ABSTRACT
Like many people in the western, developed world, Australians in the late 1990s are increasingly surrounded by discourses and texts in the public domain which create or assume a familiarity with the personal computer (PC), multimedia, virtual reality and the Internet. The possible effects on people’s lives of digitization, fibre-optic cable and computer networks are described in the features, business sections and leisure liftouts of newspapers; in popular science and current affairs programs on television; and in an expanding range of specialist computer magazines appearing on newsagents’ shelves. National press headlines like ‘Internet gives us best chance to be Clever Country’ and ‘Censor to make Internet fit for families’1 introduce visions of the possibilities and dangers of newly emerging computer-mediated worlds. Young people and families are often central to these visions. They are sought out by transnational conglomerates who construct and market futuristic visions and the technologies likely to realize them. As future citizens, young people are also central to government economic, education and cultural policy which attempts to position Australia competitively within the global cultural economy. Young people, and adults charged with their education and care, are thus at the intersection of technology-related socio-political developments.
