2006/2
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In the past, communication by signs and symbols converged with materials when language was first expressed in writing. Symbolic technologies converged with electronic technologies to launch the information society. Computing and communication technologies converged on the basis of digital information. And now, digital technologies are converging with the organic world, including the human body. As one writer in this issue points out, “Whatever position one may have in relation to converging technologies, there can be little doubt that humankind is in the process of developing new tools that have far-reaching implications for its future.” New technologies have enormous potential, but they also have the capacity to change us as human beings. For that reason alone, communicators and society must engage in a wide-ranging debate about the broad social and ethical issues raised by the convergence of digital technologies with other technologies.
The existence and uses of new technologies are changing how different women and men experience the world, the choices they make, and the work they do. At the same time, certain new technologies, like the internet, biotechnologies, and nanotechnologies are considered important tools for development, meaning they are increasingly presented as key components of solutions to long-standing problems like hunger, poverty, and environmental degradation.
n June 2005 ETC Group began discussions with a number of governments, intergovernmental agencies, and civil society organizations in Geneva and elsewhere with the intent of developing a long-term strategy to address the introduction of significant new technologies. Although some parties would like to see a sui generis Nanotech Protocol similar to the Biosafety Protocol, there is growing sympathy for ending the ‘crisis cycle’ that has dogged new technologies in recent years by establishing an intergovernmental framework that would allow for the monitoring and evaluation of new technologies as they evolve from initial scientific discovery to possible commercialization.
Max Ediger
Who controls information technology and how is it being used? How does the use of information technologies affect marginalized communities and in what ways can the churches come to their rescue?
Pradip N. Thomas
The stewardship of creation, shortfalls, obstacles, the celebration of creation’s variety, its changing dimensions and interfaces, its liberation potential – all these and more have been the subject of a variety of conferences and projects organised by faith communities throughout the world. Questions related to the ethics of communication have also featured prominently in successive global studies programmes at the WACC. The following article explores some of the ethical implications of convergent information and communication technologies.
Peter Malone
Scientific inventions, future societies and ‘end of the world’ scenarios are often portrayed in films. Many people begin to appreciate moral and ethical conundrums when they first see them in the cinema. The following annotated listing explores points to recent films that include science-in-the-making.
Latin American researchers and activists in social communication from all over Brazil gathered at the Methodist University of São Paulo, in São Bernardo do Campo, São Paulo, 28-30 November 2005, to evaluate a Brazilian Charter of Media and Citizenship.
Philip Lee
Michael Traber, who died on 25 March 2006, was born and educated in Switzerland. In 1956 he was ordained into the Bethlehem Mission Society from where he went to the USA to study sociology and mass communication at Fordham University and New York University (1956-60). He gained his PhD in mass communication.
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