|
There are no translations available.
Cees J. Hamelink
It has become common practice to describe modern societies with the concept ‘information society’. This concept refers in a general sense to increases in available volumes of information, the significance of information processing in ever more societal domains and the fact that information technology provides a basic infrastructure upon which societies become increasingly dependent. The following article argues that this concept is flawed and contested. It is questionable whether one can adequately describe societies with one encompassing variable only and, even if this were possible, whether information is a more precise category than money, crime or aggression. In any case it should be noted that societies pursue very different paths of development and if one insists on the reference to information, the plural notion of ‘information societies’ should be used.
There are undoubtedly ‘informational developments’ in modern societies and through interaction with other social developments these will have an impact on how the future of such societies shape up in different ways dependent upon different historical circumstances. In much of the current literature it is suggested in ‘utopian scenarios’ that these developments have positive effects, whereas negative effects are highlighted in ‘dystopian scenarios’. In both cases the analysts are driven by a deterministic perspective on social development: technological innovations have a direct impact on social processes. There is no space for the reflection on the myriad complex ways in which technology and society are dialectically interlinked.
One specific advantage however of the current information society discourse should not be overlooked. The reference to ‘society’ inspires good old sociological questions of power, profit and participation: who benefits, who decides, who participates, and who is accountable?
Here the first moral challenge is posed: are societies open to pose these key questions of classical sociology vis-à-vis the emergence of information societies?
Information
Essential to the notion of the information society is obviously ‘information’ itself. Much thinking about the future of information societies is based upon a series of popular myths. Such as: more information is better than less information; more information creates more knowledge and understanding; open information flows contribute to the prevention of conflicts, more information means less uncertainty and more adequate choices; if people are properly informed they act accordingly; more information equals more power and once people are better informed about each other, they will understand each other and be less inclined to conflict. All very attractive assumptions but none is necessarily true!
A very popular assumption claims that information equals power. Information becomes a source of power only if the necessary infrastructure for its production, processing, storage, retrieval and transportation is accessible and when people have the skills to apply information to social practice and to participate in social networks through which information can be used to further one’s interests. The assumption proposes that people were never able to exercise power because they were ill-informed and ignorant. However, too often people knew precisely what was wrong and unjust, and they were very well informed about the misconduct of their rulers. Yet they did not act, and their knowledge did not become a source of power, because they lacked the material and strategic means for revolt!
A very attractive line of thought proposes that once people are better informed about each other, they will know and understand each other better and be less inclined to conflict. However, deadly conflicts are usually not caused by a lack of information. In fact, they may be based upon very adequate information that adversaries have about each other. As a matter of fact one could equally well propound the view that social harmony is largely due to the degree of ignorance that actors have with regard to each other. Many societies maintain levels of stability because they employ rituals, customs and conventions that enable their members to engage in social interactions without having detailed information about who they really are. There may indeed be conflict situations because adversaries have so much information about each others’ aims and motives. There are situations in which more information is not better than less information. If we all had detailed information about other people that we live and work with, the chance of raging civil war would be very great.
Most assumptions about the role and effects of information and knowledge are based upon seriously flawed cause-effect models. Information and knowledge are conceived as key variables in social processes and dependent upon how they are manipulated certain social effects will occur. Social science research has taught us however that information and knowledge sharing do not occur in the linear mode of simple stimulus/response models that propose linear, causal relations between information/knowledge inputs and social outputs.
The second moral challenge is then for societies to adopt a realistic approach to what information can do while fully recognizing the importance of information production and provision.
Technology
Basic to informational developments are innovations in the development and application of information technology. These innovations are part and parcel of the contemporary technological culture which is characterized by a very troubled human/technology interaction. This interaction is largely determined by irrationality and irresponsibility and which can be summed up with the help of three metaphors: the Titanic, Cassandra and Dr Frankenstein.
· The Titanic represents a strong belief in the perfection of technology: the ship cannot sink and it is not necessary to stock enough life boats on board. As a result the real risks of technological innovations are not taken seriously. The modern technological culture demonstrates a strong drive towards a risk-free society. This aspiration to achieve a risk-free control of social processes is seriously hampered by the unpredictable, fickle human actor. Actually, the human being is increasingly seen as the real risk factor. As a result modern societies develop all kinds of activities to reduce this risk, like the expansive monitoring of human conduct through the ubiquitous camera surveillance and the electronic registration of people’s movements. The logical next step in this process is the replacement of human beings with humanoid robots.
· Cassandra is the daughter of the Trojan king Priamus, who warned the Trojans that there were Greeks in the wooden horse. She was gifted with the ability to foresee the future, but she was also cursed by Apollo with the punishment that no one would listen to her warnings. This is characteristic of the technological culture: warning voices are ignored. In situations where decision makers experience a new era, a winning mood, and the pressures of time and competition: all traffic lights will be ignored, dissidents will be silenced and technology choice becomes a matter of flying blind.
· Dr Frankenstein features in the novel written by Mary Shelley in which the doctor who creates a monster flees from his laboratory and is haunted by the monster who challenges him to take responsibility for what he has created. The metaphor raises the critical question about accountability for technological innovation. Who is accountable when things go wrong? Who takes responsibility if we resolve the digital divide and subsequently face insurmountable environmental problems: the exceedingly high levels of global energy consumption, the rate of CO2 emission from printers and computers and the volume of electronic waste caused by the rapid rate of obsolescence of mobile phones and computers.
In addition to these characteristics, the modern technological culture is inspired by a strong belief in historical moral progress. In the writings of social thinkers such as Joachim di Fiori, Lessing, Hegel, Comte, and contemporary information revolution authors (Toffler, Negroponte, Gates), history proceeds in progressive steps: through enlightenment and rationality, and particularly through science and technology, humanity is on the road towards harmony and peace. This myth of moral progress in modernity was however exposed by Auschwitz and Hiroshima. These events confirmed that there is no linear progressive process and thus the suggestion of moral progress is misleading. History is circular and the human species is locked into the recurrent waves of both gross immoral conduct and refined moral reflection. Inhumanity is eternally part of the human condition. Only the creation of a new Brave New World species could realize the utopia of a risk-free society. But the characters of Brave New World are no longer human.
The third moral challenge is to be realistic about human moral improvement resulting from advances in science and technology, to take the risks of technology seriously and to store sufficient numbers of life boats on board.
From information to communication
There is in current public debate, policy and practice a strong emphasis on the importance of information and information technology. The forthcoming United Nations World Summit on the Information Society (Geneva, 2003) stresses the prospect of future societies as ‘information societies’.
It is disconcerting that most of the preparatory documents for the United Nations World Summit on the Information Society (2003, Geneva) ‘communication’ has practically disappeared. There is a real danger that the Summit will make the same mistake as the United Nations World Conference on Human Rights (Vienna, 1993), which in its Final Declaration did not refer to communication, but only mentioned information and news. Yet, the real core question is how to shape ‘communication societies’. In fact for the resolution of the world’s most pressing problems we do not need more information processing but the capacity to communicate. Ironically as our capacity to process and distribute information and knowledge expands and improves, our capacity to communicate and to converse diminishes.
In complex modern societies we need urgently to communicate with each other. For the resolution of our most urgent social problems the capacity to communicate is much more critical than the capacity to inform. It is a very disturbing prospect indeed if we manage to develop information or even knowledge societies in which people are incapable of conversing with each other.
The fourth moral challenge is thus that the world does not need ‘information/knowledge societies’ but ‘communication societies
Dialogue
To solve the world’s most pressing problems, people do not need more volumes of information and knowledge, they need to acquire the capacity to talk to each other across boundaries of culture, religion and language. Dialogue is absolutely essential and critical to the encounter between civilizations. Globalisation without dialogue becomes homogenisation and hegemony. Localisation without dialogue becomes fragmentation and isolation. In both cases the sustainability of our common future is seriously at stake.
The plea for dialogue sounds obvious and facile. In reality, however, dialogue is an extremely difficult form of speech. In many societies people have neither time nor patience for dialogical communication. Dialogue has no short-term and certain outcome. This conflicts with the spirit of modern achievement-oriented societies Moreover, the mass media are not particularly helpful in teaching societies the art of conversation. Much of their content is babbling (endless talking without saying anything), hate speech, advertising blurbs, sound bites or polemical debate. The requirements for a meaningful discussion begin with the need for internal dialogue. This implies that all participants question their judgments and assumptions. The critical investigation of our own assumptions is however a major challenge, as we are often ignorant about our basic assumptions. Assumptions are the mental maps that we tend to follow uncritically. We all have different and often conflicting assumptions, and certainly when we come from different cultures. Equally difficult is the suspension of judgment since we are strongly attached to our opinions and assessments and prefer them to uncertainties.
Dialogue requires the capacity to listen and to be silent. Learning the language of listening is very hard in societies that are increasingly influenced by visual cultures, whereas listening demands an ear-centred culture! The mass media offer ‘talk shows’, no ‘listen shows’. Moreover as Krishnamurti says ‘we listen really to our own noise, our own sound, not to what is being said’ – we listen defensively most of the time and not receptively! ‘We listen to discover what will help us - we listen to anticipate possible danger’ (Ellinor & Gerard, 1998: 103). Dialogue can only take place where silence is respected. This borders on the impossible in modern societies where talking never seems to stop and where every void needs to be filled with noise as silence should be avoided at all costs.
The fifth moral challenge is thus learning the art of the dialogue.
The right to communicate
Effective dialogue cannot take place between people whose lives are threatened, who are not free to speak or to assemble, who have no means of expressing their voices, who cannot speak in confidentiality and privacy, or who are denied basic forms of education and cultural participation. Today there is an urgent need for the adoption of a universal declaration on the right to communicate. At present this right does not exist as a provision of international law. As early as 1969 Jean d’Arcy introduced the right to communicate by writing, ‘the time will come when the Universal Declaration of Human Rights will have to encompass a more extensive right than man’s right to information... This is the right of men to communicate’ (D’Arcy, 1969). The motivating force for this new approach was the observation that the provisions in existing human rights law (like in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights or the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights) were inadequate to deal with communication as an interactive process.
The right to communicate would encompass information rights such as:
-The right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion.
-The right to hold opinions.
-The right to express opinions without interference by public or private parties.
-The right of people to be properly informed about matters of public interest.
-The right of access to information on matters of public interest (held by public or private sources).
-The right to access public means of distributing information, ideas and opinions.
Part of the right to communicate would also be cultural rights such as:
-The right to promote and preserve cultural diversity.
-The right to freely participate in the cultural life of one’s community.
-The right to practise cultural traditions.
-The right to enjoy the arts and the benefits of scientific progress and its applications.
-The right to the protection of national and international cultural property and heritage.
-The right to artistic, literary and academic creativity and independence.
-The right to use one’s language in private and public.
-The right of minorities and indigenous people to education and to establish their own media.
There are protection rights such as:
-The right of people to be protected against interference with their privacy by the media of mass communication, or by public and private agencies involved with data collections.
-The protection of people’s private communications against interference by public or private parties.
-The right to respect for the standard of due process in forms of public communication.
-The right of protection against forms of communication that are discriminatory in terms of race, colour, sex, language, religion or social origin
-The right to be protected against misleading and distorted information.
-The right of protection against the systematic and intentional propagation of the belief that individuals and/or social groups deserve to be eliminated.
-The right of the protection of the professional independence of employees of public or private communication agencies against the interference by owners and managers of these institutions.
There should be rights for communities such as:
-The right of access to public communication for communities.
-The right to the development of communication infrastructures, to the procurement of adequate resources, the sharing of knowledge and skills, the equality of economic opportunities, and the correction of inequalities.
-The right of recognition that knowledge resources are often a common good owned by a collective.
-The right of protection of such resources against their private appropriation by knowledge industries.
And a variety of participation rights should be recognized such as:
-The right to acquire the skills necessary to participate fully in public communication.
-The right to people’s participation in public decision making on the provision of information, the production of culture or the production and application of knowledge.
-The right to people’s participation in public decision making on the choice, development and application of communication technology.
The sixth moral challenge proposes that the international community adopts and codifies the human right to communicate.
Conclusion
These six moral challenges – if taken seriously – should be essential topics on the agenda of those communication practitioners, scholars and decision makers who are concerned about the future of communication societies, the governance of which is inspired by the respect for the standards of international human rights.
Presentation given at the seminar on ‘Virtual ethics in Europe — Challenges for Christian communicators’, organised by the European Regional Association of WACC. It took place 1 March 2002, in Geneva, Switzerland.
References
D’Arcy, J. (1969). ‘Direct Broadcasting Satellites and the right to communicate’, in EBU Review, 118: 14-18.
Ellinor, L. & Gerard, G. (1998). Dialogue: Discover the Transforming Power of Conversation. New York, John Wiley & Sons.
Hamelink, C.J. (2000). The Ethics of Cyberspace. London, Sage
Webster, F. (1995). Theories of the Information Society. London, Routledge.
Cees J. Hamelink (PhD) is professor of international communication at the Universiteit van Amsterdam and also professor of media, religion and culture at the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam. He holds visiting professorships at the Catholic University of Leuven and the City University of London. Prof. Hamelink is the editor-in-chief of Gazette (the international journals for communication studies), honorary president of the International Association for Media and Communication Research and is a board member of the International Communication Association. He also serves on the board of Inter Press Services and on the editorial boards of numerous publications. He has published over 200 articles and written 16 books on communication, culture and human rights.
|
