Information society – a cultural view

The most used medium in our information age is the Internet. That gives us the opportunity to search for information, publish our thoughts, participate in the technical world and to communicate in multiple ways. And as you can see, I call it opportunities. Not everybody has got that view, including my father who is about 60 years old. I’m not sure he is representing his generation, but I know he is representing a lot of persons when I tell you about his problem in this Information society and Internet world.

A major part of the Norwegian people is watching the local news and the national news in our national channel NRK every night. So is my father. It is a part of his culture; it’s his way to get the latest news, besides reading the local newspaper. But lately he has got a problem which irritates him reckless. As the news goes on they are announcing horrible, thrilling and meaningless happenings from the whole world. And so; next case; maybe a very interesting subject. But what happens? They are only presenting the subjects heading and continues with: “You can read more about this on www.nrk.no ; case closed. For my father this is completely hopeless. It makes no meaning for him, and he really doesn’t want to get introduced for news he can’t reach.

My parents has got Internet in their home, and my father use both e-mail and net bank. But “sitting” on internet, surfing and searching for information and being a part of net societies is just not something he does. It is not natural for him; it is not a part of his culture.

When it comes to his problem with NRKs marketing of their webpage in the best telecasting time my father just don’t want to understand why. For him is directly broadcasting of news definitely the best, and if it was his decision, advertising would be forbidden.

As I said earlier I don’t think he represent a special generation or age, but I am sure he do represent someone. And I guess we’ve got a big challenge getting these people an included part of our Information society our information culture.

INFORMATION SOCIETY

When creating, distribution and handling of information is an important economic and cultural activity in the society it is called an INFORMATION SOCIETY. The community of 2010 is an information society because technology, computers and free world trade matters a lot and because the whole world is our marked.

If we look at social or cultural relations we can define the information society as a society where people from all ages and all social ranks have got equal opportunities to get information. All information is available for everybody. Internet is a channel for international mass-communication with an endless numbers of messages and receivers.

But… There is a but…
Access or not access to the information net can also create a digital divide in the community, as well global as national. Whether you have access to knowledge and culture is important for your social title and your opportunities for exploring things. Our government has been aware of this danger and in December 2006 the department for administration published notification nr 17 called “An information society for everybody”. This notification is mainly about how to get all inhabitants digital included.

It’s good to see that the government shows their understanding for the information society we live in through this notification. Still I think we have a long way to go before everybody can participate in the information society. Statistics Norway tells us how far we have come. 88% of Norwegian households got computers and 86% got internet access in 2009.


An interesting question following to this is how we use our computers and internet access. Do we only participate in social networks or do we use our internet connection to communicate with the authorities? According to Statistics Norway 81% of the internet users connect the public authorities through their internet. This tells us that there is still a long way to go before we have got “An information society for everybody”. You can read more about this and other kind of topics associated to ICT and internet at Statistics Norway

ICT in education

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rg11DmYDCnU&feature=email

Digging for the meaning...?

So far I'v been mostly philosophic in my blog and I've tried to make head of this blogging thing... Now I geuss it's time to start thinking seriously about our task in ICT 103.

More and more information, less and less meaning... II

I so agree on your comment on my last post Beata. We do live in media/ICT times and maybe it is possible to enjoy it. That was kind of my intention with that post as well. Maybe facebook and other network societies are more than simple entertaining. As a teacher I think it's interesting to see how people communicate in 2010. Our daily work at school is very much about communicating, geeting in contact with our students, reach them on their level. To do that we need to take part and we need to understand how this "ICT world" works. To be abel to give the students advices and support we need to be on the inside.

A resource in our classroom is about Literacy, which is the ability to read and write. That is, of course, elementary knowledge also in 2010. But is it enough? I don't think so. To be a social human beeing existing in the 21.century you also need other elementary knowledge. We need to learn how to read and create multimodal texts, which speaks with a verbal, visual and audiovisal language. And at this point I'm inspired of Beatas slide show about "Introduction to the concept of new literacies".

The last question in this post is; where is the connection between facebook and the fact that I think there is a need for New Literacies ? And my answer is; It is all about the way we communicate in 2010!

More and more information, less and less meaning…

I’ve just been on Facebook getting today’s “news”. A relative is watching a movie while she is eating kebab. A friend from childhood has been out walking in the scary darkness. Someone is announcing a party with a local artist next weekend. My friend’s sister is bored. A girl I know has got the flu. A man is announcing his divorce. An old roommate from studies is celebrating her sons 5.birthday and another old friend is SO tired.

And I think (today again) SO GOOD TO KNOW!!!

Tomorrow, and the next day and the next day… I’ll log in again and read the same meaningless bullshit that I really don’t want to know.

The reason?

Well… Is it only simple entertaining and updating?