[governance] MEASURING the digital space - whose MEASURES apply, and whose do not

[michael gurstein]

Thanks Daniel,

So what would be useful measures say that could be gathered as part of the
annual "Internet usage" survey that a lot of countries are gathering linked
to the management of the their ccTLD's or national statistical agencies?

M

-----Original Message-----
From: Daniel Kalchev [mailto:daniel at digsys.bg] 
Sent: Tuesday, August 30, 2011 11:20 PM
To: governance at lists.cpsr.org; michael gurstein
Subject: Re: [governance] MEASURING the digital space - whose MEASURES
apply, and whose do not


Very good point Michael -- this is the area where the value of Internet 
lies and not in the bits and wires.

On 31.08.11 02:16, michael gurstein wrote:
> The obvious measurement(s) are of course related to the "digital 
> divide" -- those who have access and (I would add) the capability of 
> using the Internet and those who do not. But I'm also thinking that 
> there may be an additional set of arguments that quite significantly 
> link back to the earlier critiques and those have to do with the 
> linkage of the Internet with social capital.
>
Unfortunately, most current measurements are based on the economic 
understanding of Internet. Most measurements are about 'penetration 
rate', 'access speed' etc. There are no realistic measurements about 
local content (other than number of sites, volume of traffic etc) or of 
cultural and language penetration (such as IDN usage etc). The 
culture-related content makes Internet useful for the individual.

Yet another measurement is the efficiency of Internet usage. There are 
regions, where wast Internet infrastructure is used for .. 
entertainment, while at other places, much slower and unreliable 
infrastructure is all about sharing and education. The value of the 
latter is obviously higher, although by all current measurements that 
area is underdeveloped.

For me, the challenge is to define the set of measurements and the 
methods of collecting and interpreting those, especially as the most 
valuable measurements are non-technical and non-monetary.

Daniel

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