ABSTRACT
Politicians, civic leaders, and a host of other good-minded citizens agree that Internet access is good. Some go so far as to see access to the Internet as a key to the reinvigoration of democratic society (e.g., Rheingold, 2000).1 Although the topic receives a great deal of public attention, discussions frequently omit the critical question, “Access to what?” One approach would reduce the issue of access to a simple discussion of power (Marx, 1867/1967). From that perspective, power resides in the hands of those controlling themeans of production: land in an agrarian society,machines in an industrial society, and information in apostmodern society. If the Internet represents the enabling technology for the Information Age, then it follows that access to the Internet is a necessary condition for access to power. But is it sufficient? If the concept is limited to mean physical access to computer apparatus, the answer is “no.” Access must be conceptualized in much broader human and technological terms.
