Laura Lengel 

Abstract: Researchers are beginning to examine the impact of the internet in regions experiencing economic change and struggle. However, broad assumptions about opportunity and access to the internet in these regions still exist. An unproblematised´global village´, where equal opportunity to engage in an open dialogue, is yet to be achieved. This article examines these issues in East Central Europe and the electronic discourses emergent in and about this region. 

The article questions the empowering capabilities of the internet in East Central Europe. The article will present the voices from this region who assert that only with widespread access, can the internet fulfil its democratic promise. Women´s access to the internet will also be discussed. Finally, the article highlights women´s organisations in Hungary, Bulgaria and the Czech Republic which are creating spaces for collaboration and connectivity, and providing a forum for new voices which have previously been silent. 
 
 

The East, the West and the Rest Central and Eastern Europe between Techno-Orientalism and the New Electronic Frontier 

Oliver Marchart

Abstract: The article seeks to explore Central Europe´s role and location within the imaginary cartography of techno-colonialist discourses on electronic networks. Ideologists of the European Union and of ´Mitteleuropa´ (not to mention Eastern Europe) did not yet fully succeed in establishing a genuinely European high-tech identity. ´Networked Europe´, as a fantasmatic technological space, rather seems to be caught between what has been called Techno-Orientalism on the one hand and the American New Frontier myth on the other. The article tries to map out the European imaginary in its differential relation towards both the ´Oriental´ and the American myth of electronic space. 
 
 

In the Slow Lane on the Information Superhighway: Hungary and The Information Revolution 

Ágnes Gulyás 
                
Abstract: This article examines Hungary´s response to the opportunities of the information revolution since the end of communism from an economic point of view reflecting on cultural aspects as well. It will argue that there have been significant advances in the development of the information sector in the country. However, because of the legacy of communism, economic difficulties and the unclear policies and disconcerted efforts of the first post-communist governments, the information revolution has made limited progress.

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