INFORMATION SOCIETY AND NETWORK COMMUNITIES

€ interaction and communication play very important role in the modern society

"a lively interaction between all these ideas and viewpoints is essential in order to produce a truly democratic information society that is most likely to produce the greatest benefits for the broadest base of that society"

€ most of the efforts so far have been focused on building high speed telecommunication networks
€ the social and communicational impacts of these networks has been underestimated
€ a term "information society" has been introduced already in 1970's. The term refers to the changes in social development after industrialisation
€ these changes in the society are not rapid or any ways predictable
€ these changes are leading us to the more pluralistic and networked society

€ the contemporary society is a combination of several levels of social development: parts of agricultural society (declining), of industrial society and of post-industrial society (rising)
€ the information society will form one more layer to this model!
€ interaction between the layers is difficult
(for example, half of the world's population have never used telephone)

€ 1960's Marshall McLuhan: "global village" (human interconnectivity on a global scale)
€ Yoneji Masuda (1981): "Information Society as Post-Industrial Society" (very techno-optimistic)
€ Masuda divides the use of information technology into four main phases. During the last phase the use of personal computers dominates.
€ the "industrial mass consumption society" becomes "high-quality mass information society". The final goal is Computopia.

€ William Gibson (1984), sci-fi writer: "cyberspace" - world mediated by computer networks, with direct and total access to parallel world of pure digitized information and communication

US: National Information Infrastructure (NII)

1. Promote private sector investment.
2. Extend the "universal service" concept to ensure that information resources are available to all at affordable prices
3. Promote technological innovation and new applications
4. Promote seamless, interactive, user-driven operation of the NII
5. Ensure information security and network reliability
6. Improve management of the radio frequency spectrum
7. Protect intellectual property rights
8. Coordinate with other levels of government and with other nations
9. Provide access to government information and improve government procurement

Global Information Infrastructure (GII)

The Information Strategy of the European Union - The Bangemann Report

Regulatory Framework:

opening the telecommunications for competition
standards and regulations of networks and services
decreasing the expenses of communication media
reaching teh "critical mass"
cooperation with the countries outside of EU
copyrights and information protection
information security issues
promoting private sector and competition

Building Blocks:

information networks and the basic services
adaptation areas:
- working and studying from a distance
- academic and research networks
- telematic services for industrial companies
- road and air traffic
- networks for medical care
- electronic sales markets
- European public administration networks
- city networks

€ The whole plan includes four main areas: legislation, networks, social issues and promotion of "information society" concept
€ the legislation consists of supporting the telecommunications traffic and creating standards
€ the networks (high speed networks like ATM and satellites) would provide better possibilities for interaction
€ according to Bangemann report the private sector and market forces would pay for the whole system
€ the private sector would naturally have impact on the development of the information society
€ possible consequence: division into information-rich vs. information-poor
€ because of the security problems EU is not planning to accomplish the strategies on Internet
€ and this shows: 2 mill. host servers in the US and under 700 000 in the EU countries
€ WWW: "I'm Europe" and "Europa"
€ EU is afraid of losing cultural, financial and technological power when receiving impacts from American and Japanese cultures
€ Finland: Strategy of Information Society
€ strategies very often extremely optimistic and non-critical

The Information Network Society

€ also the intense growth of the networks during the last years has made the discussion of Information Society necessary
€ the technology has already developed to the level which makes the high speed global communication possible
€ how are the information networks going to affect teh interpersonal and cross-cultural communication?
€ there are already a virtual society (or at leas virtual communities) on the Net € it is not existing physically, but it is very real
€ "on the Net nobody knows that you're a dog"
€ still, the information networks should be a medium not absolute value
€ the groups on the Net are created from the different basis compared to "real life"

Communication in networks

€ communication --> interaction
€ interaction: two-way process, dialogue, response
€ interaction creates new information: experiences, meanings, work etc.
€ networks ensure interaction between people (needed for controlling
€ the simplified communication process: a sender sends a message to a receiver or receivers. Two important issues: the technical basis of the succesful delivery and the impact on the receiver
€ normally communication aims at some kind of response from the receiver. This response recreates communication and creates interaction

€ interaction has many forms: very primary interaction, social interaction

€ Hoffman & Novak: communication processes concerning new interactive media (particularly WWW)
- mass media - one-to-many - no interaction
- interpersonal communication - one-to-one - lots of feedback
- hypermedia environment - many-to-many - machine-interactivity
€ the goal: from machine-activity into more personal interaction

€ networks create new kinds of groups and thus new ways of using language (net slang, smileys, abbreviations etc.)
€ no face-to-face contact: also the feelings and gestures must be expressed differently
€ people talk with other people, but they do so alone
€ reminders of other people and conventions for communicating are weak
€ people might lose their fear of social abbrobation --> flaming
€ netiquette - sensible advice for senders of electronic messages

€ information society - media society?
€ the position of mass media is emphasized, media determine people's way of using time
€ "media reality" - the phenomena connected to (new) media and media society
€ McLuhan: "a medium is a message!"

The three threats of the network society

€ the digital jungle
- info-accidents (viruses, crackers)

€ cyber colonialism - the commercial organization owns the central parts of the networks (satellites)
€ telemonocracy
- the Big Brother (authorities) is watching -phenomenon
- protection of privacy?

TELEDEMOCRACY

€ gr. demos = people, kratos = power
€ direct democracy promoted by the new electronic means, tools and methods (information networks)
€ new opportunities to have influence on common matters and decision making (to ge heard and seen)
€ the original form of democracy was of course direct democracy (vs. contemporary representative democracy)
€ now the new technology removes the problems of time and space: in theory, everybody may speak up
€ there is an obvious deman for the direct democracy, people want to have more control over their own things (or do they?)
€ "to know implies can"?
€ direct democracy would not abandon representative one, it would support it € example: televoting
€ the goal: to make it possible for citizens to be a part of the decision making process already in the beginning of the process

THE FUTURE?

€ impossible to predict
€ agents - electronic assistants, which could learn certain things and take care of daily routines for you
€ virtual life
€ the "killer applications"
- video-on-demand, electronic shopping malls,

Links

Information Society

US/National Information Infrastructure (NII)
Global Information Infrastructure (GII)

I'm Europe
Europe and the global information society - Bangemann Report
Europe's Way to the Global Information Society the European Commission
Europe's Way to the Global Information society - an Action Plan
The White Paper the European Commission
Europa
Education, training and research in the information society. A NATIONAL STRATEGY OF FINLAND
G-7 Information Society Resources Information Society Links by John M. McCann, Duke University
The Information Society An International Quarterly Journal

Communication in Networks

Donna Hoffman and Thomas Novak: Communication in a hypermedia computer-mediated environment
The Net: User Guidelines and Netiquette by Arlene Rinaldi

Teledemocracy

White House
The President of Finland
Suomen eduskunta The Parliament of Finland (Sorry, in Finnish only)
Council of State Finland Prime Minister Paavo Lipponen's government
The Virtual Embassy of Finland
Teledemocracy: using information technology to enhance political work by Pål Ytterstad, Sigmund Akselsen, Gunnvald Svendsen, Telenor Research and Development, Norway

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E-mail:

anna.luoma@uwasa.fi