Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Message Marred

Despite her naive middle-class outlook, there was something quite laudable about Martha Lane Fox's interview with Jonathan Charles on the BBC Hardtalk programme about her role as a "champion of digital inclusion", a tag she acknowledged as clumsy (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/hardtalk/8303522.stm ).
She was entirely right to stress that the future is increasingly online, but that a dangerous digital divide is opening up between those with web access & those without.
It was therefore regrettable that she referred to "unpleasant areas" & "horrible council estates" towards the end of her interview. Delivering those phrases in a cut-glass voice, it reeked of naked class prejudice & potentially undermined her message about digital inclusion.

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