From an information to a knowledge society (Feb. 15)

Today we debated whether the "information society" is a worthy frame of development, especially for Latin America. Half the group represented the point of view of the Economic Commission for Latin America (ECLA, or CEPAL in Spanish) as expressed in the book by Katz and Hilbert ("Los caminos hacia una sociedad de la información en América Latina y el Caribe", 2003). The other half represented the point of view of the Latin American Information Agency (ALAI) as expressed in the book by Burch et al. ("Se Cayó el Sistema", 2003).

CEPAL's view of the information society may be seen as the "official" version aimed at policy makers, where ICT is understood as a source of economic and social development. In order for Latin America to become integrated into the information society, they recommend considering three kinds of prerequisites. First of all, there is the ICT infrastructure itself (TV, telephone, fiber optics, and wireless networks) together with the generic service applications that run on top of it (software, browsers, remote storage, etc.). Second, there are vertical sectors which use the infrastructure and services to become digital: e-commerce, e-government, e-health, e-learning, ... Third, there are diagonal areas which establish the rules and resources: regulation, finance and human capital. The starting point is a recognition of the digital divide (understood as the dividing line between those who benefit and those who do not benefit from ICT) as it is especially pronounced in Latin America. Thus, they recommend generating public policy which can reduce this gap by placing the emphasis on the individual and the community in order to reap benefits in terms of: economic development (productivity and competitiveness), social development (learning, health, culture), poverty reduction (sanitary assistance, early warning systems) and political participation (human rights, freedom of speech). The key, they argue is striking a balance between areas that may be in conflict (for example, using ICT for economic development may not be aligned with using it for democratic participation). What's not to like?

Well, the ALAI holds a more pessimistic (dare I say, paranoid?) view of the information society. They start by retracing the origins of the Internet as tied to the hegemonic, imperialistic aims of the United States of America. The military provenance of the original Arpanet during the Cold War was motivated by the need to have a resilient network in case of a nuclear attack. But they go beyond the technology itself making a well-known connection between ICT and globalization (where it is not clear which is the the enabler of the other). This means that the "information society" in ALAI's view is based on an instrumental notion of information which goes hand in hand with similar models of society, such as the "post-industrial society" or the "service economy". These views are connected to the ideas of the "end of ideology" (from the recently deceased Daniel Bell) and the "end of history" (Francis Fukuyama), according to which the end of the Cold War signals a significant step in the linear progression towards a new global information society where humanity converges into a unique, neutral, apolitical and technological project. ALAI, of course, holds that this covers up for the real strategic, geopolitical, unipolar aims of the information society, where all countries and peoples are to be absorbed under the values of the market democracy and specifically the neoliberal ideas contained in the Washington Consensus (liberalized trade, privatization, deregulation, reduction of the size of the state, labor market flexibility and the protection of private property, among others). As such, the digital divide is used to cover up what is in fact a social divide and ICT is seen as a solution to this problem, when in actuality it perpetuates these inequalities by embodying an unfair development model. Moreover, ICT can actually be used for exploitation, surveillance and social control. For example, the fact that we aim for increasing access to ICT needs to be coupled to the quick obsolescence of such ICT, making Latin American countries dependent upon every new technological configuration which is sold and controlled by foreign companies. The fact that public policy in terms of ICT includes, for instance, specific goals in increasing the number of cell phones or internet connections is excellent news for Internet Service Providers and telecom companies (which in Latin America are mostly multinational corporations) but says nothing about the improved living conditions of our citizens and assumes that an increase in ICT adoption means an increase in socio-economic conditions (which ALAI claims is simply not true by just looking at the economic and ethical meltdown surrounding the "dot-com bubble" a decade ago).

The debate had no clear winner and solid arguments can be seen in both versions of the "information society". As a way to move beyond this dichotomy, Spangenberg's paper "Will the information society be sustainable?" (2005) offers a "third way". The problem, he says, is with the conceptual foundations of the "information society": by definition, information is meaningless unless it is placed in a social and cultural context where it can become knowledge (and ideally understanding). Thus, he claims that the information society is not sustainable and we need to move towards a "knowledge society". This model should be based on normative (imperative) premises, rather than on positive (empirical) data, because we are taking about how society "ought to be". He agrees with ALAI that such imperatives should not come from a neoliberal ethics, according to which, for example, knowledge is framed as the key production factor, rendering labor and capital less important and implying that those with appropriate knowledge are believed to find work anytime and not doing so is their own fault. Instead, he suggest that sustainability offers a better normative framework for the knowledge society. The main imperative of sustainability is striking a balance between the present (or the short term) and the future (or the long term). This signals a shift from the "technology push" embedded in other technocratic "information society" models towards a social "demand pull". In terms of policy, this means changing the emphasis from ICT-based or purely economic indicators (such as, number of cell phones or GDP growth) towards a more complex and interrelated set of indicators aimed at sustainability. Grounded in complexity science, Spangenberg proposes a draft set of indicators classified according to economic, social, environmental and institutional dimensions, coupled with a set of inter-linkage indicators: socio-economic, economic-institutional and socio-institutional. Each indicator, in addition, has a knowledge and an ICT component; for example, an institutional knowledge indicator (e.g. education expenditure) needs to be considered together with an institutional ICT indicator (e.g. capability to use ICT infrastructure and content). Such indicators, he argues, need to be coupled with clearly defined policy targets in order to guide the transition towards a "sustainable knowledge society".

In terms of the course project, each group is asked to use Spangenberg's draft indicators as a source for identifying the current state of the case and for identifying gaps, problems or opportunities where such indicators are missing or poorly achieved.