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.