despite “interconnectivity and the potentially interactive character of digital networks,” there are attempts to “perpetuate, with a make-over and in new disguises, the old broadcasting model of communication,” said the expert.

“Websites are subject to a hierarchical structure on the portals, according to selective patterns, and information from ‘established’ sources is legitimated while alternative visions are devalued.

“The Internet, which promised to become a plural, participative, non-hierarchical space, is increasingly reproducing the dominant order, including of course the growing dominion of the logic of the market over its structures and functioning,” said Vidal.

But in his view, the solution does not lie in getting bogged down in complaining about the differences, no matter how valid the complaints, or falling into “demonising the new technologies, as if they inevitably led to an increase in the South’s dependence.”

Vidal, a professor at the University of Havana and an adviser to the Ministry of Science, Technology and the Environment’s Development Information Agency, proposes “taking the bull by the horns.”

Investment in education to create a cultured population lays the foundations that allow people to weigh the real benefits of what they see, in order to decide what merits assimilation and what should simply be overlooked, he said.

He also underlined that “it is not enough to be critical consumers of what is generated by others [and placed on the Internet]. We must become creative generators of content that expresses our interests and identities.”

The challenge consists of having a presence on the worldwide web, with quality websites and portals designed in such a way that they are picked up by “search engines” and are attractive to potential users.

As well as the presence of government agencies and enterprises on the net, Vidal would like civil society to be encouraged to post websites. He also calls for widespread participation by Cuban citizens in existing chat lists and the creation of chat groups focusing on their specific interests and concerns.

Cuba’s experience could be studied by other countries with similar economic conditions, said Vidal.

The Ministry of Informatics and Communications reported 314 Cuban websites and some 16,000 web pages as of early April, which received more than 50 million hits a month.

Cuba’s state-controlled media have more than 70 sites, and the government’s official portal (www.cuba.cu) received 22 million visits last year.

As part of its strategy to bring information technology to the Cuban population, the socialist government of Fidel Castro earmarked more than 10 million dollars for the purchase of around 20,000 state-of-the-art computers for the education system.

Secondary schools and universities have expanded their capacity for teaching information technology disciplines, while the government has completed a network of 300 offices of the Young Computer Users Club, which is now present in all Cuban municipalities.

Authorities say that due to the impossibility of meeting demand for private computers and Internet hook-ups, they are focusing on a community-based strategy, through which a growing number of people in this Caribbean island nation are gaining access to the web.

In Cuba there are an estimated 10 computers for every 1,000 people, and 60,000 e-mail accounts – nearly double the number a year ago.

A significant number of e-mail accounts have no international connection, and the contracts under which many users operate do not include Internet connection, although they do permit access to information placed on the Intranet, a computer network not open to the wider public.

The Paris-based non-governmental lobby Reporters without Borders and dissident groups in Cuba accuse the Castro government of limiting, for political ends, access by Cubans to the free flow of information on the worldwide web.

But Havana argues that the limitations are a consequence of the country’s technical and economic conditions.

Cuba has not yet recovered from the severe economic crisis that broke out in 1990 in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union, and it continues to suffer the impact of the economic sanctions imposed by the United States for the past four decades.

Vidal, however, insisted that his country was in a position to benefit from the digital revolution, due to the fact that Cuba, a country of around 11.1 million, has 700,000 university graduates, a universally literate population and a high average rate of schooling.

In addition, “the country has national programmes and policies aimed at promoting the introduction of and better use of these technologies,” he added.