The Information Society

So does the Information Society:

promote social and economic justice?

Clearly the emergence of electronic governance has great potential to promote such justice. The proposal by Citizens Online to create a Civic Commons in Cyberspace is a good example of realising this potential. However, we must be aware that such advances will change the relationship between citizens and government. The ramifications must be considered very carefully.

restore reciprocity rather than consolidate power in the hands of the minority?

The first point leads on to the issue of reciprocity. Media moguls are already wielding great power in the Information Society. Unhampered access to the on-line world can become very difficult in this situation. It is unclear how the Information Society will unfold now there are a small number of big players controlling strategic elements of content and infrastructure.

benefit the many rather than the few?

Currently the vast majority of the facilities are available in English using a standard interface and presented with a Western culture bias. It requires a high level of literacy and numeracy to navigate to a chosen facility. Much more must be done to ensure access to people who do not have English as their mother tongue or are of lower intellect or have a physical or mental restriction or are from a different culture.

put people first rather than the technology?

The tools of the Information Society are still primitive. The day when the technology is transparent will be the day people have been put first. Gone will be the need for identity numbers, digital signals and the like. Gone will be the need to be computer literate and dextrous.

limit economic gain because of potential social and environmental cost?

The much heralded efficiency gains through computerisation become questionable as more socially sensitive applications are implemented. The abolition of data redundancy may appear to be key in efficient computerisation but may be unacceptable if having only one occurrence of a data item causes socially and ethically unacceptable data relationships within the system in question.

favour the reversible over the irreversible to ensure impact of rogue ICT applications can be reversed?

Systems of the Information Society require massive investment. This means traditional systems are likely to be left in poor state of repair or may be phased out completely. There is no going back and there is no choice in such situations. This may prove disastrous for society. Perhaps the Information Society should be developed as having complementary systems - some computerised and others non-computerised.