Vol. II: Shaping Information and Communication ... - IMA,ZLW & IfU

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These steps of running such global conferences on the Digital Divide are particularly
important in the light of a current internet user profile which shows the user to be
stereotypically 'white, western and wealthy' (Smith, 1999). For this to change, digital television
and mobile phones may have the greatest potential to support aspects of national and regional
development - more than Internet. Such changes may even have some positive impact on the
wars of this new century - once everybody can chat with everybody else. During this process
we may learn more about our differences of needs, expectations, habits and beliefs - how we
differ and at what level we are alike - as Boyne suggests (Boyne, 1999).
The strategies towards technology-based education may comprise to create new Global
Virtual Learning and Meeting Rooms which cut across cultures and social groups. For the
teachers it includes to generate more knowledge in educational methodology for the
responsible and efficient use of technology. It goes together with the need for continuing
education of teachers. Time, however, will be needed to allow people to get used to new IT
technologies. Furthermore broad-spread implementation of such new technologies is a
fundamental requirement of our time - e.g. to implement the KIOSK concept on a large scale
across India.
2.6 The Ethics of Multimedia Information and Internet-based Action
On the one hand, the storing, calling-up and exchanging of all kinds of data and pictures have
proven their importance and necessity in many fields of research, business, politics, education
etc..
On the other hand, there is the freedom of storing and sending all those information and
pictures which symbolise the harmful and abusive side of human life (e.g. pornography,
racism, violence and violent games, etc.). It is unethical to transmit consciously and
purposefully wrong and misleading information (i.e. misrepresentation of personal or group
identity). Through the mere existence on the web, these data transmissions pose ethical
questions to humankind.
There seems to be no easy way to control these information and pictures or to get rid of them:
we have to develop and to put into power, concepts to control their transportation into and
across the web - a global social and technical challenge. First attempts have been made by
business representatives within the “Global Business Dialogue on Electronic Commerce” on