The purpose of my session was to provide a frame to explain while Law is nowadays having more trouble than usual in trying to solve many of today’s problems. In other words, the goal was not to enter in specific issues that Law can difficultly fix, but to reflect on how the foundations of our industrial society are being challenged by digitization and Information and Communication Technologies and, thus, how the Law that was built upon those foundations is shaking from head to toes.
The (long!) session was split in three parts
The Network Society, or how industrial institutions’ feet became of clay, which explains how the end of scarcity and transaction costs in the areas of knowledge is questioning most of our institutions — Law amongst them.
The Web 2.0, or how individuals became mass media, which explains how the addition of the social layer to the World Wide Web has transformed communication, culture and creation as we knew it.
The Internet, or how Law became (even) more complicated, where some specific practices and malpractices are identified on a typical task done through the Internet — and challenging the concepts of who or what is the sender, the receiver, the message, the channel or the code.
Here follow the materials that I used in the session and a short collection of bibliographic references.
The Network Society, or how industrial institutions’ feet became of clay
Peña-López, I. (2010b). “Towards a comprehensive model of the digital economy”. In Proceedings of ICTD 2010. 4th ACM/IEEE International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies and Development. London: IEEE.
The European Commission is in the process of reflecting the past, present and future of telecentres or, in general, public Internet access points (PIAP) or, even in a broader sense, e-Inclusion Intermediaries (eI2).
Amongst others, there are four important issues that are guiding this reflection:
What has the impact been so far.
How has the techno-social scenario changed since they were initially born: increasing adoption of ICTs, importance of broadband, mobile Internet, etc.
How has the socio-economic scenario also changed, i.e. the economic and debt crisis in Europe.
According to the preceding points, what should be done in the future and how, that is, how public policies to foster the Information Society should be designed in matters of universal access/usage.
In this framework, the Institute for Prospective Technological Studies (IPTS) organized an Expert Workshop on Measuring the Impact of eInclusion Intermediaries in Europe: towards an impact assessment practice?, that took place in May 3-4 in Seville, Spain, and to which I was invited to participate and to contribute with a position paper.
My position paper should verse on the future of telecentres in Europe in 2020, and it was supposed to be what I call a “grounded opinion”: grounded, because it is based on both personal/professional experience and lots of readings; opinion, because, all in all, I was asked to provide my own point of view, what would I do was I to design the policy that would deal with e-Inclusion Intermediaries.
Position paper: eInclusion Intermediaries in Europe: horizon 2020
State of the development of the Information Society
I believe that the development of the Information Society has come not to a dead end, but near a point of stagnation:
The industry and governments are most of the time still thinking in terms of infrastructures: how much, how are they managed, what is the regulation to bind them and what is they state of usage (usually in percent of saturation).
Users only care about a huge supply of content and services (for whatever the use) and that these run on affordable infrastructures.
This is, of course, a simplification. But a peek at what governments are measuring and what media are broadcasting gives us an idea of the tremendous bias towards the preceding aspects of the Information Society.
The problem with this scenario is that it has no future, as policies centred in infrastructures are targeting an almost non-existent problem:
In general terms, physical access is becoming a minor issue (remember: Europe 2020). It already is, especially if we do not take into account as an indicator “households with Internet access”, but “people covered by access to Internet”.
The former point is due, in part, because many last mile issues have been solved (e.g. with mobile Internet, e.g. with public Internet access points such as telecentres, libraries, cybercafes, schools and many other venues).
The supply of content and services is buoyant.
The missing gap: capacity building
On the other hand, the two growing problems remain unaddressed by public policies:
A stable share of ‘refuseniks’, that choose not to use the Internet for several reasons.
A growing share of citizens that do need digital skills and literacies that they lack or have to acquire when and if possible.
These two gaps have two main consequences:
An ICT sector which a shortage of supply in terms of highly qualified workers and human capital in general.
A quality of usage of the Internet characterized by inefficacy and inefficiency, and that many find will be (already is) the core of a second digital divide, deeper that the digital divide of access and more difficult to fix because of its (human) nature.
State of the question, the missing gap and e-Inclusion Intermediaries
How do e-Inclusion Intermediaries face the state of the question and the missing gap? In my own (grounded) opinion, either they change or they will perform badly.
Telecentres (understood as not-for-profit and for-development-aimed) will suffer from economic resources shortage, because of the economic crisis and because of Internet penetration. Cybercafes (understood as for-profit and comercially-aimed) will suffer from social sustainability shortage, because of the economic crisis (what solutions are you providing?) and also because of Internet penetration.
Most e-Inclusion Intermediaries have traditionally provided or recently began to provide services related to e-skills. The problem is that those skills are becoming much more complex than simple techonological skills and, indeed, it is a set of digital literacies and capacities that is required. Are eI2 responding to that?
In the same train of though of literacies, what we have found in our conversion from an Industrial Society to an Information Society is that we have done quite good in learning or appropriating technologies an to applying/adapting them to our usual processes. But we have definitely failed in improving most processes and socioeconomic transformation is but a good bunch of “good practices” that we all know but cannot replicate.
A forecast/proposal for e-Inclusion Intermediaries
The telecentre should become an eCentre, a centre that is not a physical place, but a reference resource that can actually be located in a specific location, or embeded within an organization. Telecentres should be insourced in other institutions: in a firm, in a civic centre, in a library, in a government, in an NGO…
Complementary to the former statement, many of the telecentre functions can and should be outsourced. There is evidence that the probability of survival of a telecentre is linked to it being part of a telecentre network: share knowledge, share resources, share contents and services. Outsourcing can take the shape of a core+franchises or a flat network. But reinventing the wheel should be forbidden.
If we believe in the insourcing/outsourcing pair, partnerships come naturally: e-Inclusion Intermediaries should complement a shared project with their added value, while other partners should be left to do the same. Partnerships with governments in the field of sheer “for development” inclusion or fostering e-government; partnerships with the private sector to leverage the expertise in the field and sell it for the sake of economic sustainability; look out for firms to be included as targets of eI2.
Of course, purity should be abandoned: no more either telecentre or cybercafe. It’s about e-Centres and it is about to provide knowledge. The function is what matters and not the means: the function is part of the mission, the means are part of the business/operating plan.
But the function is not fostering ICTs, the function is Inclusion. The ICT centre has to become a Centre-on-ICT-steroids. It is the community — the target — what matters, it is about supporting neighbourhoods, schools, entrepreneurs, living labs… not about supporting ICTs. But we do it with ICTs because we believe in its huge potential.
Bermúdez Ferran, I., Peña-López, I., Delgado Alonso, X., Merino Alcántara, M. & Laín Escandell, B. (2011). Qualificació professional: Dinamització de l’Espai TIC. Barcelona: Institut Català de les Qualificacions Professionals. [Follow the link for the Spanish Version. There is a draft version of this paper in English: ask me if you want it]
Sornamohan, V. (2012). “Telecentre Matters: Getting the Basics Right”. In Information Technology in Developing Countries, February 2012, 22 (1). Ahmedabad: Centre for Electronic Governance.
With the goal to analyse and propose a debate on the nature and depth of this new framework of social relationships, the challenges it entails, for example, from the point of view of social inclusion, or opportunities from the perspective of health systems, social participation and education a series of conferences has been planned in Seville (Spain): [sic]*: Conference series on trends in the Information and Knowledge Society
The conferences are made up by six debates, and I am taking part in two of them:
1. Introductory session. 18 april 2012.
Topics: information society, network society and technological revolution, how ICTs have penetrated into European, Spanish and Andalousian societies, and what are or what should be the public policies in this area.
Participants: Eva Piñar, General Director of Technological and Information Society services at the Andalousian government; Ramón Compañó, programme coordinator at IPTS-JCR; Josep Lladós, director of the PhD on Information and Knowledge Society at UOC.
2. Progressing towards the Information Society. 2 may 2012.
Topics: present of the implementation of ICT at different levels: infrastructure, knowledge economy, legal framework, content and services. And delving into the economic dimension of the information society: business, resources, innovation, etc..
Participants: Ismael Peña-López, professor a the School of Law and Political Science at UOC; Marc Bogdanowic, leader of the Information Society Unit at IPTS-JCR.
3. Technological prospective. 16 may 2012.
Topics: what will be the future technologies, usage standards, protocols, etc..
Participants: César Córcoles, professor at the School of Computer Science, Multimedia and Telecommunication at UOC; a TBC representative from IPTS.
4. ICT and Education. 6 june 2012.
Topics: aspects of the relationship between training and ICT, how educational technology is already helping to change the way it delivers training, how can ICT help in shaping tomorrow’s education.
Topics: how ICT have changed the relationship between citizens and the government, what are the new forms of participation based on the use of ICT, Transparency, e-government, etc.
Participants: Ismael Peña-López, professor a the School of Law and Political Science at UOC; Gianluca Misuraca, researcher at the IPTS-JCR.
I want to thank Eva Piñar and Alfredo Charques both for the initiative to organize the conference — when reflecting on what kind of Information Society we want is so necessary — and, of course, for inviting me to take part in it.
When we speak about the impact of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) on Education, there are two main approaches that we can follow.
The micro-level approach deals with the impact of ICTs on learning processes and/or the different components of a learning process. The point in the micro-level approach is to tell what the impact will be on how things work and howshould or will they change. The micro-level is about evolutions.
The macro-level approach puts the stress on the system and its foundations. The point in the macro-level approach is to tell what the impact will be on what things work into that system and why. and which will be the new foundations upon to which build a new system. The macro-level is about revolutions.
See, for instance, the following examples, picked at random and with no aim of comprehensiveness:
Item
Micro-level approach Evolution
Macro-level approach Revolution
Teacher
How can the teacher use an interactive whiteboard to support lecturing?
What is the role of the teacher? A mentor? An instructional designer?
Who is the teacher? Who is an expert?
Is there a need for a teacher?
Student
What is the use of laptops when attending classes or doing homework?
What is a student? Does the dychotomy student-worker still apply?
Will ICTs empower people so that they can master their own learning processes?
Textbook
What will be the e-book like? Can it be interactive? Searchable?
Is there any need for a textbook?
How can we turn any information resorce into a learning resource?
Who should design learning resources? What is the role of publishers in this (new) scenario (if any)?
Classroom
Can we use (or ban) wi-fi in the classroom? For what purposes?
Will meeting physical spaces become irrelevant in a no-time- and no-space-boundaries digital environment?
What is the added value of physical gatherings?
Is there a reason to keep thinking in terms of classmates and cohorts?
Assessment
What is the best way to apply self-correcting surveys for assessment?
Do we need assessment or certification?
Is peer-to-peer assessment possible?
Can we redefine reputation and authority in an open Knowledge Society?
Syllabus
Should the syllabus self-adapt according to performance of the student?
Just-in-case or just-in-time learning?
Can we unstructure learning?
Both approaches are worth being followed. Most times, there will be no revolution without a well paced set of little evolutions (contradictory as this may sound), and evolutions may eventually lead to sheer revolution when all added up. But. But when a revolution is — a digital revolution, as it now seems to be — clearly coming up in the horizon, time is of the essence: the debates on the evolutions that might be should give way to the debates on the revolutions that may or very likely will be.
Two reflections or corollaries arise from the former statement.
The first one is that we have to be able to tell evolutions from revolutions. Statement the like of tablets — or laptops or interactive whiteboards or e-books or iBooks or you-name-it — are going to revolutionize Education are very likely to be either misleading or plain wrong. At least in the way they are usually stated or framed. All the aforementioned examples-in-the-classroom belong to the world if evolution, of innovation: they improve or even radically change the way we do some things, but not things themselves. In other words, tablets may revolutionize lecturing and, as such, make a huge contribution to the evolution of Education. But not revolutionize education.
The second one is that if a revolution in Education is about to come — as many people see sings of it, and even work towards it — we certainly should put the focus on systemic changes and not in changes within the system. In other words, we should analyse how evolutions relate to or can contribute to a deep revolution, instead of focusing on evolutions themselves.
It is just normal that, as educators, we feel the urge to deal with the present, with solving the impact of ICTs in our daily lives inside our classrooms. But I believe we should put more effort in looking ahead in the future, in making our evolutions shift towards the path of the systemic change and not in parallel or diverting from it.
During the III European Conference on Information Technology in Education and Society: A Critical Insight (TIES2012) I felt like there was much concern on the micro vision of ICTs in education and just a little bit on the macro side of things. And I sometimes wondered whether that was thinking on your pedicure before having your leg amputated — and, by the way, not having a plan for the upcoming haemorrhage.
When we speak about politics and social networking sites, we’re used to speak about David vs. Goliath: common people fighting against the powerful.
For the first time in many years, we are not facing a strong political power, but a weak political power. A political power disconcerted by the markets, globalization, a smart society. But, is that society that smart? Is it true that the digital revolution has had an impact on politics (and political parties and governments) and not on common people? Why should be common people be spared from that impact?
It is only natural that the political system and what happens out of it (unions, nonprofits, civil associations, etc.) advance in parallel and, in their confrontation, consensus and solutions emerge. This means that it is interaction what makes society advance, and not that it is society that is right despite the opposition of the political system.
Indeed, we do need an articulated civil society, as articulated as political parties and governments. Not a chaotic or disorganized one. Only an organized civic society can face a disorganized, weak political power. But there is a deep difficulty to articulate a general purpose strategy, especially when populisms leverage the fact that no-one seems to be accountable for their decisions.
The utopia of dis-intermediation
We are witnessing times were intermediation is toughly fought against: there seem to be no need for politicians, journalists, teachers, distributing industries, etc.
While there may be a positive side of dis-intermediation (lesser costs, a more straightforward access, increased availability of knowledge, etc.) there is also a dark side of it. The expert becomes a contested institution while the cult of the amateur becomes the norm.
The huge challenge is how to rebuild new mediators, more flexible, more participative, and not getting rid of them. Democracy is about commitment and engagement, and oftentimes this can only be achieved through representation.
Ballot boxes and dreams
A mature democracy is not about setting highest ideals, but about identifying what is the second best and being able to tell whether it is acceptable. If the second best is too far from ideals, society won’t progress; if the second best is too close to ideals, fanaticism takes place.
Our society is deeply de-politicized: not only technocrats are taking the power, but “tea parties” are stepping in the centre of the political debate. Those are parties or groups of people, without second best options, and that fight within the party for it not to agree with anything with the “enemy”. This breaks party-to-party and party-to-society communication. In many senses, the hardcore of the political blogsphere is made of “tea parties”, extremist partisans that radicalise the debate.
Paradoxes of democratic self-determination
Echo chambers (Sunstein) and the Daily Me (Negroponte) have been side effects of democratic self-determination, with the result that the quality of democracy is impoverished. People that thinks different from us protects us from insanity and fanaticism.
We certainly need to keep a certain distance from reality to see other opinions. And representation is just about this, about seeing the whole picture.
Untangling an illusion
The Internet implies a high degree of empowerment for the citizenry. And, historically, every new technology has come along with a utopia: technology will bring a social change or revolution. But, will it?
There is a common believe that a new technology appears in the void, in no social or economic context. But it does. And that is why the same (new) technology has different effects in different places, or “unexpected” or “undesired” changes instead of what we dreamt of.
There is a common believe that social media decentralizes and democratizes power. But the nature of power is not so: there are gatekeepers and mediators in the Internet. The Internet does not removes the relationships of power, but transforms them. E.g. in the top 40 political blogs in the US, there is also one woman, two hispanics, and no afroamericans. The top 40 political blogs in the US are made up by WASPs… as US politics.
Censorship, for instance, is not any more about governments censoring, but about crowds doing it willingly. Search engines are not really neutral, as they redirect traffic, etc.
We have to acknowledge that democracy is about design: social and power hierarchies have their mirror in the online world. Imperialism is not anymore about culture, but about protocols: we are living the imperialism of protocols.
There is a common believe that criticising (or demanding accountability) and building is the same thing, and it is not. Democracy is not only about winning elections, but about governing; or about reporting injustices, but about coming up with a better social design to avoid/correct them.
Digital revolutions have been more focused on accountability and reporting than on building.
The Internet is based on easiness and trust, and that is, precisely, its weakest point.
Discussion
Q: is it possible that the Internet stops us from a critical thinking? Innerarity: It depends. We sometimes need some things to just happen, without us having to think about how their work; but we sometimes need to stop and think. What we are in need of is to be able to turn the switch on or off, so that we are able to stop and think about a given aspect, and without, in the meantime, being dragged around because of the speed of times. Politics has lost its ability to set up, to propose: it’s reactive and not propositive, thinks short term instead of long term.
Q: are we confusing mobilization with engagement? Innerarity: organization is fundamental to perform deep and lasting changes. What organization? Whatever, but organization.
Q: has the Internet been able to engage more participants in politics? Innerarity: the network has sometimes provided an illusory activism, where the activist believes that they are having a deep impact and the truth they are having not.
Antoni Gutiérrez-Rubí: so, the Internet is a menace for politicians and they should fight against it? Innerarity: it definitely is not, the Internet can help in doing better politics. The problem with politics and the Internet is usually on the politicians’ side.
Ismael Peña-López: what will be easier: to transform the actual institutions (parliaments, parties, schools and universities, etc.) or to substitute the with brand new ones? Innerarity: renewal is a must, that is out of question. Or parliaments become spaces for reflection, or they will legislate about the past, about past problems. But we’d rather update the institutions we have than try and substitute them with new ones: the cost might be higher and no one says traditional institutions could not be transformed.
Telecentres, cybercafes, libraries and civic centres with Internet access… Internet public access points have evolved into much more that just places where access to online content and services is provided. There has been an evolution of public access points, and most of them have taken up a role of promoting digital and social inclusion, either directly or indirectly.
Even more important, other institutions not specifically aimed at promoting ICT usage — firms, schools, universities, governments… — have set up “ICT spaces” to help with the adoption of ICTs within their walls.
Those ICT spaces are usually run by a person or a team with a singular collection of skills: they are managers, they are computer engineers, they are social workers, they are communicators, they are educators… all at the same time.
During much of year 2011 I had the luck to be working with the Catalan Government and its Institut Català de les Qualificacions Professionals (ICQP) [Catalan Institute for professional qualifications, part of the Catalan Ministry of Education] to try and define what were the competences, skills and, very important, training required to run an ICT space.
There were five of us on the team: two of us — Isidre Bermúdez Ferran, from Fundación Esplai, a major telecentre actor in Spain, and I — provided experience on the field, while three others — Xavier Delgado Alonso, from the Catalan Institute of Social Services, and Manuela Merino Alcántara and Bru Laín i Escandell, from ICQP — provided all the methodological background.
Working sessions were really intense and what was learnt from the whole process was incredible. Now, the result of our work has been made public for public scrutiny and can now be downloaded from the ICQP website, both in Catalan and Spanish. Comments are really welcome.
I am professor at the School of Law and Political Science of the Open University of Catalonia, and researcher at the Internet Interdisciplinary Institute and the eLearn Center of that university.
![Logo of the [SIC] conference series](/img/postssr/0000000486.jpg "[sic]*: Conference series on trends in the Information and Knowledge Society")
