Distance Education in Transition - Master of Distance Education ...

"Information" and "Knowledge" - On the Semantic Transformation of Two Central Terms
Even a first glance at the summary overview of the criteria in which information and
knowledge differ shows that they are in fact two very different things. They deviate
from each other at 27 points. This of itself should stop us from claiming that the terms
are interchangeable and from continuing to use them as such. But if these terms mean
something completely different, it should be relatively easy to see more clearly what is
actually meant with the terms "information society" and "knowledge society". Only this
will enable us to answer the question as to which term provides a closer description of
the present structural change in our society and should therefore be given priority.
In an information society the digital generation, storage, transmission and multiple use
of information in many areas of work and everyday life have achieved great importance.
In this society a cognitive-technical complex of innovative magnitude and composition is
created and spreads with unheard of speed. It influences and alters most human
activities. It leads to information and communication sector being "turned into data". It
becomes an instrument of social control. It enables global interactive communication and
the globalisation of economic, political and cultural processes. It causes the development
of society to accelerate. As important concrete consequences of these processes new
forms of work, of learning, of cultural activity, of leisure and of dealing with everyday
problems come into being.
Because the term "information society" relates to the technical configurations and
processes referred to here it arouses the impression in mass consciousness that it is
practically value-neutral, because all technology, this is what many think, is originally
value-neutral. Just as we are unable to oppose the industrialisation that technology
brought about, this term suggests a certain progressive automatism, which no one can
check. The concept of the impersonal is also inherent to the term. It associates concepts
of a society in which communication takes place automatically within a giant networked
technical system.
Knowledge Society
In the "knowledge society" things are different. Because knowledge has to be acquired
through cognitive activity, with this term we imagine first of all the individuals or
groups of individuals who have acquired the knowledge and have this knowledge
available. They are what is important. The term "person" stands for the "I"-identity with
whose help the individual puts forward his or her wishes and interests in coming to
terms with their real and social surroundings. According to this, the person is "a values
and actions system organised in the individual" (Hillmann, 1994, p. 662). Knowledge can
therefore not be spread with technical media. "The spread of knowledge requires in
principle human actors, whereas the exchange of information can take place automatically
between computers" (Bruck & Geser, 2000, p. 33). The fundamental societal changes
therefore do not take place automatically as a consequence of technology but on the basis
of individual cognitive processes which end up in the decisions and actions of
individual persons.
The technical-instrumental character of the information society also has to be looked at.
The provision of all computers, all networks in this world and all rational processes
(software) developed for their serviceability, basically even the complete immeasurable
abundance of information that is stored with their help, would be to no avail if they
were not used for the production and use of knowledge in social circumstances. This
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