Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
access for residents of low income rural areas. More mundanely, most cities in the
region promote themselves on the Web as a means to entice tourists and foreign
investors, interactive municipal sites give residents access to information about
schools, libraries, and hospitals, and even downloading official forms facilitates
citizen participation. Electronic payment of dues and fines, moreover, short-cuts
corrupt government bureaucrats and helps to minimize corruption, and digital
hotlines for submission of citizen complaints give voice to those who are typically
voiceless in the circles of governance. On the other hand, the digital divide in Latin
America—about which very little is known—may also enhance disparities
between those who can make use of cyberspace and those who are not, reinforcing
and deepening long-standing inequalities (Hawkins and Hawkins
2003
).
Public internet-based schooling is also increasingly popular in Latin America.
Most national and many local governments throughout Latin America have subsi-
dized programs to install the Internet in schools, with mixed results. In Chile, for
example, over 90 % of classrooms now have internet access (Arredondo
2004
).
Argentina launched its TELAR (''Todos en la red'') program in 1994 in association
with international education NGOs. Similarly, Mexico's Red Enlaces network has
significantly improved access for children in the public school system. Many schools,
however, are handicapped by lack of equipment, obsolete machines, slow and
inefficient maintenance, and inadequately prepared teachers; moreover, often com-
puters may be lost or stolen. Nonetheless, computer-based courses tend to be highly
popular among students, often forming the highpoint of the school week. As Cabrera
Paz (
2004
) points out in a study of Colombian school children, internet usage
transforms their geographical imaginations, although not always for the better:
The things that can be seen on the World Wide Web serve to highlight what is unavailable
locally. The globalization upon which the Internet is built becomes a symbol for the
limitations of one's own space. The user's gaze is expanded to embrace other territories, a
wider place, desired objects that are beyond reach and available only in the 'developed
world' of others. That distant and hardly imaginable space is the space of abundance, of
greater pleasures, with objects that 'we never dreamed we could explore' [quoting a child
at the end].
5.3.10 Oceania
Australia and New Zealand provide contrasting examples of e-government in action.
The Australian government's CentreLink Agency, which offers a centralized point of
access to government information, has proved to be very popular. As the national state
has shifted many functions onto local governments, e-government has become
important in enhancing local flexibility and productivity (Shackleton et al.
2006
).
However, Australian government agencies, for example, tend to be less responsive to
citizen input than their counterparts in New Zealand (Gauld et al.
2009
). However,
local authorities in New Zealand exhibited differences in their willingness and ability
to implement e-government initiatives (Deakins and Dillon
2002
). Moreover, the
demand for e-government services varied substantially between and within both
