What I want to do is to redefine, or recast the so-called 'Information
Society' so that it can be used in progressive and empowering ways. Indeed
whether it can be used at all is in doubt as it has become so sullied by its
current promoters.

The Information Society is often presented with grand and sweeping promises
of the revolutionary potential of knowledge and information, something akin
to when the dawn of the nuclear energy age promised unlimited free energy for
everyone: "So cheap it is not worth charging for" was the catchphrase then.
Thus the Information Society is a cornucopia of information and knowledge
pouring forth to everyone's door and living room, soon with unlimited
bandwidth and access. The small print inside begins to paint a different
picture and a different agenda. Out is talk of information and knowledge for
all, and in is talk of numbers of Internet users and of digital divides.

The brochure for the World Summit on the Information Society is typical of
this (1). The front page announces:

"El mundo moderno está experimentando una transformación
fundamental a medida que la sociedad industrial que marcó el
siglo XX deriva a gran velocidad hacia la Sociedad de la
Información del siglo XXI. Este proceso dinámico anuncia un
cambio fundamental en todos los aspectos de nuestras vidas,
incluyendo la difusión de los conocimientos, el comportamiento
social, las prácticas económicas y empresariales, el
compromiso político, los medios de comunicación, la educación
y la salud, el ocio y el entretenimiento. Nos encontramos sin
duda en medio de una gran revolución, tal vez la mayor que la
humanidad haya experimentado".

No false humility and no mean claim, one that could conceivably yield a major
boost to human rights and the right to communicate. Of course, while it
promises fundamental change in all aspects of our lives, it fails to say
whether that change will be for the better. Leaving that aside - I think we
can read the author's mind on this - inside the brochure we come to the
analysis.

The analysis comprises two graphs. One shows regional disparities in
Internet users globally. The second, under the title: 'Digital divide =
Infrastructure divide' illustrates that high-income countries have the lions
share of phone, mobile and Internet infrastructure. The implication is clear:
the solution to this problem, and the way forward to the Information Society,
is all about rolling out the infrastructure.

This tendency to reduce the issue of the information society to one of the
spread of telecommunication infrastructure is indicative of the main forces
driving the current notion of the information society - i.e. the
telecommunication and infrastructure industry. Our immensely enhanced
social, cultural and political existence boils down, it appears, to clearing
the way for private investment in infrastructure. This has been the way in
the 1990s with the G7 promises and their pilot studies for development; the
European Union's Information Society that failed to deliver on any standard
of universal service; the trumpeted information superhighway of the USA; and
most recently the G8 promises and the Dot Force: Big promises, a few token
actions, and the unfettered market.

Is this all we should really expect for human rights, and the right to
communicate, in the Information Society? Is this all the Information
Society amounts to? Is the revolution in information and knowledge over the
past 30 years and more really just about creating a new profit-driven
network? Or should there be something more going on?

From the 'Post-Industrial' to the 'Information Society'

To answer these questions, and to rescue the potential of the Information
Society, we must turn briefly to the roots of the idea of the Information
Society in the early 1970s and what was terms the 'Post-Industrial Society'.

In the early 1970s, academics such as Daniel Bell and Marc Porat began to
notice a few trends: (2)
* 'Information workers' broadly defined, were becoming the largest block of
workers in richer countries, overtaking the industrial worker - a 'knowledge
class' was emerging;

* Linked to this, an 'intellectual-technology' infrastructure was emerging
alongside the industrial technology infrastructure';

* More and more goods and products, for industrial and domestic use, had as
their core component packaged information. 'Pure' physical goods make up
less and less of total output.

The idea of 'intellectual technology' prophesised information and
communication technologies and today's global networks, then barely a glimmer
in Bill Gates' eye. . The effective use of mediated information and
knowledge also became critical factors for success in politics and culture,
as well as in the economy. Even our very identity formation and sense of
community were becoming ever more dependent on the information streams
delivered to us, and enabling us to interact.

Thus information and knowledge become the core dynamic of society, as both
means and ends. It follows that control over not alone the production pf
knowledge, but also the means by which it is communicated and mediated,
become critical factors. Whoever controls the networks of media and
communication has a strong grip on economic, social, cultural and political
development. Electronically mediated communication - radio, television,
electronic networks, with their huge reach and infinite mass reproduction -
become the primary circulatory system of the Information Society.

In the decades since the 1970s, the notion moved from the academic to the
policy domain. In the conservative climate of the 1980s and 1990s, the
concept gradually evolved (sometimes helped along by populist conservative
writers such as Alvin Toffler), coloured by the priorities of the powers that
be. In the policy mood of the times, the driving force was always going to
be profits, and a central strand the need to open new markets and wrest
control of existing ones from public ownership or regulation. Already, the
means and the ends were getting confused. So when the big money was in
television, television was colonised by the information purveyors. When
telecommunication became the major enabler of corporate expansion, the
pressure was on to eliminate all public ownership. With the Internet and the
new generation of information and communication technologies, suddenly the
'digital divide' became the flavour, and bridging it (profitably) became the
goal. This is where we stand today.

Yet ICTs, as well as other media, are merely the means by which information
and knowledge are transmitted. Although these means clearly gain prominence
in tandem with the growing importance of knowledge, they cannot be an end in
themselves - unless the intention is to gain control and squeeze every last
drop of profit from them.

Hence the World Summit on the Information Society brochure, and the sudden
jolt from great promise for broad human development to the narrow reality of
the building of a private profit-driven infrastructure.

The Key Questions

The real issue for human rights in the Information Society is the struggle
over the control of society's knowledge. While the 'digital divide' is real
and has real consequences, it should not distract human rights proponents
from the deeper issues, issues that will ultimately determine whether the
'digital divide' can meaningfully be bridged, or is just a useful slogan to
sell the market-driven world view. Questions to be put are:

* Who owns and controls information and knowledge? (Intellectual Property
Rights)

* Who owns and controls the means to transport and distribute information and
knowledge? (radio-spectrum, networks, media)

* Who can use information and knowledge most effectively to achieve their
aims? (access, skills, tools)

Posing questions like these can legitimately demand a broader agenda than
information and communication technologies for the WSIS, and embracing other
key media and the issues of knowledge from a human perspective. Though
failing to get the coverage of the latest G8 publicity stunt, the answers to
these questions are already with us, the figures counted and the analyses
done:

* In the ownership of knowledge, under the auspices mainly of the WTO, only a
narrow definition of intellectual property has prevailed, the western model;
there are hugely strengthened enforcement instruments and sanctions for
deviating; and there is a decisive shift in favour of knowledge owners, and
away from users.

* In information and knowledge transport and movement, there has been a
massive shift to private ownership of all infrastructures and media and great
concentration of ownership, and a virtually complete undermining of the UN as
a locus of regulation and control;

* And in terms of the capacity for effective use, the newer technologies on
which all the emphasis is placed, such as Internet and ICTs are, so far, most
effectively used by corporations, and by younger, English-speaking, white
males in urban parts of the wealthier countries.

There are thus a whole host of questions, questions that the corporations and
governments driving the current model of Information Society would prefer not
to hear posed, such as:

* Why is non-profit local radio not available to every community everywhere,
the cheapest and most accessible medium?

* Why is television virtually unregulated in terms of pumping out commercial
and consumer content globally, and dominated by a tiny number of companies?
* Why is information and knowledge ownership concentrating into fewer hands,
even the knowledge heritage of millennia being corralled into huge private
databases to be sold back to its creators?

* Why are intellectual property rights giving ever extended monopoly rights
to owners, and spreading into hitherto public domain knowledge?

* Why is the Internet becoming another arena for commercial exploitation and
repressive surveillance?

The Media Cross-Roads

As this conference says - we do have a choice. Indeed, we now stand at a
cross-roads of media and communication.

Looking down one avenue, we see a future Information Society in which media
and knowledge are privately owned by mega-corporations; where access to
information is based on ability to pay; where content is homogenised and
sanitised to suit the delivery of viewers to advertisers.

Looking down the other, we see an Information Society whose goal is to
inform, entertain, amuse, educate, challenge, provoke, enlighten and relax
people. Media where people can see themselves, be themselves, and ultimately
express themselves and interact with others. Media as mediation between
people and society, as collective spaces for creativity and expression, as
the core tool of a vibrant public sphere.

If we do not make a conscious and deliberate decision to act, the choice may
disappear - the second route may be closed off for the foreseeable future.
Current trends in global governance institutes and especially the WTO may
slam the door to any going back.

Thus, if we are serious of human rights in the Information Society, we must
consider what actions to take to ensure such a perspective prevails, and to
start our journey down the second avenue.

Some indispensable elements include:

* Rebalancing of IPRs back to users and public sphere, including creating a
more diverse regime of IPRs;

* Supporting the emergence, locally, regionally but also globally, of a rich
diversity of people's media, reclaiming the global commons and creating new
spaces for interaction;

* Building the capacity of people and communities from the ground up, with
diversity of content, tools, approaches, to utilise the technologies and
media available.

This is an Information Society that puts human rights to the fore.

-----

(1) This can be downloaded at: www.itu.int/wsis/.

(2) Bell, Daniel, 1973, The Coming of Post Industrial Society. Basic Books, New York. Porat, Marc Uri, 1977, The Information Economy, vol.
1, U.S. Department of Commerce, Washington D.C. Marc Porat.

** Paper presented for the Seminar: "Communication and citizenship", organized by ALAI, APC and APRESS at the 2nd World Social Forum.