ISTR Fourth International Conference Dublin, Ireland / July 5-8, 2000 The Third Sector: For What and For Whom?

Alan De Guzman Alegre alalegre@codewan.com.ph

Advances in information and communications technologies (ICTs)—i.e., computer systems, new media, the Internet, etc.—during the past decade have been nothing short of revolutionary. This revolution is changing the very nature of how people relate with each other and with the world, and is redefining the parameters of human life in ways we are only beginning to see.

In principle, these new technologies present possibilities for civil society organizations (CSOs) in their work, and hold the promise of further democratization and empowerment within sectors and societies, especially in developing countries. At the same time, existing contradictions within these countries temper a new utopianism which tends to view the so-called "information superhighway" as the path to genuine democracy. How ICTs are central to the whole globalization problematic is indicative of the dilemmas and debates going on within poor countries—usually those under neo-liberal regimes and hyper-globalizing markets.

Within the global South in particular, the promise of computers, the Internet and the digital future have to be strategically assessed. The Third Sector must necessarily play a significant role in ensuring that these technologies do not strengthen existing societal contradictions, nor create even newer social divisions (i.e., between the information-rich vs. the information-poor in what is now referred to as the "digital divide").

This study surveys the existing literature on the role of new media, the Internet and ICTs in the overall agenda of democratization. It will explore the dominant trends as well as the strategic issues and concerns in current ICT capacities and needs within the Third Sector, particularly in developing countries of the South. It will present the Philippine case as a starting point, using primary data from a baseline survey of two hundred Philippine CSOs.

General roles usually assigned to civil society (i.e., as non-state, counter-hegemonic, democratized spaces) are assessed in posing challenges and forwarding recommendations on how these roles should evolve within the hype of—and hope in—the building of "Information/ Knowledge Societies".

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