Appendix

- it's also a commercial model of communication. Its content is "information," viewed as commodity. Understandably, this model has predominated in our commercial industrial society. But democratic values have prompted governments to actively promote the more culture and community-building model by subsidizing it. And so in Canada, we've had a mixed-model approach to communication. In fact, it's been a defining feature of Canadian society. It has given us universality in telephone service. Also, institutions like the National Film Board, the CBC, community-access cable, public education and public libraries and the Internet of the 1970s and '80s.

In recent years, however, the gov't has actively withdrawn from that mixed-model tradition. This can be seen in an amendment to the Telecomm. Act in 1994, shifting the initiative in comm. from public service to market forces, and opening the doors to deregulation and privatization. It can also be seen in the Info. Highway Advisory Council's report -- in its general recommendations that the private sector should create and manage the infrastructure and operating systems of the information society free from public interference -- and also in its particular references to education and learning -- as Jennifer and Linda will spell out in their presentation. Generally too, this retreat can be seen in the cutbacks to public-sector education.

We need to see developments today as involving this polarizing dynamic: the active under- development of the ecological social-bonding model of communication, associated with the public culture and education, as well as the active development of the transmission model of culture and education.

These two models also influence how you define some of the key words in the discussion: And believe me, what we're engaged in here is a major struggle over words, because there are values and values biases at work in how they are defined. And what we are engaged in is a struggle over values.

Take access as an example.
Access: In the transmission model, access is defined as access to the technology: timely, affordable access to the Internet, to phone service etc.

In the ecological, social-bonding model, access is defined with people as the focus: so it's access to meaningful participation. Then, with an equity focus on difference, it is further defined as access to meaningful participation in terms of the participants. Which, in our discussion, would mean not only learners, but women with all our differences in ethnicity, language and ability.

Quality: In the transmission model, quality is defined in technical terms. From getting a dial tone within x seconds, which is how quality is defined in basic telephone service, to lack of noise in transmission, high bandwidth and multi-media capacity.

In the ecological model, however, with its focus on the social process and engaged human relationships of education, we would ask: Is the quality of the personal learning process enhanced. Do people feel as though they're in touch with instructors and fellow learners -- either because they have opportunities to actually be in touch; or because the technologies used to bridge distances between them truly do extend personal communication in all its diversity and need for flexibility?

Sustainability: This is another concept which would be defined differently. Sustainability in the transmission model comes out as sustaining markets for new technologies. In the ecological model, it means sustaining long-term learning goals, sustaining grounded institutions of learning and culture, and sustaining existing skills and knowledge.