Delivering the Virtual Promise?

QEII June 19, 2000

e-commerce and cultural connection

Social Contexts of Virtual Manchester

Penny Harvey, Sarah Green & Jon Agar

Manchester’s New Economy?

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

Negotiating between 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

Protecting the spaces between global flows and oblivion

• Place matters

• Places are social networks

• Policy must embrace cultural diversity, not ignore it.