Christof Demont-Heinrich

Ethnographic Interviews on the Digital Divide

Employing narrative analysis of ethnographic interviews with persons from a variety of socioeconomic, educational, and racial/ethnic backgrounds, this article examines the discursive structure of the digital divide debate as it is articulated among contemporary online users and non-users in the United States. The article argues that the discourse of individualism serves as a filter that shapes and distorts all private and public conversations about the digital divide and thus limits public debate on the subject. Some challenges to the dominance of individualism emerge when people discuss the digital divide in relation to the specific, lived situations of economic disadvantage. Yet we conclude that the potential political power of this critique is muted as it echoes rather than challenges the contradictions inherent to the promise of the digital era that are found at the heart of both corporate advertising and current social policies.

Parents, ICTs, and Children's Prospects for Success: Interviews along the Digital ''Access Rainbow''

Interviews with 52 parents of varying income levels and positions on the digital “access rainbow” are used to explore how parents discuss the widespread belief that ICT (information and communication technologies) access affects their childrens prospects for success. While all parents agreed that ICT competence is important, differences emerged along socioeconomic lines regarding how parents conceptualized the computer/success relationship. While upper-income parents demonstrated greater ICT proficiency and access and assumed that their children needed ICT proficiency for success, parents in the lower-income groups saw the need for ICT proficiency as more context-dependent and adopted broader definitions of success. All parents expressed concerns about the negative attributes of ICTs as entertainment rather than educational media; for lower- and middle-income families, however, this objection justified limits on use or access among children.

Language and National Identity in the Era of Globalization: The Case of English in Switzerland:

This article engages the intersection of language, national identity, nation state, English and discourses of (global) modernization, progress, and the transcendence of the national vis-à-vis an instructive case: Switzerland. It examines the rise of English in multilingual Switzerland and its potential impact on Swiss collective (national) identity. It reflects, as well, on the ways in which English’s spread might influence the ethic of multilingual reciprocity in the Swiss and global contexts. It is contended that despite significant shortcomings, multilingualism has survived and, to a large extent, even thrived in Switzerland precisely because that nation state has legally and normatively codified the protection of linguistic particularism and established multilingualism as a basic component of its national identity. Yet even state-sanctioned and officially codified multilingualisms deeply embedded in national mythology, such as in Switzerland, are potentially threatened by an incessant drive to modernize, globalize, and “Englishize.”

Globalization, Language, and the Tongue-Tied American: A Textual Analysis of American Discourses on the Global Hegemony of English

How is English in the global context constructed in the print media discourse of American-owned prestige press newspapers? The author zeroes in on examples of explicit reflection on the American “situation” vis-à-vis the global hegemony of English. These were drawn from a 275-text data pool generated for the author’s recently published doctoral dissertation. A number of different themes emerged in the texts and excerpts analyzed here, most prominently that of English monolingualism as potentially compromising American national security and economic competitiveness. Several texts also focused on a great paradox: tremendous American linguistic diversity and widespread English monolingualism in the United States. Perhaps the most interesting theme that emerged was what the author terms wistful regret: Americans reflecting with considerable melancholy on how they saw the hegemony of English as inhibiting their incentive and opportunity to become multilingual.

Beyond Culture and (National) Identity? Language, Globalization and the Discourse of Universal Progress in American Newspaper Coverage of English

Abstract This paper critically interrogates discursive appeals to linguistic and communicative universality. It does so primarily by way of the analysis of discourses on the global hegemony of English in five American-owned prestige press publications—the Los Angeles Times, the International Herald Tribune, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post. It also draws parallels between broader contemporary and historical examples of what the author defines as a discourse of universal progress on English. This discourse frames the hegemony of English as a simple and largely unproblematic fact of the global order while celebrating its allegedly intrinsic progressive tendencies and capabilities. Among these are Englishs superiority as a purveyor of “objective” reality, its ability to facilitate individual and collective (economic) success, its capacity to advance the production and exchange of knowledge and information, and its status as a bestower of universal (global) voice and unity. The author challenges some of the assumptions that underlie this discourse, contending that, at the highest levels of abstraction, the discourse of universal progress strips English and language of their rootedness in culture and various forms of social identity and struggle.

Language, Globalization, and the Triumph of Popular Demand: The Discourse of Populism in American Prestige Press Coverage of the Global Hegemony of English

This article zeroes in on “the American situation” with respect to the global hegemony of English. It does so by way of textual analysis of a number of articles taken from a pool of 275 American prestige press accounts of the global spread of English. Drawing parallels between prestige press and some academic accounts of culture and globalization, the article critically engages instances of a pervasive populist individualist ideology expressed via what the author calls the discourse of populism.

“You're Invading the World and You Don't Even Know Where Slovenia Is!” An Analysis of an Online Forum Among American, Australian and Slovenian University Students

Abstract This paper is about an international electronic forum set up among university students in the United States, Australia, and Slovenia. It seeks to (a) develop a richer understanding of how Americans view themselves in relation to a globalizing world, (b) examine how American, Slovenian and Australian university students use an interactive online context to advance and challenge particular points of view within, and across, domestic boundaries, and (c) reflect on the ways in which the participants, in particular the American participants, might be said to have been moved, or not moved, to reassess their (national) views on various issues of global significance.

American Triumphalism and the “Offensive” Defensiveness of the French French as a Foil for English in U.S. Prestige Press Coverage of the Global Hegemony of English

Drawing from a variety of disciplines, this article examines some of the tensions reflected and reproduced by the global hegemony of English. It does so by way of critical interpretation of accounts of the global spread of English published in five American-owned prestige press publications. Part of a 275-text data pool, the texts analyzed in this article wrap the story of the global hegemony of English around Anglo-Franco competition and rivalry. They embrace what the author calls the French Foil narrative, or a story about the global rise of English that pits English against French, the United States against France, and Americans against “the” French. The story told is one in which English is seen as triumphing over French because of its superior status as a popular language. This antielitist plot relies heavily on the consummate antagonist of American populism, the French intellectual.

Central points of control and surveillance on a “decentralized” Net

This paper focuses on the complex nature of privacy and freedom of speech issues as they arise at the ISP. It addresses these critical issues by way of an examination of multiple specific contemporary examples and legal cases. Also discussed are a number of different approaches to more clearly define the status of the ISP and its multi‐faceted functions. Finally, some of the possible implications of various proposals for regulatory and legal schemes are examined. The author concludes that ultimately any such scheme must foreground the integral role that the ISP plays with respect to fundamental privacy and free speech rights on the Internet.

Debating English's Hegemony: American, Australian and Slovenian Students Discuss “The” Global Language

This article looks at how mother-tongue English speakers and those who do not have English as a mother tongue discuss the complex questions that swirl around the global hegemony of English when given an opportunity to discuss these directly with one another. The article does so via an analysis of a series of online exchanges about Englishs global rise among American, Australian, and Slovenian university students. The analysis reveals that Englishs global expansion can look and feel quite different, and in fact is quite different, to different social actors, all of them situated differently vis-à-vis this social phenomenon along a variety of different social, cultural, national and, most notably, linguistic axes.