(Excerpts from the positin paper: "The Promise and Challenge of a New Communications Age.")

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"The most important aspect of interactive communications is that it inspires engaged participants rather than passive listeners or viewers. Its unique potential is that it empowers every participant to be a publisher or producer of information as well as a consumer."

"The power of this medium to move outside the normal boundaries of communication and enabling people to engage, discuss or influence an issue is formidable."

"The second major impact of the communications revolution is that it will greatly reduce, or eliminate, control over communications by the traditional intermediaries-these organizations which historically have controlled the žow of information to the rest of society. This control is increasingly being shared with and passed on to individuals, local organizations and communities."

"Value-added" intermediaries, on the other hand, may see their importance increased. In a world of exploding information, new paths to people and the need for timely access, these individuals and organizations will become ever more necessary."

"Individuals who once felt powerless to change the course of events are discovering new ways to make their voices heard. Public access networks are helping community members develop their own means for solving problems directly and together."

"People in rural or disadvantaged areas can reach nearly any corner of the earth to ask a question, raise a grievance, provide a service, deliver information or market a product."

"By placing mass communications in the hands of people, along with better tools for creating information, entertainment and education products, it is helping individuals circumvent the previous need for large amounts of capital. One person, or a small group, can legitimately create, produce, promote and distribute an electronic newsletter at negligible cost. People in rural or disadvantaged areas can reach nearly any corner of the earth to ask a question, raise a grievance, provide a service, deliver information or market a product."

"The success of this opportunity depends upon how rapidly we achieve critical mass in the number of companies, organizations, institutions and, most importantly, individuals that use these networks and the knowledge they make available. We must make every effort to stimulate growth in the number of people and institutions that are connected and to motivate them to communicate with each other, make their respective bases of information available on the networks and find ways to collaborate on common goals."

"The value of an information and communication infrastructure increases exponentially as the number of points or people it encompasses increases."

"As the vast web of global and local information networks grows, several new skills and forms of literacy are becoming essential for anyone who wants to reap the full benefits of the Communications Age."

"We must encourage those who have valuable intellectual assets of all kinds to provide them to the public. Economic and industrial policy must create favorable conditions for private industry and the public interest sectors to develop accessible knowledge repositories, new tools for accessing information resources and value-added communications services."

"Because interactive communications enables any participant to store, send or receive large (or small) amounts of information to so many others, it opens up knowledge-based economic opportunities to start-ups, self-employed people, public service groups, the financially disadvantaged, rural localities and others. For these enterprises, the low cost of entry to interactive communications is good news- a powerful leveling factor both socially and economically-which allows individuals, small business, or non-profit organization to work with, compete against, or impede the efforts of much larger players."

"Throughout its history, one of the great opportunities this country has offered is the availability of public libraries, public schools and public information made possible by government services and nonprofit organizations. Our traditional, national value of equality of opportunity will be severely tried unless certain types of information remain in the public domain."

"We must face the danger that we will destroy the remaining opportunity of realizing the American dream if we do not ensure access to interactive communications and provide our citizens with its basic skills and literacies."

"If a sizable portion of the population, especially children, does not have access to the knowledge and opportunity available through interactive communications, we all will pay a significant cost. Society may never benefit from the innovation and productivity of those who could have been active contributors."

"The communications revolution will have a substantial influence on politics as well as the role and functioning of government. In the most optimistic scenario, interactive communications has the potential to stimulate citizen interest, participation, and voter turnout much as the printing press and telegraph did in the 19th century."

"Because of pressing new questions of jurisprudence and public policy, officials must rapidly cultivate an understanding of the impact of the Communications Age. They must become knowledgeable of the benefits, issues and threats posed by interactive communications and of its social and economic influence. Without this understanding, they will be ill-equipped to fulfill their responsibilities."

"One unique aspect of the revolution in interactive communications is that individuals can affect the way the medium grows."

"The networks can be a valuable tool for helping people cope with illness."

"Although the world will not be transformed overnight, the pace of change is startling-faster than any we have ever seen before. Avoiding it will become increasingly more difficult. And each day on the sidelines is one more day of obsolescence, one more day to catch up, one more day of having others make decisions for you. The costs of exclusion will be severe."

"George Bernard Shaw said, "The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they can't find them, make them." Our challenge is to ensure that this kind of opportunity remains open in the Communications Age, in fact that it is expanded to include more people and even brighter possibilities. Interactive communications, if used and cultivated, can be the means that helps us do so."