Summary

The Open Society Institute is an organization dedicated to the expansion of democratic access to information throughout the world, with a particular focus on those countries transiting from former communist regimes. The organization is part granting agency, part operational agency and part thinktank. In its role as a source of strategic thinking concerning the role of ICTs for facilitating the dispersion of information, it has developed a conceptual map of the fundamental dimensions of these technologies. These dimensions focus on the capacity to deploy content, tools, and networks in new and innovative ways.

Key Points

Traditional media information issues are often approached from a dichotomous position, through a content/infrastructure distinction. The OSI believes that this distinction is outmoded and not useful because it ignores some of the new and important social uses of ICTs. The alternative is the three-way division built upon the lines noted below.

Content: Information Chains – Digital media can act in a way similar to traditional media, as a one-to-many conduit of information and content, from producer, to editor to distribution channels and finally to consumer. However, this feature carries with it the intellectual property regimes reminiscent of traditional media. While this customary form of ‘publishing' will always be present as an avenue for experts to provide information to the masses, the new ICTs have the power to also radically reorganize these chains primarily because the marginal costs of making additional copies of digital information are next to zero and hence do not require the mass infrastructure of old media. The new ‘freeness' of information has potential that has yet to be fully realized for society.

Networks – Alongside the traditional one-to-many information functions of ICTs is the potential for lateral, peer-to-peer communication in ways that are far superior to the telephone or letter. But, ICTs also have the ability to facilitate widespread many-to-many communication, a network effect that allows for the instant and global linkage of like-minded individuals. These media forms have the potential to allow widespread civic networking and opportunities for the development of forums for dialogue that were previously only possible in physically contiguous spaces. And while these types of knowledge management tools are beginning to be widely used in business, their potential for society is far greater.

ICTs as Constructive Tools – The new ICTs also have the ability to go beyond communication applications and to branch out into the actual generation of information and new knowledge through advanced processing of raw data. In the past, this capacity was a scarce commodity requiring considerable human capital and labour, and was only available to those in the centres of wealth and power. Digital technologies and applications have democratized this capacity and allowed it to spread to peripheral organizations, networks, and even individuals. This ‘processing power', based on data mining, process simulation and visualization technologies, has the power to contribute to changes in the balance of social and economic system. And because of the improved accessibility afforded by many of the applications, the utility of these technologies has moved out of the confines of the research lab into everyday life.

This three-way distinction provides the groundwork for the OSI strategy paper that follows and that seeks to operationalize these distinctions in ways that can have practical and noticeable impacts on development, and the goal of a universal access to information.

Source: Open Society Institute, “Information Program Strategy 2001-2002” Discussion draft for OSI board, Budapest 7 March 2001.

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