Professional Documents
Culture Documents
1/2, 2005 85
Joachim H. Spangenberg
Sustainable Europe Research Institute SERI,
Germany/Austria,
Université de Versailles,
Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines, France and
SERI Germany,
Industriestr. 15, D-32549 Bad Oeynhausen, Germany
Fax: +49-5731-981/96
E-mail: Joachim.Spangenberg@seri.de
1 Introduction
Frankly spoken, and directly responding to the title question, the answer is ‘no’. While
the term, information society, emphasises the increasing importance of information for
modern societies, its focus is restricted to information as such. It is decontextualised, and
as sustainable development is heavily dependent on integration and context, it cannot be
sustainable.
Information is raw or processed data, which can be interpreted by different people with
different economic and ideological interests, in different cultures and at different times.
However, what remains open is the question of what the information does, in fact, mean.
The answer is as ambiguous as our societies. As such, information has no meaning: it is
the social and cultural context, which gives information a meaning, transforming
information into knowledge and in the best of cases, into understanding. As meaning is
always generated by the context, stories and visions embedding data into a context can
have a meaning, but not the information/data as such (whenever we think they can, on
closer scrutiny we have added our own context, consciously or not, to the information)
(Funtowicz et al., 1998; Metzner, 1998). Taking the importance of meaning into account,
knowledge society would be a more appropriate term when talking about future
developments.
Whereas information can be standardised and globally transferred in less than no
time, this is not the case for knowledge, as the sociocultural context shaping the meaning
stays put. Meaning is valid in a specific compartment of society, defined less by
geographic than by cultural border lines. As a result, the same piece of information will
have a different meaning and generate a different knowledge for different people in the
same local community, provided it is not homogeneous in its culture (which is rarely the
case, as even different generations constitute different cultures in most societies). They
will – based on the best of their knowledge, their understanding and their legitimate
self-interest – give information widely varying meanings (most data processing is already
an interpretation) and/or ascribe to it differing levels of relevance (TV programs
reporting about the same event are an illustrative example of such differences). It has to
be emphasised, that this kind of diverging interpretation is not necessarily a sign of use or
abuse of influence, but rather a normal tendency in a pluralistic society and as such a
welcome sign of individual freedom of expression, a precondition for any open and
democratic society. Thus, a society which defines itself as an ‘information society’ is one
which neglects the context, the social mechanisms of providing meaning and as such is
not sustainable due to the lack of social cohesion. Consequently, as the neglect of social
context in the definition of an information society implies a lack of meaning, an
information society would be a truly meaningless society.
However, whereas the slogans used are often confusingly similar, the future knowledge
society will look rather different depending on the normative idea behind it – that is, if
developing according to a technology supply-focused or a demand-centred development
paradigm. Positive science, empirical research, can monitor the trends and allow
assessment of the impacts (which is important to track the success of policy strategies or
the lack thereof), but does not set a direction.
Regarding the normative framing of the knowledge society, two main concepts
can be distinguished. On the one hand, the (neo-) liberal attitude suggests that there
should be as little public intervention as possible in general, and into the development
and diffusion of new technologies in particular. Instead, the free market, plus free
expression of individual preferences, should be the institutions, which define future
trajectories for technology and its societal applications. The market, habits and individual
attitudes thus, define the direction of development and the necessary societal adjustments
and the mechanisms involved in this process. The state has to deliver the unavoidable
minimum of formal rules, which guarantee the undisturbed work of market and
communities; even for implementing market results and ensuring compliance with the
rules set, the ‘soft power’ of social control is preferred to the ‘hard power’ of government
interventions (Etzioni, 2004).
As opposed to this view, which has for long dominated the US political philosophy
(at least its applied segment), there has been a different perception in the European
cultural history: the market has been perceived as a powerful and indispensable
institution for optimisation, whereas the institutional framework (society, expressing its
preferences through the political mechanisms of the state) was considered
the main institution for defining orientation. Within this framework, the market
was expected to optimise processes and results, without taking over to define
the orientation (as the market is no conscious actor, the orientations it promotes would be
those of specific societal groups, anyway) (Spangenberg, 2004). The latter attitude is
reflected in the concept of sustainable development (little wonder, then, that it does
not provoke much positive resonance in the USA): society must define the desired
direction of development, and the market must deliver the demanded results efficiently.
This also refers to technology trajectories: while new developments cannot be predicted,
emphasis still can be laid on those kinds of efforts which intend to solve problems
defined by society (one key criterion for EU research funding) (Hinterberger
et al., 1996).
(and only there, not in real life). Thus, the other side of the coin, the burden of
responsibility even the weakest have to shoulder due to the dismantling of the welfare
state, is not taken into account when praising the additional liberties (such as reduced
taxes and less regulation).
In this context, the discussion about the knowledge society (or the information
society) has a number of purposes. It not only reflects the need to respond to de facto
developments, but also plays a role in designing the future society as it should be.
This includes the claim that knowledge is the key production factor of the future,
rendering labour and capital less important (and reducing the pressure on the
environment, if this is taken into account). This is taken to imply that the organisation of
labour is becoming less important as well, and that the responsibility of corporations for
the well-being, health and safety of their employees gives way to an individual
responsibility of the workers. Questioning power relations and ownership structures is no
longer considered an element of keeping a societal balance, but declared outdated in a
time where all this is not as relevant as the knowledge driving the economy. Another
downside of this attitude is reflected in the Programme for International Student
Assessment (PISA) studies conducted on behalf of the OECD. It is not the self-realisation
of citizens supported by education and knowledge that is aimed for, but the economic
usefulness of the education offered.
Secondly, knowledge is an individual good (although intellectual property rights and
database developments try to transform it into a commodity). If, however, an individual
good determines economic success, the responsibility also becomes individualised (thus,
delivering another justification for the basic approach of neoliberal thinking). Public
authorities can offer education, but the individual is responsible for the use she/he makes
of that offer, and the results she/he obtains. Again, the social conditions play no role, and
collective security systems seem outdated when everybody is individually responsible for
success and failure.
This applies in particular to the labour market: all those with the appropriate
knowledge are believed to find work anytime (the definition of appropriateness is no
longer an issue of what an individual wants or can do best, nor on what the society needs,
but what the market, i.e. the business sector demands). Consequently, those who are
unemployed are responsible themselves; not the lack of job offers, but their lack of
employability is the cause of unemployment, according to this diagnosis.
The unemployed are obliged to search for appropriate training, for lifelong learning,
distance learning and suchlike, and society has to supply such training opportunities.
Once they have been offered, there is no further political responsibility for poverty and
unemployment – the responsibility rests with the individual.
This admittedly rather pointed description illustrates how the concept of the
knowledge society can be interpreted and used (in reality, there is never a purism as in
the description above, but in the ideology there is). In this context, the term, ‘information
society’, has been turned into a political weapon (similar to globalisation), rather
independent of the real-world developments and of the technologies developed and
marketed in particular. Developed under this paradigm and implemented in this context,
the results of technology development do not necessarily contribute to social progress,
but can be a disruptive force for social cohesion if such a policy framework is chosen.
To the contrary, the short-term orientation and the mixtures of commercial, military
and other preoccupations that motivate much of the science-based technology
development are most often controversial from a sustainability perspective based on
peace, justice and environmentally sound development. There is an undeniable risk of
Will the information society be sustainable? 89
cohesion, freedom in an open and participative society and a healthy environment. The
three core imperatives derived from the problem areas are (Kopfmüller et al., 2001):
•% the environmental challenge: safeguarding the environment
•% the social challenge: realising justice between people, countries, gender, social
groups etc and reducing poverty
•% the institutional challenge: securing political participation.
An economic imperative is not mentioned. Instead, the economy is perceived as
Janus-headed, exhibiting deep ambiguities: it is a driving force behind most of the
problems, as well as a potential force for the better, contributing to the solution of
problems by creating enough wealth to solve them. Defining an economic imperative
such as maintaining an efficient and competitive economy is defining an indispensable
instrumental device serving the other imperatives, bound by the demands and conditions
they define (and not vice versa). As a result, four dimensions of sustainability emerge,
each permanently interacting and coevolving with each other (see Figure 1).
In a similar fashion, science and technology are increasingly recognised as central both to
the origins of the sustainability challenges, and to the prospects of successfully dealing
with them.
Facing the ‘triple P sustainability challenge’ of poverty, pollution and participation
deficits means that science must strive to understand both the natural and the cultural
world and the way they interact to help find ways out of the sustainability crisis,
including providing suitable technology options, where appropriate, to help solve the
problems identified. This includes helping to map out the choices society faces and their
consequences, while not confusing means and ends, that is, being clear about the fact that
the choices we face are societal choices, not scientific or technical ones. Such choices
must respond to the challenges mentioned before. However, these challenges are neither
based on one core problem, nor independent, but interlinked. They have to be dealt with
simultaneously rather than consecutively due to the very urgency of the problems. Both
these facts give reason to approach sustainable development as a dynamic optimisation
process across the four dimensions (social, environmental, economic and institutional) of
sustainable development. Sustainability research thus has to contribute to:
Will the information society be sustainable? 91
Sustainability science supports the quest for sustainable solutions in a complex world
characterised by factors, which may be generated locally, but with their impacts affecting
people across countries and generations. It cannot but be complexity science, dealing
with the interaction of multiple complex, dynamic, non-linear, self-organising systems
under conditions of irreducible uncertainty (Funtowicz et al., 1998, 1999) including and
building upon natural, technical, social and economic sciences; but it has to integrate and
reshape them to accommodate the needs of the sustainability paradigm. This poses
challenges for the analytical and methodological development work, including the
generation of appropriate tools for theoretical model generation and empirical analysis.
To do so, sustainability science has to explore new knowledge and effectively apply
existing knowledge, although in a reflexive manner (Beck et al., 1996; Giddens, 1996).
The effects to be taken into account will frequently emerge outside the individual
scientist’s realm and field of competence, making it urgent to overcome the old-
fashioned concept of scientific communication as one-way transmission of information
from experts to decision-makers and the public at large. Instead, the relevance of non-
scientific knowledge has to be accepted, as it is the knowledge about the context, which
defines the meaning of the scientific information (at least, outside the self-referential
ivory tower). As good science has always meant to get all relevant competencies on
board, the non-scientists are crucial for the quality of the process, as they represent
knowledge essential to the R&D success. Thus, the informal hierarchy of experts and
‘ordinary citizens’ is replaced by a user-producer-network of knowledge, in which the
roles of users and producers are permanently changing: every stakeholder becomes a
peer. In this sense, sustainability science must be post-normal (Funtowicz and Ravetz,
1993; Luks, 1996) public science, defining research questions relevant to society and
identifying solutions resonating with decision makers. The results must be reliable
enough for people to risk acting upon, and they must have immediate meaning to
decision makers in order to be applied in practice.
This reflects another aspect of the knowledge society: knowledge can no longer be
considered the property of the privileged few, but must become a common good, with
equal access to information and knowledge (this has implications not only for the
technological infrastructure, but also for education and training policies). A sustainable
society empowers all its members to make informed decisions, thus representing
an idea of the knowledge society going far beyond technical means of communication.
92 J.H. Spangenberg
quality the easier the recycling. This physical feedback is, like any feedback, a learning
opportunity for improving the products, at least as long as the producer is held
responsible for the efforts the re-user has to invest into recycling his product (Lorek
et al., 2002). This step, however, ICT seems not to have taken on a broad scale so far: the
new technology is based on the linear throughput model of early industrial modernity,
rather than on a post-fordistic reflexive modernity (Hildebrandt and Linne, 2000;
Scherhorn, 1997). The same kind of deconstruction of demand can be undertaken for the
social, environmental and institutional dimension, resulting in an even broader list of
knowledge sources and demand, dynamics to be taken into account and problems that
might be solved or created by different kinds of knowledge and their ways of application.
•% Take into account the issue of distribution of ICT among age and professional
groups, the special role the technology can have for disabled persons (either
further isolating them or reconnecting them to the social environment), the role
of gender and a wider range of problems that arise with a wide use of ICT, for
example, changing perceptions and the lack of social contacts.
•% Be aware of problems of participation in a technology-based society,
including formal ones like the limited role that employee rights play in the
so-called ‘new economy’ so far and the role trade unions can or cannot play
in this context, and informal ones if decision making is transformed to
e-democracy or chat-room decisions, as these are communication patterns which
extend the decision preparation process to a larger group, but tend to exclude all
those who communicate in a different manner: an attempt to de-monopolise
decisions could end up as an oligarchic structure, with those outside more
rigorously excluded than ever before.
•% Consider the knowledge necessary to use ICT and possible lacks in ICT
hardware and software design that hamper the use, but also identify education
and training needs and possible benefits in the educational system resulting
from the use of ICT.
•% Provide guidelines and frameworks on how ICT should be designed and
managed, to avoid new social exclusions or negative environmental
impacts.
Indicators are no end in themselves, they are purpose-bound tools to guide, support and
monitor decision making. Developing indicators for progress only makes sense once the
vision of a sustainable knowledge society has been formulated, which is not the case so
far. Objectives have to be defined, and indicators in relation to one or more properties
linked to these objectives. For example, competitiveness and economic growth are
strongly linked to innovations in the society, and active participation of citizens is only
possible when legal, economic, social and intellectual access to information and decision
making for all groups of society is guaranteed.
So far, no broad vision of a sustainable knowledge society has been suggested. There
are technology-driven outlooks neglecting the transformation towards sustainability, but
not even scenarios of a new knowledge society (as broadly understood as described
above) are available. Technology-oriented indicators are of limited usefulness in this
complex setting; with their supply-driven information, they might even distort the
development of demand-driven scenarios, as there are very
few indicators taking social objectives into account in combination with
technology-oriented matters. So sustainability indicators looking at social, economic,
environmental and institutional dimensions, although not designed for the special
requirements of the knowledge society, are the most appropriate starting point for
indicator development.
Will the information society be sustainable? 95
Despite the narrow scientific base, new indicators are a political necessity, on the
regional as well as on the national and the European level, to provide decision makers
with the best available information on the priorities to be set for unfolding the sustainable
knowledge society. To serve for policy steering, indicators should be readily
understandable, integrate the different dimensions of sustainability and the technology
challenge, and be used mainly on existing data to permit quick and cost-effective
calculation.
From the sustainability debate, a number of indicators are already available
(Table 1). They refer to the well-established four dimensions of sustainability
(UNDPCSD, 1996), plus, explicitly, to their interlinkages to the fields of policy-making,
where compromises and solutions have to be found beyond the partisan interests
dominating the four dimensions.
With only two key indicators for each dimension and interlinkage, the set of 20 core
sustainable development indicators presented in Table 1 describes progress in a most
systematic way. This one or a similar set of indicators would provide a useful basis for
long-term monitoring the progress of sustainable development on European and national
level: even if the main concerns change, individual indicators can be methodologically
updated or even replaced without changing the structure.
For the knowledge society, first the objectives to be pursued, and best generated by a
participative political process, have to be made explicit. Only then can indicators be
defined, structured in a similar fashion and operationalising the objectives for policy
implementation and monitoring. Some of the rather obvious and self-explanatory
objectives have to do with access, as access to all four dimensions is a critical element of
a dignified life and thus central to sustainable development. In particular, with the
transformation to a knowledge-based service economy, access rights become essential for
societal well-being. This includes:
The capability to provide and use infrastructure and content must be assessed by any set
of sustainable knowledge society indicators; therefore, two separate sets for knowledge
indicators and ICT indicators are suggested in Table 2. Regarding infrastructure
Will the information society be sustainable? 97
availability, the number of internet users could be reported, and as far as relevant the
number of telephone main lines available and TV sets in use (referring to the user ability
to engage with new services and technologies). The relation of the disposable income and
the cost of a computer represent the economic access, and the rate of functional literacy
(e.g. based on the recent PISA study on educational success) represents the intellectual
access capabilities. Institutional indicators for the right to access and the appropriateness
of the institutional system should be developed. The user demand (% participating,
annual turnover) for consumption electronics, information technologies, data processing
services and the penetration of telephony services may be useful indicators for the
demand for new technologies and services.
Table 2 Draft knowledge and ICT indicators for the sustainable knowledge society
Table 2 Draft knowledge and ICT indicators for the sustainable knowledge society
(continued)
Indicators such as the indicators suggested above are no substitute for clearly defined
policy targets as a result of the political process. On the contrary, they should reflect the
political will (as expressed in the objectives) and help in implementing it. What is already
evident from the descriptions of sustainability and the knowledge society is that there is
no one best solution or an ideal political instrument, but the need for a balanced and
balancing approach based on a mix of objectives, policies and instruments focused on the
aims of a sustainable knowledge society and open for the political/societal discussion
process.
Given the early state of the debate on measuring the trend towards a sustainable
knowledge society in an integrated fashion, these indicators are necessarily far from
complete or even final. Nonetheless, they illustrate the development principles and may
serve as a starting point for future efforts and improvements. In this sense, the
development of specific sets of objectives and their corresponding indicators represents a
first step towards a sustainable knowledge society, by providing a yardstick and a
measurement tool to measure impacts and changes against. Above all, however, it is
crucial for the positive outcome of this transformation that a clear vision of the
future society is broadly accepted, providing the framework and guidelines for further
societal development. In so far as the indicators suggested seem premature in this
respect, at least they provide an opportunity to thoroughly discuss the political objectives
to be substantiated to operationalise the orientation towards a sustainable knowledge
society.
In the discussion about the knowledge society, a plethora of positive impacts are claimed:
for participation (e-democracy), accountability, economic growth, peace and the
environment, reminiscent of many of the hypes and hopes caused by the introduction of
the telegraph in the 19th century. Looking briefly at the facts as far as they are known so
far, the situation is rather sobering.
100 J.H. Spangenberg
Regarding information availability, more than 90% of the population have internet
access today in most OECD countries. However, only a small minority uses
the information on offer to inform themselves about political and community issues.
Practical services (e.g. shopping, booking, time tables) dominate, plus chatting, playing
and downloading sex and pornography. This pattern rather duplicates the one,
which emerged after the introduction of private TV and seems to reflect consumer
preferences.
As far as enhanced social cohesion through electronic participation is concerned, this
tends to give a stronger position to those already involved in participation processes, thus
further weakening the position of those who have been excluded beforehand. This is due
to not only to a lack of internet access or electronic literacy, but can also result from
specific work patterns and stress levels (shifting workers; 2 × 2 households: two jobs,
two kids), from a lack of interest (in particular, among the low educated), and from the
communication culture. The latter point is of special importance, since it is characteristic
of educated workers, and of management staff: they do prefer brief discussions and quick
decisions to time-consuming deliberation processes and consensus development.
Consequently, they tend to quit participation in discursive processes rather early, and are
not among the standard users of communication platforms and other participation tools
offered. As a result, e-democracy turns into e-oligarchy.
For the economy, there are no doubt on impacts, but contemporary economics
is desperately searching for an indication of how IT investment improved productivity
outside the IT sector, with limited success so far. Although they will probably find some
impact sooner or later, the effect seems to be far from revolutionary.
For the environment, increasing resource efficiency and the accelerating trend
towards an affluent service economy are referred to as developments, which reduce
the burden on the environment (the environmental Kuznets curve hypothesis).
Unfortunately, empirical data do not support these claims. The service economy still
needs the physical infrastructure, and increases the level of mobility. Together, these
factors and the inertia of consumption patterns, unchanged by increasing income
(Spangenberg, 2001), keep the level of environmental pressures on a constant high level
at best (material flows), while, for other pollutants, it increases continuously (CO2
emissions) or even with accelerating speed (land use). Nonetheless the environmental
situation in the OECD countries may improve, since an increasing share of the impacts is
generated in resource exporting countries, mainly in the South (Giljum and Eisenmenger,
2003); this could be termed a ‘pollution export surplus’.
10 Conclusions
Unlike the information society, the knowledge society can be integrated into a
sustainable development strategy; there are significant possible synergies to be exploited.
However, this requires targeted policy measures, as the results of the current ‘free
running’ process illustrate.
However, in this broader context, the orientation towards a knowledge society will
imply a variety of changes in society, from the acceptance of different sources of
Will the information society be sustainable? 101
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