ABSTRACT
Diverse voices have outlined the advantages or disadvantages of technology as they have
emerged within classrooms, businesses, communities, and families. Enthusiasts vaunt
technological changes, which they contend can effect a more equitable distribution of
power. They invoke issues such as empowerment, equality, access, speed, efficiency,
liberation, and the development of a global community in support of a pro-technology
agenda. As an example, Rheingold’s (1993) account of the growth of electronic
communication in the Bay Area is framed in terms such as grassroots groupminds and
new electronic villages, terms that call forth the potential of new technologies to support
a renewal of community. Going further, some proponents promote a form of
technological determinism in which new tools or media alone are seen as bringing about
a better world.
