UNITED NATIONS EDUCATIONAL, SCIENTIFIC

AND CULTURAL ORGANIZATION

Management of Social Transformations (MOST)

Discussion Paper Series No. 28

Surfing into uncertainty: Mercosur on the Internet

Anibal Ford

. About MOST

MOST is a research programme designed by UNESCO to promote international comparative social science research. Its primary emphasis is on supporting large-scale, long-term autonomous research and transferring the relevant findings and data to decision-makers. The programme operates in three priority research areas:

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The management of change in multicultural and multi-ethnic societies; Cities as arenas of accelerated social transformations; Coping locally and regionally with economic, technological and environmental transformations.

l About the author:

Anibal Ford is a sociologist and communication specialist at the Universidad de Buenos Aires (aford@clasco.edu.ar)

l MOST discussion papers

The papers published in this series are contributions from specialists in the MOST research fields and are prepared as part of the international scientific debate on specific themes.

The opinions expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of UNESCO.

The frontiers and boundaries on maps published in this publication do not imply official endorsement or acceptance by UNESCO or the United Nations.

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Currently available (October 1998):

Multicultural and Multi-Ethnic Societies. Henri Giordan. 1994. EiF/S

Managing Social Transformations in Cities. CCline Sachs-Jeantet, 1994. E/F/S

Differentiating Between Growth Regimes and the Management of Social Reproduction. Pascal By&, 1994. E/F/S

Urban Research in Latin America, Towards a Research Agenda Licia Valladares and Magda Prates Coelho, 1995. E/F/S

Management of Multiculturalism and Multiethnicity in Latin America Diego A. Iturralde, 1995. E/F/S

Lo Global, Lo Local, Lo Hibrido. Heinz R. Sonntag and Nelly Arenas, 1995. (Spanish only)

Reflections on the Challenges Confronting Post-Apartheid South Africa B.M. Magubane, 1995. (English only)

Coping locally and regionally with economic, technological and environmental transformations. S. Jentoft, N. Aarsaether and A. Hallenstvedt, 1995. E/F/S/R

City Partnerships for Urban Innovation. Francis Godard, 1996. E/F

10. Management and Mismanagement of Diversity: The case of ethnic conflict and State-building in the Arab World Saad Eddin Ibrahim, 1996. E/F

11. Urbanization and Urban Research in the Arab World Mostafa Kharoufi, 1996. E/F

12. Public Policy and Ethnic Conflict. Ralph R. Premdas, 1997. (English only)

13. Some Thematic and Strategic Priorities for Developing Research on Multi-Ethnic and Multi- Cultural Societies. Juan Diez Medrano, 1996. (English only)

14. The Information Technology Enabled Organization: A Major Social Transformation in the United States. Thomas R. Gulledge and Ruth A. Ha&o, 1996. E/F/S

15. Global transformations and coping strategies: a research agenda for the MOST programme. Carlos R.S. Milani and Ali M.K. Dehlavi, 1996. (English only)

16. The new social morphology of cities. Guido Martinotti, 1996. (English only)

i7. Societies at Risk? The Caribbean and Global Change. Norman Girvan, 1997. (English only)

18. Replicating Social Programmes: Approaches, strategies and conceptual issues. Nice van Oudenhoven and Rekha Wazir, 1997. E/F/S

19. HIV/AIDS and business in Africa: a socio-medical response to the economic impact? The case of CGte d’lvoire. Laurent Aventin and Pierre Huard, 1997. F (E: 1999)

20. Human Development: Problems and Foundations of an Economic Policy. Sirneon Fongang, 1997. E/F/S

2 1. The Status of Wage Earners and State Intervention in Globalization: Argentina and Mercosur. Susana Peiialva, 1998. E/F/S

22. Financial Flows and Drug Trafficking in the Amazon Basin. Lia Osorio Machado, 1998. E/F/S

23. Cities unbound: the intercity network in the Asia-Pacific region. John Friedmann, 1998. (Fr: 1999)

24. Gender and Nationhood in Mercosur. Elizabeth Jelin, Teresa ValdCs and Line Bareiro, 1998. (Spanish only)

25. Chile and Mercosur: How far do we want integration to go? Carolina Stefoni and Claudio Fuentes, 1998. S/E

26. Nationality at the Frontier as a Media Construct: A case study in Posadas (Argentina) - Encarnacion (Paraguay). Alejandro Grimson, 1998. S/E

27. Globalizacidn, regiones y fronteras. Robert Abinzano, 1998. (Spanish only)

28. Una navegacicin incierta: Mercosur en Internet. Anibal Ford, 1998. (Spanish only)

The MOST publications are also available in electronic form at the MOST Clearing House Web site at wvw.unesco.org/most

Published by the MOST Programme United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization

7, place de Fontenoy, 75700 Paris, France http://www.unesco.org/most

OUNESCO 1998

SHS-98iWSl27

Surfing into uncertainty:

Mercosur on the Internet

Anibal Ford, in collaboration with Ivana Chicco*

“By searching, you will find what you were not searching for”

Gerard Genette: Palimpsestos: Literatura de segundo grado. Madrid, Taurus, 1989.

“Criar meu web site/fazer minha home-page/ Con quantos gygabytesl se faz uma jangada!

un barco que veleje/ que veleje nesse infomar...” Song by Gilbert0 Gil on CD Quanta

Warner Music Brazil, 1997

1. Introduction

In studying Mercosur on the Internet, we must bear in mind that differences in information flows, disparities between them, and their regional and local forms, have varied widely from the time of the New World Information and Communication Order (NWICO)’ to the present. Although the New World Order considered the problem of entertainment flows, it mainly focused on the fact that 90% of the information disseminated in Latin America came from the major international press agencies (UPI, Associated Press, etc.).

Today the study of such flows has changed. Firstly, because “convergence” and megamergers in general, by combining media enterprises with the entertainment industry (the infotainment societ#) have compounded production systems (including their location) and changed their quality. Secondly, because new technological advances, such as the Internet or CD-ROMs, especially those containing reference material, have opened new and wider gaps between the info-rich and the info-poor.

An examination of CD-ROM encyclopedias such as Encarta (Microsoft) and Grolier, whose sales, prices and distribution have been “globalized”, reveals a marked disparity in the amount and quality of information provided as between the United States and the rest of the world (the developing countries in particular). Such works are ethnocentric (United States)

1 Laura Siri and Federico Cavada Claveria, who prepared reports for this study, and Carolina Vinelli also collaborated. All three are members of the group on Research and Development in Communication, which I head and which is studying “communication theory and practice” and “Theory of journalism”, for which I am responsible at the Social Sciences Faculty of the University of Buenos Aires (Argentina). This article was prepared in the framework of the MOST project “MERCOSUR: spaces for interaction, spaces for integration”. For more information, please consult the MOST Secretariat or the website www.unesco.orgfmost.

1 Cf. MacBride, Sean et al. Many voices, one world. Communication and Society Today and Tomorrow, UNESCO, Paris, 1980.

2 The term infotainment is used to describe the convergence of the new multimedia conglomerates dealing in both information and entertainment, whose products blur the distinction between the two areas. This can be explained in terms of int?astructure, synergy and strategic policy. A&al Ford: “de1 show de la privacidad al seguiemiento y control de las identidades” (From private show to the monitoring and control of identities). In Dick-logos de la comunicacidn, No. 48, October 1997.

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and discriminatory, and, moreover, provide arbitrary and scanty information about dependent countries.3

It is possible to study these encyclopedias because they are structured by topic and made up of finite and “fixed” collections of information. The same approach cannot be applied to the Internet because of its scattered and shifting nature, although its effect on international communication disparities and gaps is similar or even greater.

Nicholas Negroponte, one of the best-known figures of the digital revolution, writes in IK!red that “The most astonishing part of the Net is that nobody is in charge”, that it works because “nobody is in control” and that it “shakes up all our centralist notions, and hierarchy goes away by example”.4 Nevertheless, the difficulties that arise in an investigation of or with the Internet, some of which will be examined in the course of this article, whether in using the Internet as a source of information for a research project’ or as a corpu~,~ point to the presence of organizational and hierarchical nodes.

While it is not our purpose here to discuss the concept of the centre,7 the Internet clearly contains zones of concentration and irradiation, which emerge in studies like the present one. These are zones of condensation and power. At issue here is the large number of hosts, information-software users and search engines in the United States and a factor to which not enough attention has been paid: the influence of the ideology and culture of the “average” North American computer technician. This ideology and its ethnocentrism and/or ignorance shape the software, information categories and hierarchies, links and reading protocols (text or image) of the most widespread computer products on the world market.’

All this must be kept in mind in view of the indiscriminate approval of the Internet, and especially its use in schools, research, journalism and other areas. In many cases, the new technology has concentrated the processing of current or historical information (cultural and technical) in the United States and its databases, and also in the ideologies of the developers of United States search engines and CD-ROMs. This has resulted in a drastic loss of memory and culture that deeply affects the less developed countries, which are most in need of knowledge about their natural, material and human resources.

From another perspective, Negroponte’s assertions have their roots in Marshall McLuhan’s “communicational utopias”9 and Bill Gates’ cybernetics. Negroponte’s assertion

3 Ford, Anfbal: “CD-ROM y memoria cultural” (CD-ROM and cultural memory). Mimeo, 1997. 4 Negroponte, Nicholas: http://www.wired.com. Wired, October 1997. 5 It is unusual to find the Internet cited as a possible source of documentation or reference in

methodological studies. Nevertheless, despite the enormous difficulties involved, the Internet is an indispensable resource.

6 We refer to a corpus when, for example, a sampling of newsgroup discussions, similar to focus groups, is used as a source. Cf: Aruba1 Ford and Laura Siri: “Cyberodio: el nazismo en la red” (Cyberhate: Nazism on the Net), in Oficios Terrestres (1996), 2.

7 This issue has a broad interdisciplinary sweep: from biology to autopoiesis to deconstructionism. 8 In this regard, by virtue of its openness, lack of a centre and “democratic” nature within a limited

population - only 1% of the world’s population has access to it - the Internet is one of the most spectacular stages for the dominant ideolo,T and hegemonic production, in the Grarnscian sense.

9 Mattelart, Armand: “La communication-monde. Histoires des id&es et des strategies” (The communication-world. History of ideas and strategies). Paris, La Decouverte, 1991. Breton, Philippe: “L’utopie de la communication” (The Utopia of communication). Paris, La Dtcouverte/Essais, 1992. Ford, Anrbal: “Navegaciones. Crisis, comunicacion y cultura” (Nagivation. Crisis, communication and culture). Buenos Aires, Amorrortu, 1996.

that “the effect will be no less substantial than if we changed the force of gravity7’,1o referring to the fiactal nature of the digital world”, takes its place alongside the myths of globalization and the New World Order. l1 l2

The slogan used to advertise the Internet - “If you can’t find it on the Net then it doesn’t exist” - is both a commercial and ideological construct which serves to reinforce the hegemony of the United States and its ethnocentrism in the fields of information technology and culture.

Laura Siri13 believes this assertion to be flawed because, first, even with the most powerful search engines it is not easy to find certain things on the Web and, secondly, the \.olume of information available and the range of subjects treated makes it impossible to develop a non-reductive classification system. This is because search engines or browsers can only classify Web pages in one of two ways: either by their location in a particular grid or Index or by the inclusion (or not) of certain key words or Boolean combination of keywords.

Moreover, it is noteworthy that the heading “current affairs” is divided into two sections: “US Government” and “World”. This would be of no particular concern if we were dealmg with sections in an American newspaper, but the search engines in question can be accessed and used in any part of the world.

Therefore, either demonstrably, as in the case of CD-ROMs, or hypothetically, as in the case of the Internet, where a comprehensive investigation would be needed, such information s>‘stems. while making an undeniable contribution, represent new forms of cultural dommation” which go hand in hand with other processes unrelated to information rcchnolo,?. such as the long-standing and still persisting economic15 and cultural discrimination against an “inferior” Latin America.

Negroponte, op. cit.

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In describing the myths of the global village, Marjorie Ferguson points out that a distinction should be drawn between the “world order” as the creation of order in the world and as an ordering of the world (based on a particular set of ideological circumstances or economic practices). “The Mythology about Globalization”, in European Journal of Communication, vol. 7, March 1992). This process has also been described by the neologism “Gatesism”, which refers to the “third industrial revolution”, a continuation of Fordism characterized by the incorporation of software into economic production systems. .Roncagliolo, Rafael, “Los espacios culturales y su onom&tica” (Cultural spaces and their onomastics), in Dih-logos de la comunicacidn, No. 49, October 1997. “Algunos problemas de la btisqueda en Internet” (Difficulties in searching on the Internet). Report carried out for this study by Laura Siri. At the present stage, the information received by the Third World from the First World is more valuable than the information available locally. In this regard, access has grown substantially. However, what concerns us is the decline in the processing and accumulation of information about the Latin American countries and the loss of knowledge about our tangible and intangible resources, as has been pointed out by Cees Hamelink in Hacia una autonomia cultural de las comunicaciones mundiales (Towards cultural autonomy of global information flows). Buenos Aires. Ediciones Paulinas, 1985. Cf. “AmCrica Latina tiene una cultura poco apta para el progreso” (Latin Amercan culture is not suited to progress). Interview by Daniel Ulanovsky Sack of Lawrence Harrison, former staff member of the United States State Department. In Clark, December 1997.

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These assertions, which form part of a broader investigation of the new international agendas and of socio-economic and info-communicational disparities,16 serve both as a setting for the present study and as its conclusions.

2. Research objectives and methodological problems

2.1 Pm-nose of the studv

This study is based on the point of view of a researcher or professional who, without being an Internet expert, uses the Web as an additional source of information. It also examines how the Internet fits in with other sources (lists, abstracts, publications such as Current Contents, bibliographies, etc.) in the documentation phase of a research project. Here the searching is done by “surfing” and with the aid of search engines, rather than by using a list of preselected sites.

This approach was chosen because it is the one most commonly used in research and teaching.” There is, however, a specific context: that of someone seeking information from the south (or from a Third World country) on the South, a situation which differs greatly from that of someone working on the North in the North. This difference is a common one because the Internet gap between the info-poor and the info-rich also exists within our countries.

Accordingly, the purpose of this study is to identify the problems involved in searching for information about Mercosur on the Net. For this purpose we shall use three approaches to the principal data and a fourth, which is more limited.

l The first concerns Mercosur’s presence on the Net in comparison with other integration treaties;

l The second - which will be explained later - concerns the information or units of information that can be found on the Net relating to each Mercosur member country;

l The third concerns the place occupied by the major thematic areas of Mercosur on the Net;

l The fourth concerns a more specific topic: social movements in general and in particular (human rights, feminism, Sem Terra, the mothers of the Plaza de Mayo).

Throughout this process we shall make comparisons situating the interpretation of information on Mercosur both at a global level and in relation to other integration processes (NAFTA, TLC, EEC, APEC). Information on Mercosur will not be confined to what is found under the heading “Mercosur” but will include data relating to the various countries belonging to the original Asuncion Treaty: Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay.

Before turning to our study of the presence of MercosurMercosul, on the Net, we should clarify some aspects of the problems that arise when using the Internet.

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Current research being carried out by the Research and Development in Communication group, under the direction of Aruba1 Ford and by the Chair of journalism theory, in particular Stella Martini and Jorge Gobbi. It is unusual to find the Internet cited as a possible documentary source in methodology textbooks such as Qualitative Communication Research Methods by Thomas Lindlof (London, Sage Publication, 1995) or Handbook of Qualitative Methodology for Mass Communication Research by Jensen, K.B. and Jankowski, N. W. (Routledge, New York, 199 l), three authors working in the area of cultural studies.

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2.2 Contextualization of the analysis

The fact that the Internet is a system without centres of hierarchies (Negroponte) does not imply the democratization of the information nor restrict its powers as a hegemony- building instrument, in this case the hegemony of the United States. Significantly, Negroponte’s assertion that “nobody is in charge”‘* is contradicted by the views of Chip Pickering, head of a congressional scientific committee (Washington, D.C.), who claims that “the Internet is North American”,” meaning that it was created by American taxpayers, businesses and Government, giving them exclusive control over it. While this assertion might meet with opposition both internationally and in the United States itself, for example the Internet Society (a civil body which supervises the management of the Internet, including commercial abuses of it), it shows that in the “liberal democratic country” there is a lack of clearly defined policies on how to manage the Net and its commercial aspects in particular.2o

According to Rafael Bini, 85% of Net resources are located in the United States and the bulk of Internet traffic is currently transmitted by private backbones of the major Internet service providers (ISPs), such as MCI, Sprint, UUNet, BBN Planet and ANYAOL. In charge or not, they are the ones that provide the physical structure in use today.21

This is connected with other Internet-related problems which can only be dealt with here in passing. Each merits a full discussion which, in some cases, has already begun, but this is beyond the scope of the current investigation.

As a documentary source, the Internet presents various problems: e.g. daily changes in the information available, changes in the structure of the search engines, random accumulation of data, masses of information without any hierarchical structure, modification of the information and difficulties of translation related to the use of keywords. The latter issue gives rise to specific methodological and epistemological problems as well as linguistic and cultural ones, such as, for example, the preponderance of English and of subject of classification systems typical of the English-speaking world.

Furthermore,22 while it is no longer the case that lack of computer skills is a serious barrier to Internet access (the interfaces are becoming increasingly user-friendly), language remains a problem. According to an Internet Society report relating to the languages used on the Internet, 82.3% of publications are in English, followed by 4% in German, 1.6% in Japanese, 1.5% in French and 1 .l% in Spanish, a latecomer on the scene.

Other limitations, which are of particular relevance to Latin America and the present study, concern the use of search engines to do thematic searches, the paucity of local contents, the cost, the still inadequate number of users and the slow connections.

This is not to deny the advantages of the Net, e.g. access to research worldwide, on-line consultation of bibliographic and documentary sources, electronic mail for academic purposes, updating of information and so forth.

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Negroponte, op. cit.

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Bini, Rafael: “Los duefios de Internet” (The owners of the Internet). La Nation, November 1997. A group of United States politicians, including Pickering, are considering the possibility of drafting legislation that would ban control of primary-level registration (of the type .com, .org or net) outside the United States. Bini, Rafael, op. cit. INTERLINK HEADLINE NEWS, No. 88 1, June 1997.

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Nevertheless, despite its advantages, the Internet continues to be very time-consuming. Hobohm puts this in context when he observes that irrelevant material is not only to be expected on the Internet but is a necessary feature of it.23 He compares the Internet to an “information flea market” and highlights three difficulties involved in exchanging information on the Web: information overload, variations in quality, and the dimension of time in the sense that information has to be up-to-date.

2.3 Methodological problems

2.3.1 Classification and keywords

Both the classification systems and the keywords used on the Internet break with the traditional rules followed in libraries and documentary archives. The indiscriminate use of keywords by site developers, the excessive number of sites where their work appears and the use of multiple ad hoc classifications at each site owing to ignorance of documentary fields and traditions reveal a crisis in classification and information recovery systems, including the epistemological and ideological density of the classifications, links and- boundaries between disciplines.

The use of keywords as a search tool gives rise to important issues which call into question traditional library usage: instead of a list of pre-established keywords for each subject, every word can serve as a keyword on the Web. The probability of finding a particular page by using one or more specific keywords depends on the logic according to which each search engine operates (whether it searches the entire text or only the headings, whether it uses some degree of artificial intelligence, whether it is equipped to do fairly complex Boolean searches, whether it accepts tags attached by the page developer). Thus while keywords may be defined by the developer of the page, search engines may also recognize other instances of the selected keyword (sometimes only if they appear in the headings) without distinguishing between the different semantic usages. For example, a search with the keyword “society” may yield “Society of Surgeons”.

As Hobohm point outs,24 we are witnessing the birth of fluid and dynamic documents in HTML format that are constantly renewing themselves and posing a radical challenge to the traditional role of libraries as storerooms for archives or finite sources of knowledge such as books.

According to Hobohm, library services are being replaced by technology such as search engines or information agents (knowbots) and as a result the librarian is becoming an information gate keeper or knowledge engineer in the international publications market.

These are some of the ongoing problems raised by using keywords to search the Web and researchers, like everyone else, must deal with them. Hence there are common questions such as those raised by the information specialist Bob Henery:25 how to reduce the search;

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Dr Hans-Christoph Hobohm “Entering the New Market Place: on the Role of Traditional Social Science Information Providers within the Internet Community”. Social Science Information Centre, German Social Sciences Infrastructure Services, Bonn-Berlin. E-mail: Hobohm@FH-Potsdam.de. Paper presented at the 60th General Conference of the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) in Havana, Cuba, 21-27 August 1994, IFLA Section of Social Science Libraries. Printed version published in: IFLA Journal, 2 1, 1995. Ibid. Bob Henery e-mail: bob@stams.strath.ac.uk: Updating a Bayesian Classification Scheme, Home Page: http://www.stams.strath.ac.uk/-bob 22104197

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how to expand it; what is the best search engine for the Web; how to avoid more of the same; what is the best search engine for use with databases; how to incorporate the knowledge of users (experts); and how to construct a hierarchical database.

We cannot limit ourselves to thinking, like Negroponte, that cyberspace is a lattice: “If a part doesn’t work, you go around it”.26 Most academics are obliged to work by serendipity - and therefore waste a great deal of time - as a result of the various disciplines, cultures and commercial interests involved.

2.3.2 Building frameworks and contexts

If we are to analyse the mass of information available on the Net, we have to be constantly building comparative frameworks to help us to find accurate samples in the chaotic sea of information produced by every search. For example, in a search for information on social movements by country or by treaty, as will be seen below, the resulting figures have to be compared with figures for other countries and other treaties. And it is not simply a question of quantity. We also have to analyse the different cultures of social movements - their classification, significance and so forth. Nor is that all: the data must be checked against traditional documentary and bibliographic information on the same topic. Depending on the Internet alone may give rise to serious errors (and this is actually happening). Other information cultures are broader, more open and less biased than the thesaurus that is being developed on the Internet under the hegemony of the neoliberal culture of the New World Order, which accords low priority to critical social problems.

It is important to bear this in mind because there are no specific sites on Mercosur applying a broad criterion to information.

2.4 Clarification

The discussion up to this point has not attempted to cover all the complex issues raised by the Internet*’ but only those that arose during the current investigation or are related to the background to this research and to the Mercosur/Intemet theme.

3. World map

We shall consider several specific elements that provide an overall view of the factors influencing the circulation of information on Mercosur on the Net. The differences that will emerge are also related to the Internet infrastructure in Latin America, a subject not covered in this study.28

3.1 Global data

One way of measuring the development of the Internet is to examine the number of hosts, i.e. terminals with an Internet Protocol, connected to it. The number of users is estimated on the basis of the number of hosts, since several users can use the same host.

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Negroponte, op. cit. One example is the work done by Milon, cited in the conclusions section. The “epistemological” and “cognitive” bibliography on the Internet is beginning to be an important source. “How the national backbone is formed in each of the Mercosur countries”. Report prepared for this study by Federico Cavada Ciaveria.

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According to data collected by the Georgia Tech Research Corporation,” the percentages of the total number of hosts worldwide, by country, or region, are as follows:

I 1997 I 1996

United States 80.05 Central America 0.16 Africa 0.37 Middle East 0.27 South America 0.63 Asia 1.31 Oceania 3.17 Canada and Mexico 7.09 Eurooe 6.84

% %

74 0.11 0.45 0.57 0.58 1.43 3.65 8.5

10.9

According to this survey, the gap between Internet use in the United States and in other countries not only failed to narrow in 1997 but actually widened. Nevertheless, it should be kept in mind that the Georgia Tech survey used a non-probabilistic sample of informants who participated on a voluntary basis.30

Major geographic location

IC, 60 .

All 0.37 0.03 131 7.09 0.16 6.84 027 3.17 0.63 8Ua5 8-09

Source:GYU3SeYerthWWWUserSuneym (ConductedApril1937) <URL:~:lhmnngYu.gatech.eduluser_suneys~ Copyright 1997 GTRC - ALL RIGHTS RESEWED

catact: tYWFS~@CC.gatech.

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30 Http:Nwww.gvu.gatech.edu/user~surveys/survey-1997-04/graphs/gener~ajor_Geo~aphical_location.html. Accordingly, variations between different sources of information need not concern us: the data provided are clearly representative.

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Before turning to the question of how the Internet is organized within the countries belonging to Mercosur, it should be recalled - although many will already be aware of these facts - that the Internet began as a military project in the United States designed to prevent a total collapse of government communications in the event of war with the Soviet Union. The development of the Internet can be traced from the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) to the current Internet structure. We shall confine ourselves, however, to some recent developments on which our research was based.

3.2 Users

One of the first factors to be taken into account is the distribution of Internet users throughout the world. According to the University of Georgia, the total number of users worldwide is approximately 65 million (1.3% of the world population, which stands at 5 billion), distributed as follows:

Region Inhabitants

North America 47 million Europe 9 million Asia and Oceania 8 million Latin America 500 million

% .

82.7 6.22 3.75 0.38

According to James Pitkow (Georgia Institute of Technology), the number of users in the United States of America more than doubled in the last year and a half (Nielsen Media and CommerceNet) and, for the majority of experts, the estimated number of users in the year 2000 will be 250 million.

Another significant fact comes from the Secretaria de Comunicaciones de la Nacidn (SCN) concerning the use of language on the Intemet.31

Language %

English 93.8 Spanish 0.6 German 0.8 French 0.8 Other 4

It is interesting to note the figures relating to the principal access routes of users: access through search engines is in first place, followed by on-line periodicals in second place and service provider home pages in third place.

31 “El mundo de Internet”. Clarin, August 19%‘.

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According to the SCN,32 access routes, in descending order of importance, are as follows:

4. Broad approaches to MercosurAUercosul on the Internet .

As previously stated, a preliminary investigation of the topic under study used three approaches to the principal data. The first concerns the presence of Mercosur on the Net as compared with other integration treaties; the second the information or units of information that can be found on the Net relating to each Mercosur c~untry;~~ and the third the place occupied by the major thematic areas. Finally, we will be discussing more specific levels of information, such as social movements.

4.1 Mercosur and other treaties

There are approximately 400 search engines, including Latin American, international and internal (i.e. those belonging to a Website) tools. Two of them were selected as reference sources: HotBot and AltaVista.34 A search carried out on 10 October 1997 gave the following results:

It will be seen that, in relation to its population, Mercosur has a minor position on the Internet. Attention should be drawn, however to certain important differences: AltaVista

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Idem. The present study focuses on the original members of Mercosur: Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay. The criteria for selecting the search engines were based on information contained in magazines specializing in the Internet (Wired, InternetWorld, Compumagazine, etc.), which singled them out as providing more information, speed of access and better search systems. In addition, HotBot and AltaVista are the favourites of Internet users.

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provides less information on Mercosur and TLC (the Spanish equivalent of NAFTA, which is the term used in Mexico) but takes a greater interest in APEC. However, these figures are random, given that the countries of South-East Asia are going through a period of very rapid growth in information technology.35

But in spite of their constant ebb and flow, these figures are significant when compared with those concerning member countries of Mercosur.

4.2 Breakdown of Mercosur bv country

A search carried out on the same day (10 October 1997) yielded the following results:

Countries

Argentina Argentine

HotBot AltaVista

123,553 82,384 14.934 5.671

Brasil 67,912 73,328 Brazil 167,740 361,101 Paraguay 24,738 32,220 Uruauav 49.080 15.235

By way of comparison, a search by NAFTA member countries produced the following results:

I Countries I HotBot I AltaVista I United States 2,574,639 751,320 Mexico 853,997 235,724

These figures36 clearly show that if we want to study information on an integration treaty, we have to carry out a search on each of its member countries. The heading “treaty”37 still produces very little information in comparison with what is available at the national level.

As indicated, the use of the Net as a source of information depends on several different elements, ranging from the electronic infrastructure of each country to the various forms of access to the Net. What stands out is that integration treaties are not regarded as specific topics. There is a purely economic or bureaucratic stage after which the need soon develops for socio-economic and sociocultural analyses at multiple levels of exchange, and it is at this point that the search by treaty breaks down. If we wish to study such critical issues as unemployment, urban violence, the role of women or migration as a treaty subject, the search

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36

37

Ford, Anfbal and Chicco, Ivana: “Oriente multimedia. Los medios amarillos”, Pagina 12, March 1997. The variations in numerical data and the difficulty of standardizing them is a characteristic feature of the Internet. Under the heading Mercosur, AltaVista came up with 11,520 hits on 14 September 1997 and 4,061 on 10 October 1997; under Mercosul, the hits on the same days were 7,020 and 1,879 respectively. Some attribute these variations to newspaper coverage. Nevertheless, on the second date of the search President Clinton’s visit was extensively covered in the daily newspapers of the Mercosur countries. Generally speaking, we believe that there has been a decline in Mercosur information on the most widely used search engines. This is the criterion adopted for the study carried out by Anibal Ford, Stella Martini and Nora Mazziotti: “Construcciones de la information en la prensa argentina en el Mercosur” (Constructs of information on Mercosur in the Argentine press). In Ntstor Garcia Canclini (ed.): Culturas en globalizacion (The globalization of cultures). Caracas, Nueva Sociedad, 1996.

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must inevitably be done by country. Information on treaties tends to neglect the critical issues. We shall examine the performance of the Internet in greater depth by carrying out searches by thematic area, using major keywords.

4.3 Mercosur by maior thematic areas

Given the large amount of information available, we used HotBot to gather data. The results are presented in a double-entry table, with Mercosur, Mercosul, Argentina, Argentine, Brasil, Brazil, Uruguay, Paraguay on the vertical axis, and Negocios, Business, Economia, Economy, Cultura, Culture, Sociedad, Society, Ciencias Sociales and Social Science on the horizontal axis.

Ciencias Sociales

Social Science

Economy 1 Cultura 1 Culture 1 Sociedad 1 Society Negocios I I Business

174 87 337 165 128 76 74 71

_ 3,455 2,102 1,403 2,371 1,512 1,562 355 147

2,965 593 1 1,241 1 252 ) 1,524* 1 364 103* 27 Mercosul 346 1,402

Argentina 7,947 96,105

Argentine [931 11,509

Brasil 6,519 [20,481]

Brazil [1,2721 144,249

Uruguay 2,875 47,820

Paraguay 99,209 29,750

23,034 ;<27 1 20,546 129,653 1 29,216 k,250 2,098 3,229

[3301 5,573 1 [LO421 1 7,151 1 [932] 1 7,775 fl481 3,241

24,840 [3,8941 1 23,321 1 8,438 1 l6,744* 1 2,718 1,104* 793

CL8431 43,204 1 [6,1661 152,356 1 [11,546] p,426 [4471 6.087

3,026 17,915 1 6,160 112,107 1 5,967 115,702 944 1.389

1,793 6,294 3,594 6,080 3,940 7,736 530 583

This table3* can be rea 1 in sever: 1 different ways, which, as with all the in brmatior to be found on the Net about the countries of Latin America, are more random and indicative than they are informative. Nevertheless, it is worth analysing the ranking by units of information of the items with the most hits in the table. We will do this for “Economy/Economia”, “Business/Negocios” and “Cultu.re/Cultura” since the figures under the heading “SocietySociedad” are totally distorted. The rankings are as follows:

38 Key to the table: * The keywords used were in Portuguese (sociedade, cihcias sociais) to correspond to the language

of the country. [...I The figures in square brackets refer to searches in which the English and Spanish failed to

correspond. The numerical data are significant because they demonstrate the level of quality or precision that can be attained in a search.

In case of searches based on keywords “ciencias sociales/social science”, it should be borne in mind that the search engine uses specific features to delimit the search and to some extent these determine the results. Since “ciencias sociales” is a compound term, the keyword has to be placed within square brackets; if it had been placed within parentheses, the fi,@res in the columns would be nearly 1,000 times greater. This shows how specific technical parameters can influence the volume of the flow of information.

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Economy/Economia Number of hits

Brazil and Economy 43,204 Brasil and Economia 24,840 Argentina and Economy 27,527 Argentine and Economia 23,034 Uruguay and Economy 17,915

BusinesdNegocios Number of hits

Brazil and Business 144,249 Paraguay and Negocios 99,209 Argentina and Business 96,105 Uruguay and Business 47,820 Paraguay and Business 29,750 .

Culture/Cultura Number of hits

Brazil and Culture 52,356 Argentina and Culture 29,653 Brasil and Cultura 23,321 Argentine and Cultura 20,546 Uruguay and Culture 12,107

By and large, these tables enable us to make some important observations on the nature of the information on the Internet relating to Mercosur: (a) there is much more information on the countries than on the treaties to which they are parties; (b) in many cases there is much more information on Mercosur topics in English than in the local languages (Spanish and Portuguese); (c) the topic Business/Negocios commands far more information than Economy/Economia; (d) Brazil attracts the most information, especially in English.

All these figures are purely indicative. They clearly confirm the hypothesis that the integration treaties focus strongly on economistic information - commercial and trade as well as bureaucratic and official. “Critical” social information is definitely inadequate.

We shall now see whether this applies in the case of a more detailed analysis in the social science field.

5. Refining the search

We have already pointed out that the figures so far presented are of relative value. Because keywords are not used in a systematic way, the resulting lists contain data that are irrelevant, opportunistic and random, even in the case of such dominant themes as Business. This effect is heightened when it comes to data on Third World countries. We therefore decided to refine the search on Mercosur at two levels: one concerning social movements in general, and the other relating to specific social movements. In the latter case we selected two global and diversified themes - feminism and human rights - and two specific to the Mercosur countries - the mothers of the Plaza de Mayo and Sem Terra.

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The purpose was twofold: first, to determine the place occupied by these themes on the Mercosur agenda and, secondly, to assess the relevance of the units of information under these headings. For this study we used the first 100 Internet hits on HotBot and we also consulted AltaVista.

5.1 Treaties and countries

The tables below present the hits for social movements in general by treaties and by countries.

[Search carried out on 14 September 19971

AltaVista

Treaties

Mercosur Mercosul

Movimientos Social sociales movements

42 5 1 0

Movimientos Social sociales movements

1 2 1 0

EEC 22 4 6 2 EU 30 14 36 20 NAFTA 26 24 5 37 TLC 36 12 81 16

If we compare these figures with those presented in the previous tables, we can observe the low status of this kind of information under treaties in general. As a category, “social movements” have a low profile in the ideology of treaties and a slightly higher one if searched by country, despite the differences between countries and treaties mentioned earlier.

A search carried out on the same day (14 September 1997) provided the following data:

HotBot AltaVista

Countries

Argentina Argentine Brasil

Movimientos sociales

81 8

173

Social movements

107 13 26

Movimientos sociales

70 1

48

Social movements

42 11 8

Brazil 28 190 15 96 Paraguay 29 25 11 6 Uruguay 45 36 31 13 United States 85 624 104 534 Mexico 141 575 141 757

These figures vary when the search term “social movements” is replaced by the name of a specific social movement.

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5.2 Specific social movements

The following table is significant because it shows that: (a) when the search is refined or particularized, more hits are obtained (which indicates the need for prior knowledge of “social movements and Argentina”);3g (b) there is a significant difference in the perception of social movements between searches by Internet/country and IntemetMercosur. Clearly, the category “country” is much more productive for searches related to sociocultnral and/or socio- economic issues. It also demonstrates, as has already been noted, the neoliberal economistic approach that dominates information on treaties.

Results of a search carried out on 16 September 1997:

I I Argentina I Brasil I Brazil Mercosur Mercosul I Sem terra 627 2,489 230 11 479 Mothers 309 61 22 25 2 Human rights 4,636 2,835 611 842 . 30 Feminism 170 266 47 19 9

These figures are not totally reliable because even here the Internet lists still contain extraneous material, insertions and irrelevant information, as we found out when we examined the first 100 items on each list. We will give some examples as a guide for future research.40

The hits that appear under each heading are in the form of “models” which vary widely from one search engine to another and even within a single search engine. For example, in response to “Argentina and social movements” AltaVista provides largely irrelevant information, which is at times surprising: individual CVs. degree programmes in psychology and economics or in communications engineering, museums. social movements in Spain or Colombia, and so forth.

HotBot provides more pertinent information about social movements. The data, however, do not appear under Argentina but rather under Latin America and other countries. The “scrapping” of country data and its inclusion under the heading “Latin America” reflect a typical cultural and political attitude of the United States and are characteristic of the most popular search engines. In addition, the information focuses more on background or related material (poverty, for example) than on specific social movements. The same lack of logical order is also apparent: it was not until hit No. 62 that we came across a reference to grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo.

It was only under “Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo and Argentina” that a relatively acceptable level of information was found, although this does not mean that for an important topic the proper search entry is “country and specific social movement”. “Feminism and Argentina” produced a scattered selection of information that was every bit as random as “Feminism and Mercosur”.

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In other words, without a knowledge of social movements in Argentina, it would be very difficult to find the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo in a search. Reading all the items, some of which are in the form of hypertext, is extremely complicated. The same is true if we try to compare the data to existing information and its classifications. The most that can be hoped for from this “flea market”, as Hobohm calls it, is an article or document to add to the bibliography of the study.

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6. Provisional conclusions and challenges

The provisional conclusions to be drawn from this study are of two kinds. The first relate to the context, to everything that forms part of the background that has to be taken into account when searching for information on Mercosur, especially with regard to the social sciences. The second relate to challenges and proposals that go more deeply into the 1ntemeVMercosu.r relationship and the use of the Net to obtain information on Mercosur.

6.1 Background conclusions

6.1.1 In the field of classification, the ideological hegemony of the United States or of groups playing a similar role in other countries is present in every search. The implications go far beyond the crisis that the Net is causing in the traditional documentary and library cultures.

6.1.2 The result - as in the case of CD-ROM encyclopedias - is a major worldwide process of disinformation with regard to the poor countries or the introduction by an intermediary of incorrect and incomplete information about them.

6.1.3 The random, irregular and entropic nature of information on the Internet, its classificatory shortcomings, commercial encroachment and other aspects to which we have drawn attention are heightened in the case of information about Third World countries and the integration treaties that they are concluding, such as Mercosur.

6.1.4 While this question is being analysed in various studies, especially in First World countries other than the United States,41 in the case of Third World countries what is needed is a more independent way of producing information about themselves and, in addition, the faster development and application of cultural and info-communication policies to prevent the possible disappearance or cultural simplification of such information, a matter already raised by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

6.2 Prouosals and challenges

6.2.1 In line with the previous point, we need to develop policies in our countries to increase the global coverage, in human and linguistic terms, of our sociocultures, which are often presented in a sketchy and erroneous way on the Net or by other new technologies. This assertion holds good for all Third World countries, but is particularly true of Mercosur.

6.2.2 Accordingly, we must make available information, based on criteria of excellence, concerning our geography, history, socioculture, demographic and ethnic structures, and other topics. There is also a need to review cultural heritage concepts,42 both historical and contemporary, and to examine the historical concepts in the light of the critical issues of our times, such as ecology and natural resources.

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42

Good examples of this from the political and epistemological point of view are: Milon, Alain: Liaison geographique ou agencement historique. L’occupation du territoire? in: Me’diaPouvoirs, 45, First quarter 1997; and Rheingold, Howard: “Desinformocracy” in: Virtual Communities, Haper Collins, 1993. Ford, Anlbal: “La globalizacion fiagmentada: megafusiones, Internet y el crecimiento de hiatos socioculturales” (Fragmented globalization: megamergers, the Internet and growing sociocultural gaps), paper presented at a symposium on the media and globalization at the School of Communication of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFW), 1995; and “Integration y diferencias” (Integration and differences), paper presented at the international seminar on “Mercosul e OS caminhos da integraGao” (Mercosur and the roads to integration), organized by the Forum da Ci&ncia B Cultura of UFRJ (1995) and reproduced in “El desafio de nuevas politicas culturales para una America Latina en crisis” (The challenge of new cultural policies for Latin America in crisis) in: htersecciones, 1, 1995.

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6.2.3 We must promote the inclusion of information on the Net about research that is being carried out in our countries, with appropriate classification systems and keywords. Here we are referring not only to the creation of specific sites but also to changes in the way Mercosur themes are presented in the hegemonic search engines, thus providing less complicated access to information.

All this involves challenges which are essentially related to the solution of two problems:

(a) The absence of information on the critical sociocultural and socio-economic issues arising within Mercosur and the countries belonging to it. A process of integration - which we take to mean the coexistence of various cultures rather than their fusion - requires knowledge of this kind.

(b) Promotion of a better understanding of our cultures (Mercosur, Latin America) at the global level, based on criteria formulated independently and not processed by other, non-Latin America cultures as is the case at present- for the bulk of the information provided on the Net. Individual countries continue to play an important and complex role in the future of communications.43

43 “The State continues to play a role while other kinds of organization - most of them transnational corporations (TNCs) - are gaining power in the decision-making process at the global and the local level. The concept of the State remains important in the areas of human rights and civil liberties with the result that the State is the organizational structure for the protection of the individual; although the TNCs are supposed to stimulate economic activity, they rarely include social and cultural objectives among their activities”. Braman, Sandra: “Horizons of the State: Information Policy and Power” in: Journal of Communication, 1995.