ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the experience of introducing information and communication technologies (ICTs) into two women’s centres in the northeast of England.
With new forms of ICTs being announced almost daily, promising access to super highways of information, leisure and pleasure, the pressure on individuals to get connected to the Internet is intense. The impact of ICTs is apparent in many aspects of our everyday lives, at home and at work, in schools, shops, banks and universities. But many of us are still wondering how best to use them. How do we make sense of the increasingly bewildering array of IT goods and services on offer? Which do we actually need and will they really enhance the quality of our lives? These are just a few of the key questions facing us in the twenty-first century as we struggle with tasks like finding the best Internet provider, and ponder whether we can afford or need interactive television, or a mobile phone with access to the Internet. What is clear is that traditional forms of communication are being transformed by ICT access, with the majority of workplaces, many households and increasing numbers of community centres getting connected to the Internet to maximise communication networks. As Scott et al. (1999) argue, ICTs sit amid ‘a set of highly complex technosocial networks, from which social, economic and cultural change seem to spread with increasing speed’.
