The United States invented the Internet. But as of 2008, the United States does not lead the world in terms of cheap access to broadband Internet. Since 2001, surveys suggest the United States has fallen from having the fourth-highest percentage in the world of homes with broadband per capita to fifteenth. Nations like Denmark, the Netherlands, Iceland, South Korea, Switzerland, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Canada, and Great Britain all began to surpass the United States in this area. The United States also has faced more of a “digital divide” in recent years in terms of the access its citizens have to cheap bandwidth, with disparities emerging in terms of income, race, and urban versus rural living.
In regard to using the Internet to reach the mass public, other nations in the world may have valuable lessons to teach the United States in the future. The role of new technologies may also play a greater role in countries where citizens lack the same democratic freedoms as they possess in America.
In countries where citizens lack the same secure freedoms to access information or to criticize the government in public, online forums and electronic communication may be an even more important form of advocacy. Finally, the Internet can be an invaluable tool for Americans to learn more about how other countries conduct their own politics, and the variety of models through which democracy may be practiced.
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| As one example of an innovative effort to use the Internet overseas, the Global Voices project, located at http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/, is a nonprofit network of bloggers worldwide. Global Voices reporters use the Internet to report on events at home, often in governments and in corners of the globe that the American media lack the resources to cover.
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| 1a. Visit the Global Voices website. Describe a news story overseas that you had not heard about before visiting the website. |
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| 1b. Using the website pop-up menus on the Global Voices site, select a region of the globe that interests you and a topic. What is a story there of concern to local bloggers? |
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| How does foreign public opinion compare to that of the United States? Another worldwide guide to public opinion is the Angus Reid Global Monitor, located at http://www.angus-reid.com/polls/, which tracks foreign policy and polls in many different countries.
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| 2a. Visit the Angus Reid Global Monitor, scroll down the website, and select a public opinion poll not conducted within the United States. What is the survey about, and what are its specific findings? |
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| 2b. Enter the name of a country (China, Great Britain, Russia, etc.) in the website search engine, and see if you can locate a local poll conducted there. What were the results of this survey? |
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