Open AccessUniversalisation, Totality and ICT, or: Are there any reasons for demanding ICT-free areas?
Author(s) -
Jessica Heesen
Publication year - 2004
Publication title -
international review of information ethics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 2563-5638
DOI - 10.29173/irie255
Subject(s) - information and communications technology , information society , digital divide , normative , ideology , objectification , epistemology , public sphere , sociology , interdependence , cyberspace , political science , computer science , the internet , social science , politics , law , philosophy , world wide web
In the following contribution we will investigate the digital divide with respect to a philosophically andideologically founded concept of universalisation. The documents of the World Summit on the InformationSociety (WSIS) show that the creation of a global information society not only concerns a technical structuraltransformation, but also a technical implementation of a normative guiding principle. I will show thatovercoming the digital divide corresponds to the inner logic of universalisation as an ethical model ofreasoning. Furthermore, we will see that in reality this formal approach to reasoning proves to be a means ofrealising certain ideological perspectives. This interdependency of cultural dispositions and technicaldevelopments in the global information society will be shown in five aspects:• The creation of a global social utopia based on the concept of the information society.• The objectification of the concept of universalisation in information and communication technology(ICT).• The linking of global internet use to a normative idea of the public sphere.• The tendency towards totality as a problem of the public sphere and ICT.• Possible reasons for demanding ICT-free areas.