The Information Revolution: Major Trends and Developments

1
The Information Revolution Major Trends and
Developments
Paper presented at a Workshop on Using
Information Technologies as Empowerment Tools for
Women Media Practitioners in the Gulf Region
2

• by
• Dr. Basyouni Hamada
• Professor of Communication
• United Arab Emirates University
• Secretary General, Global Communication Research
  Association
• http//gcra.uaeu.ac.ae
• Dubai Womens College in Collaboration with UNDP
  Dubai UNESCO Regional Office
• March 8-10, 2004

3
What Information Revolution (IR) consists of?

• The restricted notion of ICTs defines IR as a set
  of core technologies
• The broad definition includes the traditional as
  well as the new means of electronic of
  transmission

4
What Information Communication Technologies
(ICTs) consists of?

• ICTs are set of activities which facilitate by
  electronic means the processing, transmission and
  display of information
• The outputs of ICTs are every product directly
  contributes to the electronic processing,
  transmission and display of information
• The inputs are anything that makes those
  activities possible.

5
Qualities of the Current ICTs

• Digitization, it changed the previous revolution
  by translating every kind of information into a
  universal binary code
• Text, drawings, pictures, sounds and speech,
  video .. etc, once they are translated into
  binary code, can be transmitted through digital
  networks.

6
Qualities of the Current ICTs

• Information Processing, provides the power to
  transform information into digital code and back
  into human-absorbable form
• Bandwidth, the amount of information capable of
  being transmitted over a network does not just
  double every eighteen month , as Moores law
  predicts for processing speed and power
• It triples every twelve months. The prediction is
  called Gilders law
• Standard, Decentralized architecture, in contrast
  to previous means of communication, Internet is
  based on decentralized but standard architecture.

7
What is the Network Society

• It is a specific form of social structure,
  identified as being characteristic of the
  information age
• The information age refers to a historical period
  in which human societies perform their activities
  in a technological paradigm.

8
Features of the Network Society

• Human kind shifted from computer-centered
  technologies to network diffused technologies.
• We live in a new economy which is informational,
  global, networked and capitalist
• Work and employment are substantially transformed
  by the new economy

9
Cultural Features

• We live in the Internet culture
• Cultural expressions of all kinds are
  increasingly shaped by this electronic hypertext
• This flexible, hypertext, interactive and
  electronic communication does not only concern
  culture, it heavily affects politics

10
Characteristics of the information age

• Intensive use of information by the common
  citizen
• Use of information as a strategic resource by
  organizations
• Development of the information sector within the
  economy
• Growth of the information sectors quicker than
  the global economy

11
Characteristics of the Information Age

• Deterritorialization
• Confusion
• Horizontalization
• Dematerialization

12
Gauging the Information Revolution

• The Network Reach
• The Content Depth
• The Economic Impact

13
Digital Divide The Basic Outcome/Trend of
Information Revolution

• The main challenge brought about by ICTs is the
  digital divide
• It excludes entire cultures, and countries from
  the benefits of Information revolution
• Research concentrates on whether poor countries
  and people are catching up with their
  counterparts
• Whether the data on ICT is characterized by
  convergence or divergence between developed and
  developing countries

14
How the Digital Gap can be measured?

• Researches statistically measure the Index of
  Technology Progress (ITP) within countries
• ITP includes (computer, Internet hosts, fax
  machines, mobile phones and televisions)

15
Information Revolution Digital Gap Research Trends

• Is there evidence of convergence or divergence
  between Less Developed Countries (LDCs) and
  Developed Countries (DCs) in their use of ICT
  products?
• The evidence shows a wide gap between rich and
  poor countries access to ICTs access
• DCs has 1,036 times the Internet hosts of LDCs
• DCs have 40 times as many computers, and 146
  times as many mobile phones

16
ICTs Input

• Is there evidence of convergence or divergence
  between LDCs and DCs in their use of ICT inputs?
• There is a substantial gap across the two groups
  of countries
• OECD countries invest nine times as much of their
  income in RD
• Have about 17 times as many technicians, as eight
  times as many scientists per capita as the
  economies of sub-Saharan Africa

17
Convergence or Divergence

• Is the gap in the wealth of richer and poorer
  countries growing or shrinking?
• Evidence shows that DC-LDC gap continues to grow
  for most countries, despite the introduction of
  ICTs

18
GAP within Countries

• Is there convergence or divergence within
  countries in the availability of these ICTs?
• Evidence shows there is domestic inequality with
  regard to ICTs

19
ICTs Gap Economic Gap

• What is the link between ICT and trends in
  inequality across and within economies?
• The two variables are not linked together in
  causeeffect relationship.
• However, they are related to each other

20
Technological Progress

• What explains differences in technological
  progress across countries?
• Climate of democratic rights and civil liberties
• Respect for the rule of law
• Investment in human capital
• Low levels of government distortions

21
Major Trends and Developments of Information
RevolutionOptical Communication System

• It motivates a rethinking of various other
  technologies such as the design of computer
  processor and the Internet Protocol (IP)
• It also will force the computer operating system
  to change radically

22
Major Trends and Developments of Information
RevolutionWireless

• The second important development is likely to be
  explosion in wireless communication

23
Major Trends and Developments of Information
RevolutionVirtual Mailbox

• It allows text to voice and voice to text
  conversion
• It will be possible to listen to voice or text
  messages, dictate text messages, view pictures,
  etc.

24
Major Trends and Developments of Information
RevolutionMachine Translation

• The automatic translation
• Web searches across documents stored in multiple
  languages

25
Major Trends and Developments of Information
RevolutionE-commerce

• Customers will have very significant technical
  capabilities
• There will be billions of such customers
• There will be intense price competition
• New value proposition will be created

26
Major Trends and Developments of Information
RevolutionFuture of Broadcasting

• In world of infinite of bandwidth, broadcasting
  will disappear and will be replaced by unicasting

27
Major Trends and Developments of Information
RevolutionWork

• Manual labor will be replaced by the knowledge
  work
• Workers may not be in the same physical
  environment or even in the same time zone

28
Major Trends and Developments of Information
Revolution Migration

• With the industrial revolution, workers moved
  where the work was
• Later work moved where the workers were
• With the ubiquity of IT both physical and virtual
  migration could take place

29
Major Trends and Developments of Information
Revolution National Sovereignty

• IR will undermine the sovereignty of the nation
  state
• The role of the government at home will be
  marginalized

30
Major Trends and Developments of Information
RevolutionElectoral Politics

• It is expected that E voting will become a
  reality sooner or later
• E-voting will enable greater citizen
  participation in the electoral election.

31
Major Trends and Developments of Information
RevolutionDemocracy

• IR probably fosters democracy in the democratic
  systems
• Perpetuate the power of the ruling elites in LDCs

32
Major Trends and Developments of Information
RevolutionGlobal Information Utilities

• An Individual will be able to plug information
  appliances into wall sockets in much the same way
  as we now plug electrical appliances

33
Major Trends and Developments of Information
RevolutionCultural Diversity

• ICTs can only be a tool for cultural diversity if
  they enable the peoples of developing countries
  to
• Express their culture through their native
  languages
• With their frame of references
• And with affordable cost
• The Information Revolution perpetuates the power
  of the English-speaking countries

34
Major Trends and Developments of Information
RevolutionEducation

• E-education and distance learning will be enhanced

35
Conclusion

• Information Revolution is transforming all
  aspects of human life.
• IR will shift the control to ICTs Technological
  Determinism
• IR is an avoidable reality that LDCs should
  adjust to
• However, cultural diversity, linguistic
  differences, freedom of expression and religious
  values should be protected.
• IR requires sharing of information and the
  genuine participation of social groups at various
  level in both DCs and LDCs.
• There is no invisible hands to close the digital
  divide, the market forces alone would not be
  enough to redress the gap.
• An international intervention is a must to secure
  a peaceful
• coexistence between the North and South.
• References are attached to the full-text paper