The research contained in this book is designed to foster discussion about the policies and actions that must be promoted for building an Internet culture in Latin America and the Caribbean, based on the principles of social and cultural equity. This book presents some pioneering research work designed to show, from a qualitative and ethnographic perspective, how New Information and Communication Technologies, as applied to the school system and to local governance initiatives, merely reproduce traditional pedagogical approaches and the dominant forms by which power is exercised at the local level. The studies thus constitute points of departure for further thinking about the need to promote an Internet culture based on the social application of a "right to communication and culture" and an "Internet right", that will permit the establishment of true citizen participation and free access to knowledge, with due regard to personal and individual rights such as those of privacy and intimacy. The book also includes the results of development work on two information tools: the first is designed to facilitate mediation of the Internet's social impacts, and the second to develop a citizen habitus among children.
