Towards what knowledge society?

[Congress' Editorial Line]

One of the consequences the popularisation of information and communication technologies brought with it is the creation, during the last decade, of many neologisms and new expressions, which penetrated the language of academia, politics and society. The often announced new social reality has come to, in many different ways, refer to itself, multiplying the sensation of change possibly even beyond change as such.

Probably one of the most ambitious and utopian notions, which we have come across in recent years, is the concept of Knowledge Society. The discourse behind this concept, more wish-full thinking than analytical or real, presupposes that the new (?) highly technified society will result in a new way of production and evolved social life. In accordance with that type of discourse, once we left behind the industrial society with the smoky factories and the post-industrial society of consume and mass media, we will dawn into a new era based on the synergetic exchange of knowledge.

Leaving behind the more or less utopian proposition of that idea, it is true that we are dealing with an open concept, which can be discussed and changed on which we want to base our central and transversal debate of this congress.

The Congress's first objective is to question and analyse under critical perspectives that discourse. Discover its genesis, its development and implications for the different spheres of our social reality, that is, in politics, in economics and in our society. ¿Does the notion of Knowledge Society respond to an analysis of our social reality, is it a political tool or just another empty concept in the hands of the establishment?

The implications for the political sphere start, in the first place, with the public policies to be developed amongst which we have to highlight the application and introduction of TIC in Education or in the Public Administration, regulation of the new socio-technical space, the fight against the digital divide or the promotion of new productive activities based on this sector, amongst many others. A new space for political participation is opened up with the introduction of new technologies in this sphere with concepts like digital or electronic democracy. Nevertheless, considerations about a citizen's more active and participatory role have to be contrasted with the more and more efficient social control mechanisms and threats to our intimacy, which, maybe lead us towards a digital panopticum.
      Local, regional, state and international institutions are called not only to act in these areas, but also to think about their discourses and policies. We hope that this forum makes it happen.

The appearance of a new paradigm- or the breaking up of the old one- is determining today's economy. The economic globalisation processes and internationalisation of finances, the industrial outsourcing, new productive methods or new organisational business models, as well as the appearance of new tools for knowledge management are just a few of the characteristics of this new so-called knowledge economy.
      However, is there really anything substantially new in these tendencies? Up to what point is it little more than a restrengthening of the old capitalism, brought now to a macro-corporation, planetary scale and (finally) freed of any state and union control mechanism under which they evolved? Is it possible or desirable to regain that control? But how? What role would in these processes the technologies of information and communication play?
      There is a need and urgency to analyse exhaustively what there is behind these innovations, concepts and ideas.

Thirdly, the social aspect of recent events, for example, phenomena of spontaneous/instantaneous organisation of the so called civilians in the context of 11-S or of 11-M make it an up-to-date topic of social apportion of the new technologies. Situations like these serve as examples for all those that hope/d and predict/ed that we are/were not facing a mere (other) technological revolution but facing a revolution of the social technologies.
      The spectacularity and notoriousness of these social manifestations only confirm and spell out what was the footprint of the social sciences in the nineties, when new processes of social framing, creation and negotiation of individual and collective identities, establishing new processes and parameters in our social relations mediated by digital technologies, etc.
      And even in spite of these new notoriousness, the debate is kept open about up to what point are these social dynamics new or not, if they were or not more or less latent in our own society in which we live, whether there are or not enough symptoms to diagnose that we are at the dawn, not only of an economic production mode or a new model of dealing with politics/administration, but also facing a new social model. The so-called (new) knowledge society, is it really a new society? Maybe a new ideology? Or just a new catchword?

This chain of questions should be the leitmotif of this II Online Congress of the Observatory for the CiberSociety. A succession of open questions and of uncertain answers, which the more we ask them and looked at from a critical constructive and independent few point less will they fall victim under the inertia. The debate about the Knowledge Society is the excuse and the axis from where to start (or come back to) to think and discuss about the model of our society… Technified, digitalized, globalised and more unequal than ever… The blurred question mark with which we identify this call wants to become a provocation to reflection.

The CiberSociety Observatory thus invites you to debate this topic from a perspective which is multidisciplinary, critical and open, specialised or horizontal, in a format which proofed its fertility at the first edition of the congress towards the end of summer 2002. In this occasion our objective is to promote reflections by all social sectors, about the issue of towards what model of technological society do we want, or are we or do we want to advance.



Document prepared by the Scientific Committee of the 2nd Online Congress of the Observatory for the CyberSociety, April of 2004