Pamela Varley (b. 1958) is a senior analyst for the Investor Responsibility Research Center, where she coordinates a research project on international labor standards. Previously she worked as a case writer at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government. This article appeared in 1991 in Technology Review, a magazine published by MIT's alumni association for a national audience interested in technology and society. It is based on a case study that Varley wrote for the Kennedy School's program on innovation in state and local government.
"Electronic Democracy: What's Really Happening in Santa Monica" (Composing Cyberspace p. 244) is not available online.
1. What are the potential democratic benefits of a public-sector network, according to the article? What seems to be Varley's attitude toward this potential, and how can you tell?
2. In practice, according to Varley, what accounts for "the lure of conferences" (¶ 14)? What makes conferences "vulnerable to abuse" (¶ 21)? Based on the PEN experience, how would you answer Users Group chair Kevin McKeown's question: "How many people are you enabling and empowering and how many people are going to abuse that kind of power?" (¶ 27).
3. Varley writes that "Santa Monica is appropriating for public purposes technologies that had previously been mostly the province of businesses and individual computer devotees" (¶ 4). How do you think those public purposes have fared in relation to business and private uses of the Internet in the years since 1991, when this article was published?
feedback form |
permissions |
international |
locate your campus rep |
request a review copy
Copyright ©2001 The McGraw-Hill Companies.
digital solutions |
publish with us |
customer service |
mhhe home
Any use is subject to the
Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
McGraw-Hill Higher Education is one of the many fine businesses of the
The McGraw-Hill Companies.