Delivering the Virtual Promise?
QEII June 19, 2000
e-commerce and cultural connection
Social Contexts of Virtual Manchester
Penny Harvey, Sarah Green & Jon Agar
Being New in the Same Old Way
• So place matters: – it has to be made out of histories of connection
Places are Networks
• If UK to be best ‘place’ for e-commerce by 2002, negotiation between local and global networks is needed, not incorporation
This: Needs to be seen as this:
Manchester Ship Canal
Lowry’s image of Manchester:
Ancoats: not quite developed yet…
Some Manchester Networks
• As a barrier:– The source of irrational attitudes, constraint on
development.
– The source of subversive attitudes, resistance to development.
– Diversity as a barrier to common standards
• As a resource:– You can’t remove culture, it would mean removing
people
– Putting people back means negotiating between networks, not removing one (culture/people) so as to have the other (ICTs/global standards)
Culture: barrier or resource?
Culture in the networks
• Culture is not a problem, but a fact of life
• Culture cannot be standardised
• People at their computers are always somewhere in particular
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