Free Public Conference Sponsored by the USC Annenberg Center for Communication Provides Gathering for Leading Experts in New Technology.

LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 28, 1998--

Technological Visions: Utopian and Dystopian Perspectives Aim to

Raise Public Awareness on the Social Impact of New Technologies

Leading figures in communications and technology will meet for a free, public conference at the University of Southern California's Annenberg Center for Communication on Nov. 6 and 7.

The two-day conference is aimed at generating public discussion about the advent of new technologies such as the Internet, multimedia and digital media, their impact on our culture and ultimately, their effect on "communities" defined by both geographic and virtual boundaries.

Led by MIT expert and noted author Sherry Turkle, a group of renowned panelists representing business, media, social/community services and academia will discuss issues including Privacy and Censorship, The Communities of Place and Cyberspace, The Problems and Potentials of Prediction, and Visions of Technology.

The Metamorphosis Project

The conference is the first public event hosted by the Metamorphosis Project of the Annenberg School for Communication and the Annenberg Center for Communication at the University of Southern California. The Metamorphosis Project includes an in-depth study of the relationship between community and technology in Los Angeles and a digital archive on the history of visions of technology.

"Throughout history, the birth of new technologies has been greeted with a mixture of fear and optimism," said Sandra Ball-Rokeach, professor, Annenberg School for Communication and principal investigator of the Metamorphosis Project. "Public debate has always hovered at two extremes: Utopians have fantasies that new technologies will provide a panacea, curing all that is wrong with culture, as we know it.

"The Dystopian perspectives tend to view new technology as a threat to our very social fabric. Yet, the debate rarely addresses the actual impact of new technology until it infiltrates our culture and reaches a critical mass, as we've seen with the rapid development of the Internet."

"With this conference, we want to bring great minds from across a wide array of arenas to bring policies and issues to the forefront of public awareness, before the technology evolves any further," added Ball-Rokeach.

"New technologies have specifically been blamed as a threat to traditional class and gender relations, as detrimental to the family and as highly destructive to communities, while also being viewed as a solution to many of our social problems," Ball-Rokeach explained.

According to Ball-Rokeach and her research team, the development of print, photography, electricity, the telephone, film and other media produced debates very similar to those that today surround conversations about the Internet.

"A great example of the pattern we are describing is the reaction to television," said Marita Sturken, assistant professor, Annenberg School for Communication. "The birth of television spawned debates about its effect on children, its addictive qualities and its potential to cause juvenile delinquency -- arguments very similar to those heard today about pornography and pedophilia on the Internet and government's attempt to regulate access as a result."

"Public debates on new technologies have considerable impact on political agendas to regulate these technologies and the ways in which various communities perceive them to be potentially useful or harmful," said Douglas Thomas, assistant professor, Annenberg School for Communication. "However, there is little dialogue between the social arenas of policy, industry, media, academia, popular culture and community activism on issues related to the impact of new technology, namely the Internet.

"If modern debates are to be more informed and useful than those that arose during the birth of print, film and television, the debate needs to be raised above the level of the potential fantasies/cure all (Utopian) and potential social threats (Dystopian) factors of each technology," Thomas said.

The conference will take place in USC's Davidson Center from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Friday, Nov. 6, and from 9 a.m. until 4 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 7. Interested participants with access to the Internet can view the conference in real-time on The Metamorphosis Project Web site located at www.metamorph.org.

A collection of papers written by conference panelists and addressing the impact of new technologies will be published by the Metamorphosis project in 1999 -- as a final product to the conference.