A Web of Concern - churches, peace movements and ecumenicalism on the World Wide Web

Ecumenical Review, The, April, 2001 by Sara Speicher

Modern Communication Technology in the Service of Peace-Making

Almost daily, four hundred million people -- in both developed and developing countries -- turn on a computer to read e-mail messages from colleagues a few offices down the hall, friends in other countries, or business associates in other cities. Many then "click" to the World Wide Web looking for everything from recent United Nations resolutions to the latest news from the BBC, from a book they can't find to pictures of newborn family members.

Millions of people take for granted on-line access to virtually any piece of information or product. But millions more -- billions in fact -- have never seen a Web page, let alone sent an e-mail. Technological advancements over the past twenty years, for some sectors of the world's population, have revolutionized the way information is acquired and shared. That revolution is spreading -- fast ...

Those of us working in the church, with human-rights networks, on conflict resolution and social-justice issues, have caught on to the opportunities this modern technology affords. It offers tremendous potential to expand the churches' witness for peace and justice even as it continues to test the churches' role in demanding fair and just access to information and advances in technology.

This article examines four recent peace-building initiatives that make use of the Internet, highlighting the Internet's great potential while noting some of its limitations. Before turning to a series of case studies, it may be helpful to look briefly at the origins of the Internet, the World Wide Web and how they are used today.

In the name of scientific research and military defence: the Internet's ironic origins

What is now known as the Internet was first conceived in the early 1960s as a way of allowing computers to share information on scientific and military research. Developed under the auspices of the United States Department of Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (ARPA), one purpose was to provide a "communications network that would work even if some of the sites were destroyed by nuclear attack".(1) In 1969, four universities in the south-western United States were "on-line", connected through what was called ARPANET.

Electronic mail, or e-mail as we now know it, made its debut in the early 1970s and quickly became the most popular feature of the ARPANET. Network connections beyond the United States were made in 1973, bringing the University College in London and the Royal Radar Establishment in Norway on-line. The number of ARPANET users was estimated at 2000.(2)

As technology improved, the ARPANET started to move from its original purpose and in 1982 the term "Internet, began to be used.(3) Newsgroups, discussion forums, list-servers were developed, though still primarily for an academic and scientific elite.

The growth of the Internet proceeded at a rapid pace. In 1984 there were 1000 computers "hosting" the Internet, over 10,000 in 1987 and over 300,000 in 1990. By 1990 connections, particularly among universities, had been made between the United States, Canada, many European countries, China, the USSR, Australia, Israel, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, Chile, India, Korea, Brazil and Argentina.

The beginning of www.accessanything.com

In 1991 Tim Berners-Lee, a researcher working at the European Centre for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Geneva, Switzerland, developed the first "pages" for what he called the World Wide Web. Berners-Lee dreamed of a "common information space in which we communicate by sharing information. Its universality is essential: the fact that a hypertext link can point to anything, be it personal, local or global, be it draft or highly polished."(4)

The concept was quickly grasped by programmers and the public alike. The technology became easier to use, leading to an explosion of Internet and Web activity. By the mid-1990s, governmental funding that restricted the use of the Internet to research, education and government use came to an end and commercial use quickly came to the forefront.

By 1996 there were approximately 40 million users in 150 countries using 10 million computer hosts and doing more than US$1 billion per year in business.(5) The success was so phenomenal that a number of Internet Service Providers in the US had trouble keeping up, calling into question their ability to support the rapidly expanding technology.(6)

Ironically, a system designed to function during a time of war was almost overcome by the extent of its use during a time of relative peace.

Use today -- and trends for the future

Statistics point to a radical transformation of the Internet. In 1969 there were four computer hosts; by 2000 there were over 93 million. In June 1993 there were 130 Websites, by October 2000 there were over 22.3 million sites with over one billion indexable pages.(7)

The Computer Industry Almanac, Inc. calculates that at the end of 2000 over 400 million people used the Internet regularly for business or at home.(8) (This still amounts, however, to just over six percent of the global population of 6.1 billion.) Thirty-three percent of the users were in the United States -- a percentage of global use that is dropping as more people in other countries gain access to the Internet. After the US, the following countries currently have the highest number of regular users: Japan, Germany, Canada, UK, South Korea, China, Italy, France, Australia, Taiwan, Netherlands, Sweden, Spain and Russia.