The German debate on the
information society is split into several areas. Firstly there is a
general debate about the educational system. The German school is in
a crisis as analyzed by PISA
(Programme for International Student Assessment of the OECD). A
programme for
networking shools (Schulen ans Netz)
has been started. However, the debate is not
restricted to the role of the Internet and new media in education but
concerns
also classic media, particularly TV, and their merging into mobile
media of all
kinds (such as laptops, cellular phones, smart objects etc). Several
cases of murder by
teenagers in German schools gave rise to a debate on the influence of
the widespread portrayal of violence through mass media and now even
more accessible on the Internet.
The
German university is no less in a
crisis. The changes brought up by
the Bologna
guidelines led to a transformation of the German
Diploma into Bachelor and Master degree programmes which are supposed
to be equivalent to similar degrees in other European countries as well
as abroad. However in practice, this is not the case for instance
concerning the UK. There
is still a transformation
taking
place regarding teaching methods (for example the concept of a virtual
university) as well as the range of services offered by universities.
The
question of access is one main issue
in the public debate on science and
the Internet particularly at the level of research institutions. The
“Berlin
Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and
Humanities”
(October 2003) signed by all major German as
well as by other European research institutions stresses the idea of
the open
access paradigm. This means a radical change of the whole system of
publication
and distribution of publicly funded science. It will see a
transformation of, for example, public libraries.
There
is a broad public debate on
Open Source and Free Software. Some major German cities, such as Munich,
have changed
their systems from proprietary software to open source. Under the
coordination
of Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung a “Charter of Civil Rights for a
Sustainable
Knowledge Society” was published in July 2003 as a German contribution
to the
World Summit on the Information Society. The charter envisions a
‘knowledge
society’ as opposed to a technocratic ‘information society’ in which
knowledge
is considered mainly as a public good and not just as a commodity that
must be
kept open and accessible for everybody. The charter is a plea for a
better
balance between all stake holders in order to avoid a drifting into the
digital
divide. After a period of competition between the Internet and the mass
media
it seems as if the latter have found their niche in the Internet by
somehow
distorting the dimensions of interactivity of the network. It is still
unclear
what the new face of the digital network will look like.
The
German government
has launched a programme on the Information Society embracing all
public
services. But e-government is not the same as e-democracy. Some ideas
have been put forwarad
about the concept of a deliberative democracy based ib more
interactivity but as yet no specific formats have been put forward.
Finally,
the Internet is no longer seen
as an enemy of the book but there is still a deeply rooted insecurity
concerning what Bildung or
education under the conditions of new media is all
about. This insecurity has to do, in part, with the immigrant
population and their lack of
knowledge of the German language as well as with the reunification of Germany and Europe.
A European-oriented German identity in on the way but it can only be
achieved
through a networked Europe
that re-presents
itself culturally not in the classical form of Goethe-Institutes or
British
Councils but of a European House.