Synopses & Reviews
The presence of information and communication technologies has become so widespread that it now affects the majority of human activities and relations. These technologies are already being used to transfer and control the flow of information, knowledge, money, goods, and services across national boundaries. Despite the obvious benefits of this, there is also concern at the gap which is emerging between this new global information society and the humanistic vision of socially useful technologies which can be used to deal with wider social issues such as employment, education and literacy. This volume examines three critical debates of the post-industrial society: culture and technology, information society, and postmodernism. It aims to provide theoretical and methodological underpinnings for the analysis and design of information, communication and multimedia technologies. It is a thoroughly interdisciplinary volume, which will be of interest to students, researchers and practitioners in a wide variety of disciplines including information and communication systems, education and social sciences.
Synopsis
Human-centredness: A Challenge to Post-industrial Europe? The key power in industrial society has been linked to the possession of capital and factory. In the information society it could be rather different. If one accepts that that the key power in the information society will be linked not so much to the ownership of information but to human creativity nourished by that information, the productive force of today and tomorrow, could be more and more the human brain. Making use of one's intelligence is always accompanied by positive emotion, which in turn further activates the intelligence. But, unfortunately, under present conditions workers of all levels live in fear, anxiety and stress rather than desire and motivation. The question of basic human ecology (quality of life) is, therefore, a major strategic factor. It is precisely the opposite to the mechanisms of exclusion that currently dominate our society: exclusion of young people through joblessness - but also exclusion through technology, as with the helplessness of older people or the poorly educated confronted with ticket dispensing machines or other automats. This is not idle theorizing, it corresponds to concrete facts. It is, for example, how some observers interpret the crisis at IBM. Because its programs were less 'human-friendly', it was shaken to its foundations by Apple and Microsof- though it seems since to have learnt its lesson.