INTRODUCTION
Information
is power - for good, for bad. In a world of violence, poverty, and
ecological
crisis on the one side, as well as of peace movements, industrial
productivity
and scientific-technological development on the other, the production,
storage, exchange, diffusion, selection and use of information has also
become a key issue (1).
In
the same way as we live not only from nature but also within it, we can
say that our lives, as individuals as well as parts of different kinds
of social systems, are dependent on the knowledge we share with others,
as well as on the ways we make profit of it, i.e. on
information.
To consider nature just as a resource or as something we could (and
should) transform without previously thinking on the
consequences not only
for ourselves but for the balance of life in this planet, has proved to
be an irrational and irresponsible way of action. It is therefore time
to ask ourselves on the consequences of our thinking and doing not only
with regard to nature but also to the technologies we are using to
manipulate
ourselves. These are of two kinds: the biotechnology and the
information
technology. Modern information technology plays a major role in the
process
of shaping not only the ways we communicate but also all aspects of our
individual and social life.
This
is the premise of the Institute for Information and Communication
Ecology
(Institut für Informations- und Kommunikationsökologie,
IKÖ)
(2) founded this year in the Federal Republic of Germany.
The whole complexity condensed in the title information and
communication
ecology can be appreciated by looking first at the list of
subject-oriented
groups already established: telematics, telecommunication policy and
telecommunication
industry work control, security media policy, culture private sphere
education
medicine and health positive and negative influence of IT on
nature.
The
institute promotes also interdisciplinary discussions in the following
fields: big technologies, crossing frontiers and new convergences,
basic
research on communication ecology technology, life-world, resistance
women
and technology, feminist criticisms of technology economic and
economic-political
aspects of information and communication technologies.
The
institute is not only a forum for scientific research but also a focus
for political action in order to contribute responsibly to the
protection
of the sociosphere. With the following reflections I would like
to concentrate attention on two questions:
1)
what are the challenges to be faced by a society (a nation or a group
of
nations) in which knowledge and its communication is being shaped more
and more by information technologies?
2)
what are the challenges of the global interaction between
information
poor and information rich societies?
Particularly
since the so-called information revolution, knowledge is being
considered
more and more as a resource, to be exploited, i.e., produced,
transformed
and used in the same way as the industrial exploitation of material
resources.
In other words, knowledge in the shape of information no longer has
primarily
the function of a public good, with a high utility value, like water or
air, but has also become a commodity with a corresponding exchange
value.
The industrial process of reducing goods with utility value to goods
with
exchange value was particularly aggressive in the 19th century. It
involved
a step by step dissolution of the dimension of utility value, and the
reduction
of the evaluating subject to a function of the exchange value. This
process
is also known, particularly in the sphere of culture and moral values,
as nihilism.
One
possible response to this development was the Marxist one. It consisted
in the intent to recuperate the utility value, by considering social
work
and not the costs, as the fundamental principle for the determination
of
value. This theory presupposes, at least in its pure form, a
totalitarian
perspective of society and history, which has been more and more the
subject
of criticism recently, also within socialist countries. This does not
mean,
I think, carte blanche for classical capitalism but a
chance
for a new form of pluralism.
It
is in this sense that the French philosopher Jean-Francois Lyotard
considers
databanks to be the form into which postmodern knowledge is
represented
after the desintegration of ideological "meta-stories" (3).
This is, I think, a particularly interesting starting point since it
regards
the desintegration of political (ideological) and/or philosophical
forms
of legitimating the whole field of knowledge not as something
necessarily
negative, but as an opportunity. In order to see it in this way, two
conditions
are necessary: 1) general access to data banks, and 2) development of
the
capacity of playing with different kinds of languages (in the
sense
of Wittgenstein's "Sprachspiele"), but without reducing the different
social
interests to a particular one (4). In other words, the
dissolution of the ideal of a global practical and/or theoretical
control
of knowledge, not only with regard to its content but also with regard
to the process of production, exchange and use, can be considered as a
challenge for new ways of symbolic exchange in a pluralistic society.
That
is, I think, the main point to be considered ecologically within
so-called
information-rich societies, as well as with regard to 'global'
interactions.
The
following reflections are in many regards one sided and they do
not pretend to give an exhaustive view, not even of the two questions
already
mentioned. They are just an attempt to see some of the opportunities
and
risks in this field and to offer some criteria for its qualification. I
begin with some hints on what can be called a theory of information
ecology
and make, as a second step, some suggestions for action.
I. TOWARDS A THEORY OF INFORMATION ECOLOGY
The
dissolution
of the unity of knowledge and its becoming an exchange value are
ecological
dangers if we react by trying to impose a pure (!) political
control
or by regarding passively their marketing process. In both
cases
we are losing the chance of potential pluralism which this technology
offers. This pluralism does not imply that with the electronic shaping
of communication all other formal (for instance printing) and informal
ways of human interaction are surmounted or obsolete. This is
indeed
one kind of pluralism to be ecologically protected and promoted. An
information
ecology does not have the easy task of saying: information technologies
are per se of a uniform nature. Let us save the traditional
value
of, for instance, books. This kind of oppositions (books vs.
information
technology) fails, I think, to see the complexity and potential
plurality
within the technological shaping of knowledge representation and
diffusion.
But, on the other side, there is the open question, of how an
interaction
between different ways of communication can be organized, in order to
be
aware not only of the opportunities but also of the limitations
inherent
in each possibility, be it a technological one or not. If we do not
pose
this question, then we will have sooner or later, as in the case of
non-responsible
action towards nature, huge problems of information pollution. This is
a concept I would like to investigate by considering first some of the
characters or dimensions we can attribute to the information
phenomenon.
1)
The social dimension. We have been used to considering information as
something
that just exists in our lives, as the atmosphere of a
democratic
society. But information is not a triviality. It has taken three
hundred
years to open written knowledge to vast sectors of society. This was
not
only a technical but also an educational as well as a socio-political
process.
We need, as at the time of the Enlightenment, a creative educational
and
cultural policy in our field. As with other fundamental human rights it
is not enough to develop an ecological or even an ethical theory on
them
(or to put them in a declaration) but it is necessary to cultivate
practical
judgement concerning possible alternatives of action (5).
2)
The linguistic dimension. The social character of information implies,
secondly, the linguistic dimension. Language is not something added
to society, but it is its very essence, i.e. our way of being.
Some
characteristics of linguistic information are: a) its criticability,
b) its tacit dimension, and c) its partiality.
a)
There is no pure information (as there are no pure facts)
but information is always relative to a theoretical and/or practical pre-understanding.
It remains always something we can criticize (and not just retrieve)
- if we have learned (individually and socially) how to do it. We are
responsible
for this awareness.
b)
Information is necessarily blind, i.e., we are responsible for
the
information we produce and use (6). This tacit dimension
cannot be objectivised. This is particularly important in the case of
expert
systems (7).
c)
Whereas modernity aimed at a systematic view of knowledge, we, at the
end
of modernity, are aware of its partial character. In other
words,
we are responsible for an open or fragile unity, taking into
account
the plurality of languages (cultural plurality, plurality of points of
view etc.) (8).
3)
The historical dimension. Information as a social phenomenon implies,
thirdly,
the awareness of its" historical dimension. The electronic
revolution
is neither the beginning of a paperless society nor it is a necessary
historical step to be fulfilled by all countries and in the same
way
in the future. It is just a possibility, to be responsibly
inserted
within the richness of the past and the constraints of the present (9).
The alternative is not between rejection or information colonialism but
between different kinds of cultural and technical information
mixtures
- information is half-breed (10).
II. TOWARDS A PRAGMATICS OF INFORMATION
ECOLOGY
On
the
basis of these categorial analysis it is possible, I think, to define
the
concept of information pollution, as a basic pragmatic concept of an
information
ecology. I suggest to consider it at the two levels I mentioned at the
beginning: within information rich societies and with regard to global
interactions.
1.
Towards
an information ecology within information-rich societies
The
key
ecological issue concerning the production, storage, accessibility,
selection
and use of all kinds of knowledge is then, I believe, the preservation
and increase of its social character (11). Responsibility
towards this character is one ecological measure, one measure for the
ecological
quality of our field. From this perspective we have to afford two kinds
of ecological problems: first, a monolithic control of the state upon
the
information technologies and/or upon the contents of the messages, and
secondly, the unbounded transformation of information into an exchange
value. In other words, we should strive to see and establish
differences
between the necessary role of the state in preserving the right of
general
access to information, whereas on the other side we must preserve our
rights
as individuals from centralised political and/or market
control.
This
is a crucial ecological point, for instance, in the case of the German
ISDN-Net (a step-by-step integration of different transmission networks
for text, speech and images) one crucial ecological point, as it is
being
highlighted by Kubicek (12). According to Kubicek,
the immanent ecological dangers of such a centralized system
are:
- the
possibility
of a total breakdown,
- the
weakness
of the system against physical violence,
- the
possibility
of software manipulation.
Kubicek
suggests the creation telecommunication systems with a limited range of
options and possibilities. We should be careful not only with regard to
the problems of data protection but also with the transformation of our
homes into parts of the electronic marketplace. We must put limits to
the
expansion of non-controllable technical systems, for instance through
decentralisation,
through a differentiation of interest (or user) groups, as well as
through
the creation of specific legal norms. In other words, we must afford
the
ecological problems of uniformation which reduces the chances
of
plurality inherent to this technology. We can call this kind of
information
pollution, as it depends on the power or control on information, the
power
pollution.
With
regard to the linguistic dimension, I would suggest we call the problem
message pollution. Information technologies are able to disseminate an
incredible abundance of messages, without making explicit the contexts
they arise from (there are no pure facts), the blindness
of their own limitations, and the specific kind of partiality
they
are supposed to have. Human beings are more and more the victims
or targets of a superabundance of messages (this is also the
case
within information-poor countries with regard to mass media). Umberto
Eco
has already pointed out, that the battle to be undertaken in
this
field should be considered primarily not as a strategic affair but as a
matter of tactics (13). We can indeed try to rule the
communication process at the level of the source or of the channel.
But in neither one case nor in the other would we be influencing the
message,
i.e., the linguistic dimension. This happens only in the light of
the
codes at the destination. In other words, messages change their
meaning
according to the presuppositions of the interpreter, to his preunderstanding.
Here, in the chairs in front of our TV sets and in front of every
terminal,
is where the linguistic battle takes place. This battle
has
not the scope as Eco rightly remarks, for leaving the information circle
in which we are embedded. It is a question of how we prepare ourselves
to cope with this situation, in order to control plurality through
qualified
interpretation. Eco suggests something that he calls the "cultural
guerrilla",
and he means, for instance, the possibility of using one medium to
criticise
another one. This is something we are already doing: newspaper articles
criticise TV programmes, TV discussions criticise books, and so on.
Other
possibilities are those of "mass dissent": that is, I think, a field
where
we could be more creative, organizing alternative networks and
services,
particularly for helping marginal groups inside or outside our
societies,
by offering international aid, by supporting peace and solidarity
movements,
etc. I believe that the field of scientific and technical information
would
also profit from this view: the artificial alternative between state
support
and/or private industry is only one segment of a plurality of
alternative
possibilities for different kinds of user groups. The currently
one-sided
view towards industry as the main user of electronic information is monomanic
and distorts the potentialities of information technology. This is also
the reason, I think, for a distortion of the question of the economic
value
of information, where this value is primarily measured from the
viewpoint
of industrial users.
The
last point I should like to mention concerns what I called the
historical
dimension. Our field is full of futurological ideas, some of them planing
the next millenium (14). We can pollute ourselves with
all kinds of utopias, which lead us nowhere, or, more precisely, to
abandon
the responsibility for evaluating risks and chances of co-ordinating
different
possibilities for designing our knowledge universe and its channels,
taking
into account their specific quality The slogan of a paperless
society
is an expression of historical pollution in our field. It is
time,
I think, to abandon the mode of technological grandiloquence
and
to look for more humble, i.e.. more specific ways of
establishing
the limits of this expanding technology, and to act responsible,
conforming
to the possibilities these limits offer! To see limits not as something
negative but as the condition for plurality and interaction is a key
point
for the future of a technological society, i.e., for the insertion of
technology
within the complex of other traditions. This is of course not a
plea for neo-conservativism. As it is an illusion to think of a pure
technological society, it is also an illusion to believe that there is
something like pure nature or an ideal communication we
should
conform to (or we could create artificially).
A
more
realistic view takes into account that there is no ideal harmony
between
human beings, no possibility of a perfect language for understanding
and
action, and that we are always confronted with misunderstanding and
non-communication.
Human communication is not just an object for technical manipulation
nor
it is something mystical. Information technology is not
necessarily
a pollution instrument nor it is an ideal artificial limb. We can
profit
from its own (!) potentialities if we are able to integrate it within
the
complexity of human communication. If we develop one-sided
media,
then we should not forget, that human communication is double-tracked.
If we isolate pieces of knowledge, then we should not forget that they
get their meaning from specific situations and particularly from the
receiver's
code. If we distribute knowledge through different technical channels,
then we should not forget the right to a general participation in
societal
knowledge. If we handle knowledge with machines, then we should not
forget
that human beings are not robots or flesh machines.
To
close one's eyes to these (and other) ecological questions of the
information
society means to forget our responsibility in designing tools - the
responsibility
that, in designing tools we are designing "ways of being" (15).
Information tools are, or should be, primarily people's tools. The
information
technology opens us its potentialities if and only if we are able to
interrelate
it with the whole of its social dimensions. It is indeed an
opportunity,
maybe the opportunity for preserving and increasing social
understanding,
within as well as between different countries and cultures which belong
to one world (16).
2.
Towards a global information
ecology
Under
a global perspective, the question of information pollution can
be stated as the problem of the gap between information-rich and
information-poor
nations.
It
is, I think, a common view, that differences of races, religions,
ideas,
money etc. should be surmounted not by an ideology of egalitarianism
but by giving individuals, as well as nations, similar chances of
development,
on the basis of equal rights and duties. The information difference,
i.e., the difference between the information-poor and the
information-rich
has not been considered to be such a key issue as, for example, the
economic
one. One reason for this omission is that the gap has been growing
slowly
during that last three hundreds years. The advent of electronic
technology
has explicitly provided the question of dominance and accessibility to
written knowledge, and it has made clear that this a key issue for the
economic and cultural development of nations.
From
this perspective to ask for the relations between Information and
Quality
means to ask for the ecological quality of the information field, for
us
the information-rich as well as for others, the information-poor. One
key
issue of an information ecology is to criticize this gap, theoretically
and practically.
The
powerful electronic technology has produced a change in the knowledge atmosphere,
creating regions of prosperity, but leaving aside vast amounts of human
beings in a high degree of ignorance and/or informational dependency.
The
gap between the information-poor and the information-rich, and not the
overproduction of knowledge (there can never be too much knowledge) is
the real information crisis we have to master. We, who are on the side
of the information-rich, must ask ourselves what we are doing, for
instance,
in preserving the information market to become a closed market, i.e., a
pollution factor for the outsiders and for ourselves
(Matthew-principle).
The crucial question is then not only the one of overcoming cultural or
linguistic barriers, but of facing the dilemma produced by new
forms
of information colonialism on the one side, as well as by the
possibilities
of scientific and cultural interrelations opened by this technology on
the other. The ecological challenge in our field is to find the right
balance
between overcoming and preserving or, in other words,
between
the blessings of universality and the need for preserving
plurality
(of cultures, languages, etc.) not only for its own sake (variety is
beautiful!)
but also because human problems and solutions always
arise
within specific situations and need specific deliberation.
Two
international proposals have been presented so far for a pragmatical
treatment
of an information ecology: the MacBride-Report and EUSIDIC's Codes of
Practice.
As
Surprenant states (17) one can approach the MacBride-Report
from opposite sides: a) as a product of the U.N. ideology,
particularly
in the field of journalism, or b) as an attempt to consider the whole
field
of information (and communication) not primarily under economical
(information
as a commodity) but under a global social perspective (information as a
social good and cultural product). From this latter viewpoint the
ecological
crisis in our field becomes manifest, as for instance in case of
problems
of autonomous communication and information capacities, of rural areas
without any technical and/or educational infrastructure, of lack of
paper
(and, of course, of any other kind of hard- and software), of one-sided
commercialisation of information products, of cultural and technical
colonialism
through the distribution of information products and channels etc.
In
the case, for example, of scientific-technical information this
dependency
can (and has) become dramatic due to the acceleration of knowledge
production
and of its distribution through electronic means. This leads to lost of
competitiveness, exodus of scientists, low level of education, and so
on.
The more information is produced, the bigger the gap. To this kind of
information
pollution we must add the question of contents, sources, distribution
centers,
fees, protectionist information policies etc.
In
sum, as Surprenant states:
"The
whole concept of "free flow" of information needs to be reevaluated
without
the present confusion and meaningless rhetoric. Free flow does not
necessarily
mean unfettered flow. There is a real need to identify the sovereign
rights
of all nations in the sphere of information along with a recognition of
the international needs for the collection, transmission, and use of
certain
categories. Here we need a great deal of discussion and compromise at
the
highest level of international policy making." (18)
In
this international and ecological context the problems of data
protection
are, of course, crucial. As we are rethinking our views on political
boundaries
with regard to air and water pollution, we must start considering the
question
of information pollution particularly from a cultural, political and
legal
point of view (dominance, manipulation, criminal actions). The benefits
and threats of the (mis)use of information technologies must become
part
of international (ethical and legal) deliberation.
EUSIDIC's
Codes of Practice are a product of the European Association of
Information
Services. Nevertheless they are, I think, an attempt to establish
general
or international rules for fair play in our field. Some of these rules
are the expression of ethical dilemmas, i.e., its application is a
matter
of ethical (and legal) control or deliberation. Viewing them from the
fact
that the information industry (databases, hosts, telecommunications,
electronic
hard- and software) is in the hands of the information-rich countries,
some of these rules are de facto one-sided: they presuppose an
ideal
situation of equal chances and offer a kind of Münchhausen solution
to the information gap, like a one-way bridge. Some examples:
- Database
and databank producers: (1.2) Items should be included in, or excluded
from, the database in strict compliance with the stated policy.
Selection
should not be influenced by economic, operational, ideological or other
such considerations.
- Host
services:
(2.2) No user should be denied access to any given host or the services
offered by that host providing the users comply with contractual
arrangements
freely entered and meet the necessary technical requirements in terms
of
terminals and communication facilities.
- Telecommunications:
(3.2) EUSIDIC considers that if data network services required cannot
for
any reason be provided by public Administration, physical or legal
obstacles
should not be placed in the way of other bodies offering to provide the
required service or services.
As
Neelameghan
stated, "equal access to information to everyone does not ensure equal
benefit to everyone" (19). Other dimensions (purpose,
user's characteristics, application environment, medium of information
transfer, quality, time of availability, cost of access) should be
therefore
ecologically considered, if we want to face the problems arising from
the
information gap.
III.
SOME PROPOSALS FOR ACTION
What
can
we do? I would like to suggest some possibilities we could pursue
further
more intensively:
- To
promote
(further) regional as well as world-wide discussions on information
ecology,
in order to improve the awareness that the trivial fact: we
all
live in the same one (information) world may become a real factor
for
national and international information policy. The problem of
"balkanization"
(Anderla) of libraries and information services is not only a European
but a world one (20).
- The
paradigm
of modern information technology is one (not the only!) factor of the
vast
cultural problem of knowledge storage and accessibility in all its
fields
and forms (21). The question is not how can we get
everyone to use a PC, or an international database or whatever, but
what
are the most necessary things to do in the information poor countries
and
how can we help them in order to promote their identity in the fields
of
information production, distribution and use (22).
- The
promotion
of the (European) information market is neither a surrogate nor a
substitute
for our own responsibility to creating forms of generalized social
access
to electronic information (people's systems), similar to the creation
of
public libraries during the last three centuries. It is necessary, I
think,
to imagine and test practical connections between the two paradigms
(23).
- Learning
how to use databases is not only a technical but primarily a problem of
social hermeneutics (= the ability to ask critical questions),
instead
of just believing what is written or programmed
or stored (24). Computer masking is a very serious
task as it establishes forms of social (pre-)understanding and
interaction
(25).
- Some
information-poor
countries will probably never be able to pay their information debts.
We must start a vast initiative for opening our knowledge stores
(not only the electronic ones!) through mutual giving and receiving
of information, of course - and not primarily money - as one
way to stop the emigration of scientists from information
poor-countries
making the gap deeper and deeper. This sounds utopian but maybe it
could
become (partially) true (26).
- We must
support all kinds of educational activities in order to increase the
awareness
concerning the dimensions of the national and international problems
and
opportunities offered by information technology to the socialization of
information.
- We
should
create international working groups in the library and information
science
field in closed cooperation with related fields (informatics, social
sciences)
in order to discuss these matters and propose concrete solutions.
Only
a
realistic view of the problems of the present ecological crisis in our
field, not the ideal (or ideology) of an information superculture, can
help, at least partially, to surmount it.
IV. FIRST COMMENTS
The
ideas
in this paper were discussed and criticised during the NORDINFO
Seminar.
I would like to thank all the colleagues who participated at the
discussions,
and indicate some of their theoretical and/or practical
comments.
- The
term information pollution
should be considered as the negative
side
of the information balance to be achieved.
- Some
examples
of information pollution are: wrong (or outdated) data,
incompatibility
of systems and languages, under-use of hardware, hacking, viruses,
addressing
systems to the wrong 'epistemic who', lack of responsibility of
software
suppliers.
- Information
balance implies: re-use, recycling, free-flow, intelligent systems
or, generally speaking, optimizing man's use of information and
knowledge.
- Information
is an artificial resource and it is basically social-dependent.
- We
should
try to think more specifically on the question to which information
ecology
is (or could be) the (or one) answer.
- The ecology
of the information landscape has to take basically into account the
managerial (or bottom line) perspective of
information. Handling
information like other goods (according to its 'exchange value') does
not
necessarily means to forget its social dimension. Different
levels
of circulation and different quality measures should be
integrated.
A narrow-minded economic view damages (in the long term) itself.
- These
ideas should be further discussed at the international level for
instance
within the FID.
Herbert
Kubicek made some written comments to my paper which I would like to
mention
briefly: a distinction should be made between data pollution
and information pollution - at present we have to face data
pollution
while many groups in our society do not get appropriate information; we
should stress the difference between information (and its production)
and
information technology - information deficits are not necessarily
surmounted
thanks to (more) technology; the (my) plea for pluralism is not
enough if we take into account the dimensions of subjectivity and
contextuality
which are the determinants of a pragmatic information concept.
The
question of power must be clearly addressed.