By now, it's become a familiar story: We're headed into the "digital age" of high-speed networks and information on demand. Multimedia, microchips, and megabits will change how we live, learn, work, and play. But despite all the press coverage, the public debate has yet to offer the context or perspective we need to understand what's at stake and how we can build these new tools in the public interest.
Never mind the confident predictions of better living -- the truth is, the future is up for grabs. We still have an opportunity to set high expectations for these new technologies, to stake out the noncommercial public space in the new communications environment. It's the opportunity to make sure that these new media will recognize our roles not only as consumers but as citizens, our interests not only as spectators but as sources, and our needs not only to be entertained but to be educated. It's the opportunity to define the public interest in the digital age.
But it's our responsibility to turn these new tools to the advantage of individuals and communities. We must bring America's tradition of public service to a wide new range of technology. And we must do so in ways that engage, inform, and equip all Americans to see their stake in defining and promoting the public interest in these new systems.
The networks of the digital age will take their shape from the institutions that build them. But they will also be defined by the users who make demands on them. By the policymakers that set the rules for them. And by the citizens who see what's at stake -- and act on it.
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Last updated: 18 December 1996 mkh