Internet

views updated

Internet

Latin America's public Internet usage grew after 1993, when an easy-to-use Web browser, Mosaic, integrating text and graphics, went public. High infrastructure costs and low demand have generally kept Latin America's online growth below the world average. Nevertheless, e-commerce continues to grow steadily, consumers increasingly post their own blogs and personal videos onto Web sites, and social movements with the help of the Internet have brought greater attention to their causes in the public sphere.

Brazil and Mexico in 1989 became the first two countries in Latin America to set up computer systems at universities using the standard Internet protocols. During the early 1990s, Latin American universities led the Internet's development, followed by businesses and home users. In 1993 the University of Chile launched the first Web server in Latin America. Mexico and Brazil have had the largest number of Internet users. However, a higher percentage of the population in Chile and Argentine regularly browse the Web. Although many in the region cannot afford private home connections, public access sites, such as Internet cafes, have allowed for greater numbers to go online. Public Internet connections in Mexico accounted for only 2 percent of online connections in 1999, but that figure rose to 32 percent in 2003. Indeed, Latin American countries in the early twenty-first century have some of the fastest adoption rates in the world. In 2006 broadband Internet services grew by 54 percent. The determinants of cyberspace adoption in Latin America appear to be related to market liberalization in the telecommunications sector and government policy. To promote a broad base of World Wide Web access, Argentina and Chile, for example, set Internet pricing at reasonable rates in the late 1990s, which caused a noticeable expansion of Web users.

Even with tremendous growth, a sizable digital divide persists in Spanish America and Brazil, limiting online business. Overall, online broadband access for Latin America remains low at approximately 2.5 percent of the population as of 2007. A 2003 study indicated a strong correlation between wealth and Internet usage. In Venezuela, 70 percent of e-commerce consumers were men, and a high proportion of those men had high incomes. Consequently, the general lack of digital access has limited the development of e-business. Furthermore, most people in the region do not have credit cards or bank cards and cannot purchase consumer goods over the Internet. Because many Latin American countries have underfunded postal services, basic delivery also remains an obstacle to the growth of online consumer purchases. For these reasons, the number of business-to-consumer purchases over the Internet remains very small. Instead, business-to-business transactions dominate Internet purchases: In 2000 such purchases made up roughly 94 percent of Chilean e-commerce.

The digital divide limits the social and economic impact of the World Wide Web, but clear cultural changes have occurred. Many Latin Americans blog about issues ranging from their personal lives to politics using Orkut or MySpace accounts. Demand for blogs in Mexico proved great enough to prompt MySpace to open a local site. On YouTube, the popular video hosting site, everything from Spanish telenovela snippets to political debates from Latin American elections can be found. Traditional media companies, such as Mexico's Televisa, are beginning to set up interactive sites to allow consumers to comment, participate, and create their own content, rather than simply watching mainstream entertainment. Slowly, the Internet has begun to shape Latin American government and politics. The Mexican government during the administration of Vicente Fox Quesada (2000–2006) began to post government expenditures online, thereby increasing public sector transparency. Ironically, this policy led to sharp criticism of Fox for the excessive amount of government funds spent on his household.

Marginalized groups clearly have less access to the Internet, yet they have managed to use the Web to influence public debates. Protesting widespread poverty and injustice, an indigenous group located in Chiapas, called the Zapatistas, rose up in 1994 against the government. These rebels could not win militarily; however, news of their actions spread quickly via the Internet. International organizations quickly came to their aid, and many observers believe this support helped prevent the Mexican government from simply crushing the uprising. Indigenous peoples throughout Latin America have taken advantage of the Internet to make their problems known and to connect with international nongovernmental organizations.

The impact of the Internet has been uneven in Latin America. E-commerce has yet to bring substantial benefits to the average consumer and small business. Yet even with this limited online participation, consumers and social movements alike have already used the Web's services and information in substantial ways. The high growth rates in the early twenty-first century indicate that the Internet will lead to shifts in society, business, and government.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Caetano, Gerardo, and Rubén M. Perina, eds. Informática, internet & política. Montevideo: Centro Latinoamer-icano de Economía Humana, and Washington, DC: Organization of American States, 2003.

Chahin, Ali, Maria A. Cunha, Peter T. Knight, and Solon L. Pinto. E-gov.br: A próxima revolução brasileira. São Paulo: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2004.

Ronfeldt, David F., John Arquilla, Graham Fuller, and Melissa Fuller. The Zapatista "Social Netwar" in Mexico. Santa Monica, CA: Rand, 1998.

Byron Crites

Encyclopedia of Latin American History and Culture