NEW INFORMATION AND

COMMUNICATION
TECHNOLOGIES, SOCIAL
DEVELOPMENT AND CULTURAL
CHANGE

Presented by M.HARRAG

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 THE UNITED NATIONS RESEARCH
INSTITUTE FOR SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT
(UNRISD)
UNRISD is an anomymous agency that engages
in multi-disciplinary research on the social
dimentions of contemporary problems affecting
development.
Current research themes include crisis,
adjustment and social change; socio-Economic
and political consequences of the international
trades in Illicit Drugs, Environment,
Sustaianable development

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 This era of total digitalisation of all forms of
information transmission has reduced the cost of
all kind of transmission: sound, text, voice and
image
The ICTs brought a lot profound changes in the

economies and societies of countries around the

world speeding the automation of work, delivering
global news and entertainment to vast new
audiences.

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MORE ADVANTAGES AND CHALLENGES
ARE BROUGHT TO THE FORE BY ICT:

ICTs create a cooperation among the

international community to defend human
rights and promote other projects of common
interests
ICTs are making the gap wider and wider
between the countries with well-equiped
technologies and the other less equiped.
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THE DEVELOPMENT OF
INFORMATION AND
COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES
The first phase (from approximatively 35000 BC to
Samuel Morses first telegraphic transmission in
1838) information was handled through recourse to
physical and mechanical power. Media for the
trasmission of information included fast-running
couriers, carrier pigeons, smoke signals
The second phase, following the invention of
electricity, electro-mechanical power permitted the
development of the telegraph, telephone, radio and
TV.

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 The third phase, the possibilities of electronics
were explored with the invention of the electronic
computer transistors, semiconcuctors and
integrated circuits (or chips)
The fourth phase in the development of

information and communication technologies is

marked by still further reduction of constraints.
Earlier analog modes of information handling are
being replaced by more powerful reliable and
flexible digital systems.

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THE NATURE AND ADVANTAGES OF
DIGITALISATION
Digitalisation is the process through which
information (whether relayed through sound, text,
voice or image) is converted into the digital, binary
language computers use: the information is
converted into binaries zero or one, yes or no,
on or off:
Through digitalisation, the capacity of communications
channels is greatly expanded.
Digitalisation considerably improves the quality of voice
and video transmissions

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THE PRINCIPAL CHARACTERISTICS
OF THE DIGITAL TECHNOLOGIES:

Convergence and multifunctionality

Intelligence smart technologies

Ubiquity digital technology is pervasive

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THE POLITRICAL ECONOMY OF
ICTS
After the Second World War,The military interests
and many innovations in electronic data processing
and telecommunication technology are the principal
incentives for the development of information and
communication technologies.(the Us Defense
Departments Advanced Research Project Agency
(ARPA) was created to respond to doubts
concerning the security of existing
telecommunications networks in the 1960s).

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DIGITAL TECHNOLOGIES AND
MORAL ISSUES
The adoption of digital technologies reduces and
practically illiminates the constraints that
previously controlled and disciplined information
conduct
Increasing volumes of personal information are
collected, stored and sold through vast electronic
systems
Teleworking is missing the necessary physical
supervision
Threats to the private sensitive personal data.

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 Employers and insurance companies may use these
data to accept or reject applicants.
Digital Technology creates transparent societies,
glass-house countries very vulnerable to external
forces that can undermine their soverignty.

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 DIGITAL TECHNOLOGIES AND
DEVELOPMENT
During the 1950s, more imprtance was attached to
information and comminications technolgies by the
developing countries to catch up with the most
industrialised countries.
Still these developing countries are concerned with
the availibility of techological products, rather than
with the more complex problems associated with
their political, economic and cultural integration(eg.
Morocco)

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 FUTURE TRENDS
Big companies: with the Software and hadrwares
started the first tendencies to make business and
control over the international economy.
But other nations were concerned about issues like
potential for cultural colonialism; this phase is driven
by a very strong fear of being left behind and cut off
from the emerging global digital highway.
Then educational facilities are brought to the surface
sience the ICTs can assist in the development; yet,
ICTs create a new sphere of crime.(Mexico and
everywhere)
ICTs become a must in the global information society.
They help Africa and others in the Decision-making.13
 DIGITAL DISPARITY
To bridge the gap between the information-rich anf
the information-poor the developed ones are ready
to help the integration of all countries into the
global Information Society, and to upgrade the
expansion of network.
AT&T Siemens and Alcatel invested in Africa
though looked at with suspicion.
Developing economiies need to engage in the
international institutions to get support for its
projects because it is no longer a local affair. It si a
question of to be or not to be

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 CULTURAL GLOBALISATION
Even if the developing countries are integrated into
the global digital grid, there is concern in many
quarters that the growth of transnational cultural
industries, as well as liberalization policies pursued by
such bodies as the world Trade Organization, may
reinforce current patterns of cultural colonialism:
A uniform consumer lifestyle is being aggressively
marketed across the globe.(Americanisation,
MacDonaldisation)
The global proliferation of standardized food, clothing,
music and television drama, as well as Anglosaxon
business style and linguistic convention, contribute to an
unprecendented cultural homoginization
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 This global proliferation helps US marketing as opposed
to the local culture providers
To encourage people to have angry feeling against the
invading culture
ICTs make of the world a victim of the consumerism
phenomenon
Adaptation of products to the market-consumers
culture becomes of great concern to the great nations.

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 ENVIRONMENTAL
SUSTAINABILIY

The mere deployment of ICT doesnot imply that the

society involved can engage in sustainable
development. ICTs can help in environment
warning systems to provide environmental
protection measures.
More productivity with ICTs means more toxic
pollution and more consumerism.

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 CHOICES FOR SOCIAL
DEVELOPMENT
Technocentric perspective: new digital technologies
create more choice for people in education, shopping,
entertainment, news media and travel The gravest
problem with the techno-centric perspective is that it
ignores the social origins of information and
communication technolgies. It suggests that they
originate in a socio-economic vacuum, and fails to see
the specific interests that generate them.

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The perspective of discontinuity.
The techno-centric perspective is characterised by a strong
emphasis upon the discontinuity of historical processes.
The process of social transformation resulting from the
interaction between socio-economic variables and
technological innovation in most adequately analysed in
terms of gradual change---electro-mechanical techniques
have been increasingly replaced by ICTs in the production
and distribution of industrial goods
American data show that industry accounted for 32 per
cent of GDP in 1947 and 22.8 per cent in 1990(?)

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 Even if one is sceptical concerning the supposed
discontinuity between industrial and information
ages, one cannot ignore the fact that the
proliferation of ICTs, as well as the increased social
and economic importance of information handling,
have an impact on existing social structures.

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UTOPIAN VERSUS DYSTOPIAN
PERSPECTIVE
On the economic level: ICTs reinforces the capitalist mode
of production with further control over production process.
In politics, more surveillance over citizens-home
individualization of information consumption.
In culture, homoginizing all ways of life in the mould of
MacDonaldization fragmenting cultures into
fundamentalism.

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 The introduction of the instrument of prospective
evaluation is defective: because we can not predict
the future of society on the basis of what we know
about the past since it is not a must and linear
process
(eg.in Anthropology: Eurocentrism, the evolution
from the primitive to the white man).
There is a flaw in the technology forecasting: no
social scientific theory or perspective on
technology and society that can predict about the
future interaction given the essential
contestability of theory in the social sciences.

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 It is imperative to move away from analytical
perspectives that are techno-centric and
determinist, that focus on historical discontinuity,
and that make unwarranted claims about future
impacts.
Policy-makers should design social and
institutional instruments that seemed required to
adjust the potential of digital technologies for a
full-employment future.
Digital technolgy has opened unprecedented
opportunities for the integration of different
components of industrial manufacturing, it can
link industrial design, manufacturing, testing,
marketing, distribution, repair and innovation.
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 There is a shift toward the pervasive application of
digital technolgies spawns a wide array of new
industries such software production, processing
services, time sharing facilitiesand electronic
publishing
Digital technology is used to sieve the views of
citizens in different social economic and political
situations like creating digital cities that form
virtual communities.
In politics ICTs is problematic because in vote

which is secret how can we make it safe and secure

if manipulated?

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 CONCLUSION:
AREAS FOR FUTURE ACTION AND
RESEARCH
the first area is concerned with designing
democratic and pro-active policies and programmes to
achieve the social development potential of digital
technologies
The second area of concern is centered around the
definitin of those social and institutional changes that
are required to maximise the social benifits and
minimise the social risks
The third area, the design and adoption of digital
technologies that strengthen sustainable processes of
social development
The final area consists of understanding what forces
shape technological changes and how these forces
interact by constructing the institutional
arrangements that orient technological change
towards socially desirable ends 25
THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION

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