[Air-l] Report from a conference in Berlin

[Jay Hauben]

Hi,

I have prepared a report from The Innovations for an E-Society
Conference that took place in Berlin. The report contrasts a bit
European vs American perspectives on the question of social shaping of
the future. I hope to interest you in the report by quoting here two
paragraphs from that report. The whole report can be seen at

http://www.columbia.edu/~jrh29/berlinreport.txt

"For a long time, in the US at least, the questions of social impact
and regulating commercialization raised in the book Netizens were only
minimally discussed. The situation now seems to be changing.  An
Association of Internet Researchers (AoIR) is growing with a strong
component of sociologists and others concerned with social impact.
Universities and colleges are beginning to introduce Internet Studies
degrees, with social impact being a key question. In Europe, it is
beginning to be realized that the project of European unification will
be profoundly affected by the social impact of the new technologies --
especially those of information and communication. An indication of
the importance being given to considerations of the vision and
precautions presented in Netizens was an international conference,
"Innovations for an e-Society: Challenges for Technology Assessment"
held in Germany in October 2001."

....

"Armin Grunwald presented the conference wrap up. He suggested
that a proper summary of the conference was that after decades of
deregulation there was a need for reregulation. Only then he
implied could the social shaping of the future that the
conference was aiming for be achieved. It was not, he argued, to
return to hierarchical decision making but to engage in social
dialogues with broad participation from all sectors. That would
require allowing enough time for broad deliberation and careful
assessment. Then a normative framework based on rule of law and
respect for human rights could emerge."


I welcome any comments on my report which will appear shortly in the
Amateur Computerist.

Thanks.

Take care.

Jay