ABSTRACT
The emergence of the new information and communications technologies (ICTs) such as the Internet are said to herald the coming of the ‘information society’: a new social and economic paradigm restructuring the traditional dimensions of time and space within which we live, work and interact. The global communication networks which make up cyberspace1 are claimed to be altering almost every facet of our lifestyles, including patterns of work and leisure, entertainment, consumption, education, political activity, family experience and community structures. Such fundamental transformations are now beginning to raise important questions about their consequences for social divisions, diversity and differences. Will they, for example, lead to a greater equalisation of power structures with their promise of access to public information and global collaboration? Or alternatively are they likely to produce a widening of the social cleavage between the information-rich and information-poor in and between communities around the world?
