UNIVERSAL ACCESS
AND ITS ASYMMETRIES
Information Policy Series
Edited by Sandra Braman
The Information Policy Series publishes research on and analysis of significant
problems in the field of information policy, including decisions and practices that
enable or constrain information, communication, and culture irrespective of the
legal siloes in which they have traditionally been located as well as state-law-society
interactions. Defining information policy as all laws, regulations, and decision-making
principles that affect any form of information creation, processing, flows, and use, the
series includes attention to the formal decisions, decision-making processes, and entities
of government; the formal and informal decisions, decision-making processes, and
entities of private- and public-sector agents capable of constitutive effects on the nature
of society; and the cultural habits and predispositions of governmentality that support
and sustain government and governance. The parametric functions of information
policy at the boundaries of social, informational, and technological systems are of global
importance because they provide the context for all communications, interactions, and
social processes.
A complete list of the books in the Information Policy series appears at the back of
this book.
UNIVERSAL ACCESS AND
ITS ASYMMETRIES
THE UNTOLD STORY OF THE LAST 200 YEARS
HARMEET SAWHNEY AND HAMID R. EKBIA
THE MIT PRESS CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS LONDON, ENGLAND
© 2022 Massachusetts Institute of Technology
This work is subject to a Creative Commons CC-BY-ND-NC license. Subject to such
license, all rights are reserved.
The MIT Press would like to thank the anonymous peer reviewers who provided
comments on drafts of this book. The generous work of academic experts is essential
for establishing the authority and quality of our publications. We acknowledge with
gratitude the contributions of these otherwise uncredited readers.
This book was set in Stone Serif by Westchester Publishing Services.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Sawhney, Harmeet Singh, 1960– author. | Ekbia, H. R. (Hamid Reza),
1955– author.
Title: Universal access and its asymmetries : the untold story of the last
200 years / Harmeet Sawhney and Hamid R. Ekbia.
Description: Cambridge, Massachusetts : The MIT Press, [2023] |
Series: Information policy | Includes bibliographical references
and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2022006422 (print) | LCCN 2022006423 (ebook) |
ISBN 9780262544559 (paperback) | ISBN 9780262372978 (epub) |
ISBN 9780262372985 (pdf)
Subjects: LCSH: Digital divide—United States—History. | Poor—Information
services—Government policy—United States—History. | Community
information services—United States—History. | Discrimination in municipal
services—United States—History.
Classification: LCC HM851 .S239 2023 (print) | LCC HM851 (ebook) |
DDC 303.48/33—dc23/eng/20220425
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022006422
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022006423