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United Nations ICT Task Force Europe and Central Asia Regional Network Series 2

Journalism in the Information Society:

New Opportunities and New Challenges

Materials of the round table held at the Faculty of Journalism of the Moscow State University

14 December 2004

Moscow, 2005

The present Russian-English publication includes the materials of the roundtable held on December 14, 2004 by the Department of Journalism of M.V. Lomonosov Moscow State University and the Institute of the Information Society as part of the activities of the Russian e-Development Partnership and United Nations ICT Task Force Europe and Central Asia Regional Network. The discussion focused primarily on the problem of motivating the mass media representatives to actively participate and become stakeholders in building the Information Society. This publication is geared towards journalists and mass media managers and could also be of interest to a wide circle of specialists working in various areas of developing the Information Society on the national, regional, and international levels.

This publication is produced with financial support of the Foreign Trade Bank of Russian Federation (Vneshtorgbank).

UDC 070:324 (470:47+57)(082)LBC 76.01+66.2(0) С 58

Journalism in the Information Society: New Opportunities and New Challenges: Materials of the round table, Moscow, 14 December 2004 / Ed. by Tatiana Ershova. — Мoscow: Institute of the Information Society, 2005. — 184 p. (United Nations ICT Task Force Europe and Central Asia Regional Network Series 2).

ISBN 5-901907-12-4

UDC 070:324 (470:47+57)(082)LBC 76.01+66.2(0)

ISBN 5-901907-12-4

© Institute of the Information Society, 2004.

С 58

Publishing licence No. 0564 of 12.07.2001Phone: +7 (095) 925-42-03E-mail: [email protected]: A. LakhnoCover design: D. KapustinPage making: O. MakarenkoSigned for printing: 05.05.2005. Demy: 60.90 1 ⁄16Offset paper. Offset printing.Garniture “Sylfaen”.Conditional printer’s sheets: 11.5. Number of copies: 500.Manufactured in Russia.

Contents

Welcome Address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Introductory StatementTatiana Ershova . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

DiscussionYassen Zassoursky . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12Elena Vartanova . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31Andrey Korotkov . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42Tatiana Ershova: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44Andrey Korotkov: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44Armen Oganesyan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45Nikolay Deryabin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47Dmitry Chereshkin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52Tatiana Ershova . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53Olga Vershinskaya . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54Andrey Vaganov . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55Vladimir Polyakov . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57Ludmila Vlasova . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59Tatiana Ershova . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60Alexander Yevtiushkin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61Tatiana Zaretskaya . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63Tatiana Ershova . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64Sergey Shaposhnik . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65Nikolai Deryabin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69Sergei Shaposhnik . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69Alexander Yevtiushkin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70Tatiana Ershova . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70Ludmila Vlasova . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71Andrey Vaganov . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71Tatiana Ershova . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73Vladimir Polyakov . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73Yassen Zassoursky . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74Tatiana Ershova . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76

Additional MaterialsJournalist of Information Society – Ukraine’s National Program. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77Mass Media as an Effective Tool of Digital Divide Combating . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80

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Welcome AddressI am pleased to present to the reader another publication by the United Nations ICT Task Force Europe and Central Asia Regional Network, which focuses on journalism and the Information Society.The rapid development and diffusion of the modern information and communication technologies significantly influence all aspects of our life. These changes also impact the traditional mass media. The roundtable held on December 14, 2004 by the Department of Journalism of M.V. Lomonosov Moscow State University was dedicated to discussing these questions. This publication provides an opportunity to get acquainted with the roundtable materials. The event brought together leading Russian and international experts in the fields of journalism, Information Society, and the use of the information and communication technologies.The participants discussed a range of interesting issues in their presentations, including the factors of media-system development in the late 20th - early 21st century, new role of traditional mass media in the Internet age, emergence of new models of information distribution, mass media economy as affected by globalization, and global television. The majority of participants noted that one of the most challenging current problems of mass media development is lack of population’s access to the networked mass media. Developing universal public access to the Internet and to other modern information and communication technologies becomes the key condition for bridging the digital divide and building the Information Society.The discussion also focused on the issues of balancing the interests of modern journalism with the needs of emerging Information Society and mass media participation in promoting the concept of the Information Society.The meeting was held at the time of preparing for the Phase II of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in Tunis;

Welcome Address 5

therefore, participants proposed new approaches to solving the problems of the global Information Society. Today the specialists continue to debate the concept of the Information Society and its development stages. The roundtable materials contain original, tough arguable, ideas concerning these issues.I hope that this publication will be helpful not only to those who are interested in mass media’s new role in the emerging Information Society but also to those who are genuinely concerned about the future of the regional and global Information Society.

Andrey Korotkov Chairman of Bureau of the UN ICT Task Force Europe and Central Asia Regional Network

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Introductory StatementTatiana ErshovaGeneral Director, Institute of the Information Society Chair of Russian e-Development Foundation Head of Moscow Secretariat of the UN ICT Task Force Europe and Central Asia Regional NetworkDear colleagues, let me thank you very much for your interest to our round table “Journalism in the Information Society: New Problems and New Challenges”. This event is conducted within the framework of activity of the Russian e-Development Partnership (PRIOR) and UN ICT Task Force Europe and Central Asia Regional Network (UN ICT TF EuCAs) in preparation to the Second Phase of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) to be held in Tunis in November 2005.The organizers of the round table are active participants of PRIOR – Institute of the Information Society and Faculty of Journalism of the Lomonosov’s Moscow State University, supported by the Russian e-Development Foundation and the Foreign Trade Bank of Russian Federation (Vneshtorgbank). The results of the round table will be published in Russian and English. This book will be issued in electronic and printed form and will appear on several well-known sites – PRIOR, Russia Development Gateway, sites of PRIOR participants, which will be interested in presenting this material to their clients and partners in Russia and abroad.Our meeting is hosted by the leading Russian and international community leaders in the sphere of Information Society:Andrey Korotkov – Vice-President of Vneshtorgbank; UN Information and Communication Technologies Task Force Advisor; Chairman of Bureau of UN ICT TF EuCAs;Yassen Zassoursky – Professor, Dean of the Faculty of Journalism, Moscow State University;

Introductory Statement 7

Tatiana Ershova – General Director, Institute of the Information Society; Chair of the Board, Russian e-Development Foundation; Head of Moscow Secretariat of UN ICT TF EuCAs Regional Network.I would also like to introduce experts who participated in the discussion of urgent issues concerning transformation of mass media in the days of information processes globalization:Elena Vartanova – Professor, Deputy Dean on scientific work, Faculty of Journalism, MSU;Olga Vershinskaya – Lead Researcher, Institute of Socio-Economic Studies of Population, Russian Academy of Sciences, European Commission expert for Information Society;Nikolay Deryabin – President, Foundation of Information Technologies in Aviation and Rocket-and-Space Industry;Alexander Yevtiushkin – Head of Directorate of Innovation and Investment Projects, Institute of the Information Society;Dmitry Chereshkin, Vice-President of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences; Chairman of the Board, Russian National Association of e-Commerce Participants;Sergey Shaposhnik – Head of the Center for Computer Telecommunications, Institute of History of Natural Science and Engineering, Russian Academy of Sciences; Chairman of Committee on Information Society Monitoring, Moscow City Duma (Council).Let us return to the topic of our round table. Commercial nature of mass media, their participation in the market economy, in the system of industrial mass production, which streamlines production of media content, makes journalists forget about interests of the audience. How these features of modern journalism can be combined with the requirements of emerging Information Society? What international experience can be used for overcoming discrepancy of interests among different development societies? This is what is expected to be discussed today. But first of all I would like to say a few words about the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), which paid particular attention to these problems.

8 Materials of the round table held

I would like to remind you that the First Phase of WSIS took place in December 2003 in Geneva (Switzerland). It resulted in adoption of two documents – Declaration of Principles and Action Plan, which provide for extending cooperation in the sphere of information and communication technologies, bridging the digital divide between rich and poor countries, and creating open and clear common standards. I believe that these documents can be called a charter of the Information Society and an important step towards transition from the industrial society of the 20th century to the Information Society of the 21st century.Second stage of WSIS is to be held in November 2005 in Tunis; this event will evaluate the first results and adopt an amended action plan.Today we offer for your consideration new challenges and problems of the Russian journalism in the context of preparation to the Second Phase of WSIS. I very much hope that this event will be more than just information sharing, it will be a discussion allowing to develop interesting approaches and suggestions concerning the covered issues.But first of all we should say a few words explaining what we (PRIOR) understand under the term “Information Society” and its advanced form – “Knowledge Society”.At present there is much disagreement in assessment and definition of the Information Society. All leading theoreticians in the sphere emphasize complexity of defining it. To our mind, Information Society is a stage in development of modern civilization. Among its characteristic features there are:1) Increased role of knowledge in society (it becomes the main

renewable resource of socio-economic development),2) Increased role of infocommunications, information products

in gross domestic product,3) Appearance of global information infrastructure providing

much more efficient interaction of people, access to the world knowledge resources and satisfaction of social and personal needs in information products and services.


Very often Information Society is called Knowledge Society, and this is justified. Free dissemination of information and ideas led to explosive growth of knowledge and ways of using it for full-fledged development of individuals, communities, countries and regions, transformation of a number of social and economic institutions.Knowledge turned out to be the crucial factor of social development. For a number of developed countries – members of Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) the pace of basic long-term economic growth depends on support and extension of global knowledge base, which became possible in the Information Society. Today these countries develop their knowledge-based economies creating millions of jobs related to the use of modern knowledge in accordance with groups of new discovered areas and disciplines. According to the data obtained by the World Bank, in the recent fifteen years in the majority of OECD countries the growth of added value in the knowledge-based areas averaged to 3%, constantly exceeding the pace of general economic growth, which did not exceed 2.3%. The share of these sectors in aggregate added value increased in Germany from 51% to 60%, in Great Britain from 45% to 51%, and in Finland from 34% to 42%.Globalization accelerates these tendencies. Comparative advantages of national economies are less dependent on abundance of natural resources or cheap labor force and are more dependent on competitive application of knowledge and scientific innovations. Today social advancement is governed first and foremost by the process of knowledge accumulation, which results in capital accumulation. In OECD countries capital investment in intangible assets shaping national knowledge base, in particular, in professional staff development, research, patenting and licensing, software, and marketing is equal to capital investment in fixed assets, sometimes even exceeding them.Unfortunately, developing countries and economies in transition, including Russia, have not fully taken advantage of the Information Society. Generating and using knowledge, investments in science and education for lifelong development and raising of living standards vary considerably in different countries. According


to the World Bank, 85% of total world investment in science is made by OECD countries, 11% by India, China, Brazil and new developed countries of Eastern Asia, and only 4% – by the rest of the countries. That is why advanced economies created a favorable closed circle, when results of research investigations and professional personnel training ensure creation of new wealth which serves as basis for further support of science and education.Society that is not based on knowledge will soon lose stability and economic independence. Challenge of the 21st century is creating a single global society based on knowledge and aligning levels of different countries development. What we need now is a triumph of social over economic. It is a new moral imperative, which can help many of the former USSR countries to overcome crisis.It is a paradox: Russia, which is still looking for a way out of post-soviet economic crisis, has relatively good opportunities for Knowledge Society development. Our country has a modern satellite communication system, a vast intellectual potential accumulated by researchers, engineers and programmers, it has necessary telecommunications equipment. Telecommunications sector, information services and content market are developing at high pace; the number of office and home computers is growing. Mobile telephony is sky-rocketing. The level of education necessary for transition to the Knowledge Society is still high, at least, in administrative and industrial centers. Students, pupils and active professionals form the basis of new media world. Private business (especially banks and companies in the service sector) has become the most active force using and promoting ICTs. Even governmental structures promulgate openness of e-Democracy and e-Government actively using Internet in executive and legislative processes and laying the basis for a new political infrastructure.However, Russia still has no “network culture” – a particular type of relations between different social actors. Neither Russian politicians, nor business elite expressed willingness to abandon authoritarian forms of social interaction and psychology so that horizontal type structures could appear in social and economic relations. Dissemination of intellectual resources and social communication is still carried out according to old hierarchical


structure, and only a small part of Russian society can gain direct advantages from ICT, Internet, mobile telephony and digital services sector development.The problem of digital divide is relevant even for advanced countries. But it is most evident in post-socialist Russia. This is understandable: economic instability has created significant social stratification and inequality among people that traditionally belonged to one social group. It is necessary to resolve problems of new divides, since global and equal access to ICT is viewed in WSIS documents as both an instrument for economic growth and indicator of social justice and modern efficient tool of governmental administration. Digital divide is the main hindrance and challenge, which should be overcome if Russia is to survive, renovate, recover and restore its power.However, in the current environment bridging the digital divide cannot be done only by counteracting social problems. Harmonious Information Society based on knowledge is a social perfection, which can be attained only by comprehensive measures. That is why any national program of transition to the Information Society should include several components. I will not dwell on this subject, as it was fairly well covered in media. I would like to remind you once again: since many problems of the Information Society were left behind in the documents adopted in Geneva, they should be considered at the Second Phase of WSIS in Tunis. We should be ready to do that, today we should not only try to find theoretical solutions but suggest real ways for determining aims and objectives of journalism in the Information Society.

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DiscussionYassen ZassourskyProfessor, Dean of the Faculty of Journalism, Lomonosov’s Moscow State UniversityI would like to dwell on two major issues. The first one concerns factors influencing emergence of the 21st century media systems. The second issue deals with the problems raised by the World Summit on the Information Society.Let us start with the factors. Early 21st century witnessed new changes in the process of development of information and communication structures bearing great influence on media systems. Wireless Internet access and mobile telephony are key elements in the recent tendencies that were taking place in media systems in the first four years of the new century.The most crucial aspects governing ways of mass media development in the late 20th century were digitalization, globalization and convergence with the Internet, which became the major integrating factor. Important innovations entered the new century: mobile telephones started demonstrating their integrating and converging potential, which can make them an important element of information space – as a counter to or in addition to the Internet. Global television revealed possibilities for competition in news and international relations coverage, especially in the sphere of economy and finance.The history of communication systems depends minimum on six major factors – information requirements, communication strategy and technologies, social, political, economic and cultural requirements.Need in information made leaders of ancient tribes send messengers and forced Roman emperors and caliphs establish efficient postal and travel systems; Guttenberg’s printing revolution opened a new era of periodicals; social needs and political conflict in the French kingdom made Louis the Thirteenth start issuing “Gazette”;

Discussion 13

economic and financial needs of the Fugger family contributed to evolving periodical press in Germany; freedom of press, growing number of literate people in England formed audience for the British press of the 18th century and created social sphere contributing to the civil society development.Technological realia created possibilities for further development of mass media, in the meantime political and economic conditions, culture, social and communication needs dictated the content of journalist production – news, commentaries, advertising, entertainment, and sports.During the recent four centuries media systems were developing under the influence of changes the audience was undergoing and its ways of consuming information. These ways can be subdivided into four categories in accordance with methods and habits of using mass media: individual in 17th-19th century – reading newspapers and magazines in accordance with personal taste of the family during morning coffee or supper, in cafes and offices; individual and collective in the first half of the 20th century – reading selected issues in the morning and evening was complemented by regular visits to the cinema, watching films and chronicles and listening to the radio.In the second half of the 20th century watching television in the family circle in the evening becomes the dominating way of consuming media production. Instead of press, which is to a certain extent oriented at individual taste, television aimed at mass audience, mass consumption, thus creating mass culture and contributing to the emergence of mass society.Thus, in full accordance with the Latin proverb “veni, vidi, vici” television came, launched TV show and for a certain time held attention of the audience and advertisers. Mass media conquered audience on the global, regional and local level and to a certain extent became symbol of the 20th century and mass consumption society.Development of mass media made it a major force in the sphere of rapidly developing service economy and leisure sector – sports, mass culture, entertainment and tourism.


Advertising strategy led to reduction of education and information side of commercial television. Public television, which was intended to follow the principles claimed by the first General Director of BBC John Reith as informing, entertaining and raising awareness, at present coexists in the majority of European countries with commercial TV companies in accordance with the so called dual formula and experiences economic difficulties.In the late 20th century Internet gave access to information, but digital divide is still a constraining factor for a considerable part, to be more exact, for the majority of the world population.It would seem that Internet made its contribution to the new structure of mass media by providing access to broadcasting and printed mass media, as the majority of them has an online version now. This convergence promotes public access to mass media, but digital divide is still the major barrier.The main consequence of Internet expansion is change in the ways of receiving information. By the end of the 20th century these ways to a great extent reduced to individual use of information production. Some experts (e.g., Alvin Toffler), declared the beginning of mass media demassification; however, analysis of Internet resources consumption in crisis situations shows that the majority of users turn to the sites of online media in such circumstances. Thus, these media sources retain the leading role in the information space in terms of news interpretation and analysis.In the late 20th century Internet became an integrating structure for media systems. In the recent decade global television seemed to be an indisputable monopoly of CNN and became another important way of disseminating information. Explosive development of mobile telephony in the early 21st century marked the beginning of a new era in communications.Thus technology played the key role in changing ways of receiving information and using mass media.The major challenge to the Internet-centered communication structure is presented by mobile telephones, which have the advantage of providing two communication services simultaneously – access to mass media content and transmission of

Discussion 15

this content, which make them really interactive. In the course of Iraq war mobile telephones proved their unique efficiency. They brought a convenient way of receiving information. Appearingly, mobile telephone is most likely to become a new information medium and a way to overcome the digital divide. Another challenge is presented by demonopolization of global television networks. Arab global television network Al Jaseera tried to compete with CNN in covering the second Iraq war. Due to such networks as “Euronews”, “Deutsche Welle”, BBC and TV-5 global television became more pluralistic, thus undermining the monopoly of CNN.Demonopolization of global television opened new ways for development of pluralistic media structures driven by public interest. Relations between global, regional and national media systems became another important factor of developing new ways of pluralism in media structures based on new technologies. This sets the key problem of modern development of new media: access to Internet, new information media and mobile telephones.The first three years of the 21st century marked the beginning of a new era in communications. The number of mobile telephones in the world reached 1.3 billion, which means that at least every sixth person in the world has a mobile phone and uses it – as compared to every tenth having Internet access, which makes mobile divide less significant as compared to digital divide. Taking into account the possibility of wireless access to the Internet from mobile phones, why shall we not consider them a way of bridging the digital divide?Another factor to be mentioned here is demonopolization of global television broadcasting. Al Jaseera opened a new stage in the development of satellite television by joining the elite club of global broadcasting dominated by English-American companies CNN and BBC World. As apart from satellite TV companies, which have shortly entered the satellite information market, such as French TV-5 and German “Deutsche Welle” or other American and West-European TV networks undermining domination of Anglo-Saxon companies, Al Jaseera presented an alternative view of the state of affairs in the world, representing position of Arab states.


After centuries of debates on the New world information and communication order the developing countries got a possibility to express their opinion via Qatar satellite TV network, which challenged CNN’s domination in covering military operations in the course of the second Iraq war. On the whole Al Jaseera successfully competed with CNN and managed to become and important player on the information market.Both CNN and Al Jaseera are private companies, and each of them clearly shows their national identity and adherence to national interests. Of course, both CNN belonging to megacorporation

“Time Warner” and BBC, which is a public corporation, face considerable difficulties when they try to prove their impartiality and independence to gain trust on the global level. However, national interests of USA and Great Britain often outbalance professional objectiveness or cause conflicts, which can be seen from the opposition of BBC and the British government that led to the death of Dr. Kelly.Internet also plays an important role in the process of demonopolization of the global television. All satellite networks are represented in the Internet, where they give news on several other languages besides English. Moreover, almost all nationwide TV networks are represented in the Internet, which enhances competition with the global networks. Internet versions have the advantage lying in the possibility to provide necessary news at users’ request on their native language.Another favorable factor for national networks struggling for audience is the way of representing news in accordance with local tastes and habits, while foreign accent of global TV channels can meet resistance in the audience. Thus, it becomes clear that global TV broadcasting should be at least partially nationally colored. Another solution is internationalization of satellite broadcasting which can lead to the creation of worldwide public information service.Let us view another example of traditional media transformation: is “Euronews” an international broadcasting network or public broadcasting service in the information space? This channel has recently celebrated its tenth anniversary – initially it was a regional satellite news service broadcasting over the EU countries on seven

Discussion 17

languages – French, English, Spanish, German, Italian, Portugal and Russian. Today total size of its audience, including the Russian one, exceeds 600 million people, and we should mention re-broadcasting the channel’s news to Brazil and other countries populated by descendants of Europeans speaking European languages. The advantage of this channel over CNN and BBS in continental Europe lies not only in multi-language broadcasting, but also in its particular format of representing information.

“Euronews” are traditionally accompanied by voice-over narration – without participation of reporters, speakers or commentators. This is the channel’s policy. To a certain extent “Euronews” is a TV network without journalists. This is the result of creating a supranational channel aimed at strengthening supranational essence of the whole network for representing common opinions of EU member states on different events. This is also a way of eluding pressure from particular representatives of the European Union and gaining higher level of solidarity. This does not mean that differences in positions of various countries are not represented by “Euronews”; the channel has been demonstrating them by broadcasting speeches and debates in Europarliament and countries’ legislative authorities, and dedicated a lot of news items to that. But all the channel was giving were facts without expressing editorial’s point of view. Thus it represented all multiplicity of EU countries’ viewpoints without taking any particular side, even when controversies and discussions were heated and even scandalous, as in the case with anti-German philippics of Berlusconi. Both Berlusconi’s attacks and Schroeder’s sarcasms in return were fully covered, as the following international debates, but the channel refrained from expressing its point of view on the current issues.

“Euronews” is broadcasting as an integral supranational media structure supporting and promoting European values and at the same time representing multitude of opinions and positions of different European countries without taking any position on any subject; thus, the channel reaches high level of objectiveness, independence and equidistance from individual interests of

“Euronews” consortium member states, irrespective of the size of their territory, population and level of economic development.


Covering international events, “Euronews” demonstrated really international or supranational approach, as distinct from CNN and BBC World, which always clearly show their national belonging – American or British one.BBC World is an international subdivision of BBC – public broadcasting corporation. “Euronews” was established by European public TV companies, therefore, it can be seen as an international public broadcasting company. Yet the difference between BBC and

“Euronews” is evident. BBC evidently demonstrates its nationality. Although the corporation broadcasts in different regions, everything points at its British origin – language, management system and the style of presenting information. Since BBC is not financed by advertisements, it is not a commercial corporation and in this connection it is a public association in Great Britain and a part of British civil society, but outside the United Kingdom BBC is viewed only as a British foreign global broadcasting network.But could there be a public broadcasting service on a global level? The answer in the majority of cases would be negative for a number of reasons. Although all three TV networks – “Euronews”, CNN and BBC World – claim that they act in accordance with public interests or, in our case, with the aim to give better understanding of international problems and achieve better objectiveness, and they manage to reach these objectives with different degree of success.However, CNN is a private commercial organization which refuses to call itself a public organization even trying to prove its impartiality. This makes it very different from the BBC World, which is a public organization expressing the point of view of the British public only. “Euronews” is very close to becoming a really international public broadcasting service, it is not a commercial channel, and the share of advertising (bearing largely cultural character) is insignificant; the channel doesn’t have clearly expressed national identity and predilections, it promotes civil society in Europe thus creating conditions for ultimate formation of public sphere in the European Union. Moreover,

“Euronews” is a unique example of international broadcasting free from national or regional predilections which can be of great help for the broadcasting community on the global level.

Discussion 19

However, the weakest point of the channel is absence of public debates and discussions, interactivity which is necessary for a public broadcasting service and developing of European public sphere. “Euronews” is a regional broadcaster, however, it makes an important precedent – a channel is turning into an international structure broadcasting international news for international audience of the 21st century, while CNN and BBC World remain national broadcasting companies presenting news for the global audience. The working range of two Anglo-Saxon broadcasting companies is global, but their vision is highly national.France entered the scene with a global Francophile television integrating governmental and private channels TF-1, Antenne-2, TV-5, which contributes to undermining Anglo-Saxon satellite television monopoly and extending linguistic diversity of satellite television. The only global media sphere retaining monopoly of the English language is newspaper. All four global daily newspapers – the International Herald Tribune, the Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times and the USA Today are issued in English.An important place in the developing global media structure is obtained by financial-economic TV networks like Bloomberg and CNBC, and printed publications – the “Financial Times” and the

“Wall Street Journal”.Moreover, economic news become of primary importance in traditional international TV networks – CNN, BBC World and

“Euronews”. The growing level of competition for influential European market made “Financial times” appear in German language as well. As for the “Wall Street Journal”, one the one hand, it has reorganized its European publication in accordance with Europeans’ tastes, on the other hand it has created a joint enterprise with the “Financial Times” – a newspaper “Vedomosti” published in Moscow in Russian.There was also an attempt to combine economic information services in the Internet and television. Moscow information agency RBC (RosBusinessConsulting) opened a satellite channel under the same name. It turned out that television, although it concedes to the Internet in terms of the speed of economic information reception by users, is superior in terms of quality and efficiency


of recommendations and analysis broadcasted online by economic, financial and share experts.Fast dissemination of global financial information is the most crucial achievement of the emerging global Information Society and shaping global media structure, reflecting dramatic influence of the world economic and financial system globalization. Shaping of the global international space continues; it was initiated by appearance of telegraph agencies in 1840-ies. Newspapers that subscribed to receiving news from three largest information agencies – Reuter, the Havas and Wolf – could use the data they received to cover events almost in all large countries and large financial markets, especially after transatlantic cables connecting America and Europe were set to full operation in late 1870-ies – early 1880-ies. The second stage of international information space development started in late 1890-ies with the appearance of cinematography, which integrated moving world objects from different countries and text information received by press. At the same time the structure of information distribution also extended: the first channel – newspapers – was supplemented by documentary films.Development of radio – from radiotelegraph to radio telephone and appearance of first information radio broadcasting in the late 1920-ies marked the third stage: news gained voice. Radio became the third major element of the information structure in 1930-1950-ies. Moreover, it played the key role in the Second World War and subsequent information wars.A new, fourth major channel of mass information opened in the late 1940-1950-ies: television broadcasting became the most influential and fast-spreading mass media. Such four-component structure of the information sector was dominating in the information sphere until mid-1990-ies.Olympic games in Tokyo marked a new stage of international infospace development. Global coverage of the Olympics by satellite television allowed people from all continents to follow various competitions simultaneously, which meant appearance of the global information space, and TV networks were its main element. Global information space comprised not only global

Discussion 21

television companies, but global radio stations broadcasting across the world and newspapers as well.Internet became a new information medium and a new global information space, integrating six mass media channels – press, cinema, radio, television, telephony and online media. It launched the second stage of the global information system development. Internet develops a comprehensive integrated global and at the same time nationally fragmented information and communication system, which can comprise individual sites accessible throughout the world.Structure of mass media on the threshold of the 20th and 21st century, based on Internet, paves the way to the Information Society, where access to all types of information is simplified depending on the presence of computer and access to the Internet. Digital divide becomes a barrier, hindrance in using the potential of new information technologies.Development of universal public Internet access and access to other new communication technologies becomes a crucial aspect in overcoming different levels of information poverty. One of possible solutions to this is a new Wi-Fi technology and mobile phones.Mobile phones are one of the most useable and economically viable ways to achieve aims of the universal public access. Mobile phones reduced gap in access to new mass media at least in two countries – in Russia and China. In Russia the number of mobile subscribers is at least three times greater than the number of Internet users, in China – five times (about 270 million of mobile subscribers and 50 million Internet users).New and old providers of content for new and conventional information media cannot satisfy growing demand stimulated by the diversity of mass media and speed of information delivery to the user. Texts of online media versions – newspapers, magazines, radio and TV – make the larger part of Internet content. The same function to a greater extent is fulfilled by information agencies, which have undergone dramatic changes – in addition to news content of analytical data they satisfy demand in a number of content types: statistic data, diagrams, stock exchange indexes, financial, economic, technical and scientific information, news


in the sphere of culture, literature, music, theatre, cinema and sports. As the result agencies have considerably increased their volume and share in satisfying public interest.At the times of MacBride report mass information industry was largely divided into two sectors: first – channels provided by journalist and information products (press, radio, television), and the second – content production (news, analytical reviews and reports, commentaries by leading journalists, politicians and other celebrities, advertising, different materials prepared by PR companies, animated cartoons, photographs, etc, which has been filling empty space in newspaper and its supplements to the present time).In the beginning of the 21st century this sector turned into a new key content industry; alongside with the mass information industry it turned into a major global economic power integrating and turning mass media, mass culture, entertainment and sport into infortainment and telecommunications complex paying almost all attention to leisure and spare time and bringing huge income. Content industry provides preservation and accessibility of printed, audio, visual and electronic resources and all other segments of this crucial sector of the modern global economy.Traditional information agencies, reorganizing their activity in order to serve large numbers of new clients, became an important element of content industry; but convergence has become even more important by allowing advertising and PR companies that act in close cooperation to adapt their multiple services to new carriers; moreover, convergence involves Internet sites of research institutions, television makers, consultants and specialized databanks as content resources. Convergence today is the core of the most crucial transformations in the content industry, while Internet is its main storage.Global news traffic and global models of mediators in the process of news delivery to continental, regional, national and local markets differ. Development of world communications parameters depends on many factors – the state of economy, technologies, culture, traditions and geographical position. Of course, the level of technological penetration becomes crucial in the majority of cases in determining the character of communication realia,

Discussion 23

which are the key factors in division into those who are rich in information and those who are poor in information. Technological process is so fast-moving that every three years it changes the balance in access to communication. That is why it is so difficult today to classify models within the continent limits, although historically developed forms of communication play the most long-term role. Thus, continents and their models can be subdivided into traditionally developed Europe and Asia, relatively recently developed Americas and Australia, and Africa which has just started its independent path.As a matter of fact, every continent has countries and regions within countries that are rich or poor in information, with the exception of Australia – this continent is likely to be the most homogenous part of the world in terms of access to new information, communication technologies and social structure.American model. The United States of America have the largest transnational telecommunications corporations and established the most influential model in the Western Hemisphere. Internet and other new information and communication technologies play the key role in the country’s economic progress, while Internet gives additional advantages to the American communications media system.Americans are not so a reading nation as they are viewers. That is why the main source of daily news for them is television. The number of newspapers and their audience are constantly reducing, almost half of population does not receive daily newspapers. Besides, newspapers are decentralized and largely bear local character. “New York Times” is mainly targeted at New York, “Los Angeles Times” – at Los Angeles region, “Washington Post” – at the district of Columbia and neighboring states. Three most widespread newspapers – “Wall Street Journal”, “USA Today” and “Christian Science Monitor” have a large but select audience and evidently differ from typical American daily newspapers in terms of both advertising and news coverage.Internet access is based on citizens’ private efforts and is mainly achieved due to perfectly developed cable systems. Mobile telephones, as distinct from Europe and Asia, where SMS are


widely used for interpersonal communication, are mainly used for voice communication and mobile access to the Internet.The structure of American mass media and communications is closely related to the USA-developed Internet and America-based owners of global media – CNN, CNBC, “Bloomberg Television”, and the newspapers “International Herald Tribune”, “Wall Street Journal” and “USA Today”. This is the major part of the global media structure that supplies national and local markets and global communication system.Latin-American and Canadian models have close relations with their former colonizers in Europe – Great Britain, Spain and Portugal, and their continental neighbor – USA.European media structures. Regional European organizations – Council of Europe and European Union – have developed common principles of communication and media policy providing public access to television and new communication and information technologies. They comprise public broadcasting services and universal Internet access, as well as new information and communication technologies with secured governmental support.Until mid-1980-ies public broadcasting service dominated in the European broadcasting; however, growing production expenditures made European countries open the way for private broadcasting that provides access to information, education and children’s programs. At the same time profits from private broadcasting in some cases are transferred to the sphere of public television and radio in order to satisfy citizens and public interests.As for relations between press and broadcasting, European countries have different structures depending on traditions and geographical position of their national territories.European countries implement different forms of mobile Internet – WAP, Wi-Fi and via mobile telephones which strengthens mobility of their media systems and increases availability of Internet and online media for users without necessity to have network connection via computer.Asian models. Japan, China and India represent three different Asian models of communications mass media development, but all

Discussion 25

of them have a common core – close connection with traditions, be it Japan, one of the countries with most advanced ICTs in the world, China, the most dense with population country in the world, nation with the largest number of mobile subscribers, or India, the largest multinational democracy in the world known by its developers and programmers in the most difficult areas of digital technologies.Digital divide is still an urgent problem in China and especially in India, but from other points of view their communication development is making headway and is approaching the leading technological states – USA, Japan and Western Europe.Russia: Eurasian equation. 12% of population in Russia has Internet access, at the same time the number of users slowly increases alongside with narrowing divide between Moscow and the rest of the country. The number of Internet users increased reaching 14 million, but mainly owing to the capital cities – Moscow and Saint Petersburg, retaining their elite character – the majority of people use Internet at work, in universities and in schools.Relative stagnation in bridging the digital divide is to a certain extent compensated by active development of mobile telephones – their number has grown substantially in the recent two years. One of the reasons to the growth of this sector of digital communication technologies lies in liberalization of mobile telephony market, which led to permanent decline in prices and considerable monthly increase in the number of mobile telephones.Mobile telephony experiences success in different digital innovations representing Wi-Fi technologies, digital photo and video, and is an important link to the Internet. It has become the major factor of bridging the digital divide. European territory of Russia increases its Internet possibilities while a large part of the Asian one lags behind. Eurasian equation created Russian sector in the Internet – Runet, which is far from reaching the majority of population and serves mainly to the elite sectors of society.Both Internet and mobile telephony became the basis of Russian information and communication system and the cornerstone of Russian information space in support of its integration into the global and national media space.


New events brought by the 21st century are connected with the rapid growth of information technologies changing our traditional view on lifestyle. World Summit on the Information Society held under the auspices of UN and UNESCO was dedicated to understanding these processes.Geneva Phase of the World Summit concentrated on the problem of bridging the digital divide and new ways to resolve it with the help of modern information technologies. It has adopted exceptionally important documents, including the most important one – Declaration of Principles of the Information Society development emphasizing the key role of communication as one of the fundamental social processes and one of the major and essential human needs and basis for any social organization. Internet is viewed as a social resource at the global scale. Thus, much attention is paid to Internet governance including just allocation of resources with participation of three sectors: government, private sector (capital) and civil society in the context of cooperation with international and intergovernmental organizations.The majority of Summit documents was dedicated to the development of e-strategies until 2015 and outlined 10 aims to be achieved by this time.This list of aims, objectives and control indicators determines the direction of the Information Society development throughout the world from the point of view of international intergovernmental organizations:1) Connect villages to the Internet using ICTs and create points

of public access therein;2) Connect universities, colleges and elementary schools to the

Internet using ICTs;3) Connect research centers to the Internet using ICTs;4) Connect public libraries, cultural centers, museums, post

offices and archives to the Internet using ICTs;5) Connect healthcare centers and hospitals to the Internet

using ICTs;

Discussion 27

6) Connect all local and central governmental authorities to the Internet using ICTs and create web-sites and e-mail therein;

7) Introduce changes in the programs of all elementary and secondary schools by adding objectives set by the Information Society taking into account national peculiarities;

8) Provide global population with the access to television and radio broadcasting services;

9) Promote content development and create technical environment favorable for presenting and using all languages in the Internet;

10) Provide access to ICTs within the reach distance for over half of the global population.

These strategic aims and parameters allow measuring the level of transition to the Information Society, its pace and share of actual achievement of every state. In this connection two important moments should be mentioned. Objective 8 offers providing access to TV and radio broadcasting for all, acknowledging importance of information technologies and taking into account real difficulties to providing Internet access. Television and radio broadcasting are viewed here as a kind of Internet palliative, as an important step towards internetization, since television and radio are very apt to using Internet. Another important moment – content development and creation, since growth of technical networks and different texts’ transmission channels runs ahead of content development, content deficit hinders development of the Information Society.Finally, objective 10 – providing access to ICT within the reach distance for the majority of the global population should be viewed as realistic. Sheer realism combines here with the large scale which is needed for resolving the problem of internetization and informatization of the mankind.Thus, the documents adopted by the international forum outline strategies for e-solutions development.An important peculiarity of the documents adopted at Geneva is tendency to find realistic way to resolve problem of the


lagging-behind countries and bridging the gap in access to new information technologies.In this connection special attention is paid to ethic aspects of the Information Society, including the following crucial points:1. It is necessary to apply efforts to strengthen peace and

preserve and develop such core values as freedom, equality, solidarity, tolerance, collective responsibility and careful attitude to environment.

2. It is necessary to take into account ethic aspects while implementing information and communication technologies.

3. All participants should take care of common good, protect privacy and personal data.

4. Make arrangements on preventing unlawful use of ICTs with aims disagreeing with UN and human ideals provided by the international law, such as racism, race discrimination, xenophobia and everything connected with those – intolerance, hatred, violence, all forms of abuse of children, including children pornography, and human beings traffic and exploitation.

World Summit on the Information Society opens a new stage in the development of international solidarity for resolving problems of access to information technologies and in the Information Society development. To accelerate this process and more accurately follow transition of the mankind and different countries to the Information Society it is planned to introduce common index of ICT development characteristics that should be published every two years.There are plenty of problems set by “internetization” and extension of new information technologies. First of all I would like to mention the problem of Internet obstruction that worries all users of the Net. Widespread Internet access, its democracy turn into the contrary, when information “garbage” hinders access to information. What is needed is a comprehensive and responsible work on eliminating this noise and information garbage. Protection of virtual media becomes an important element of the Information Society development and preservation, and I hope that this issue will be on Tunis agenda.

Discussion 29

I would like to emphasize another peculiarity of the World Summit which was largely omitted. If we analyze the list of speakers and character of their presentations at the Geneva summit, we will see that representatives of developing countries paid particular attention to this forum. I flied to Egypt with an Egyptian airline, and when we boarded on the plane, everybody was given “Egyptian Gazette”. The front page showed president’s portrait and his speech on the Information Society. I should say that such attitude to the Information Society of country’s leaders is characteristic of developing countries. They see Information Society as a way to “catch up and surpass”, as it was used to say in the Soviet Union. They are acting very decisively and I think that sometimes they act very skillfully. Unfortunately, many countries do not show such interest in the Information Society. And Russia is among them. In Geneva only Mr. Reiman, Minister of Communications, was representing higher governmental officials. He made a two-page-speech, and that was all. We wanted to give our students a task – conduct comparative analysis of WSIS coverage in the world press. And the first country that said next to nothing about this summit was Russia. “Izvestia” newspaper made a small note of this event but presented no analytical articles. The point is that Government on behalf of our administration ignores this problem. If we look at the development of information technologies in Russia, we will see that development concerns technologies that do not depend on the government, for example, mobile communications. We have 60 million mobile telephones – here Russia is almost reaching the advanced countries. As to the number of computers, we lag behind almost all European countries and even some African ones, for example, South African republic. Although computer is available for many nowadays, it is far from becoming a familiar tool for home use of every Russian citizen, since it is still too expensive for disadvantaged population. That is why passive position of our government on the Information Society is alarming. This inactivity is very dangerous, as it undermines many economic indicators, but first of all it negatively influences national safety. It is impossible nowadays to provide national safety without decisive and fast development of information technologies.


As for mass media, they use new information and communication technologies to a greater extent – including mobile telephones and Internet. Although development of television is inferior, since the majority of countries transfer to transmission of television signal via the Internet. This is the real state of affairs in our information policy.We use to say that new technologies create new divides. This can be partially true. But they create new possibilities allowing to

“catch up”. Let us remember China and India – these two countries are catching up at high speed, because they pay much attention to the information technologies. China is doing that by developing new communication technologies, while India is training highly professional programmers who are likely to monopolize this sphere of activity, at least, they largely crowded out Russian and Chinese specialists on the global market.Speaking about new possibilities and new challenges today we must admit that this challenge exists. If Russia is not to use new information technologies, if it does not enter the Information Society, it will lag behind. And it is already lagging behind – let us face statistics, it is disappointing. Liberalization of telecommunications market is an important element, it is realized in the cellular communications. But production and access to computers are still our bottlenecks. Much depends on the government here.In conclusion I would like to stress the importance for us not only to develop the Information Society but to understand connection between the Information Society and Knowledge Society. We should consciously select the way of developing the Knowledge Society where individual becomes the center of the system, since it is individual who is producing and ultimately using the information, while simple increase in information flows will not necessarily lead to appearance of new possibilities for development.

1 V.Inosemtsev “Modern post-industrial society: nature, controversies, prospects” – Moscow, 2000. – p. 16.

Discussion 31

Elena VartanovaProfessor, Deputy Dean on Scientific Work, Department of Journalism, Lomonosov’s Moscow State UniversityLet us return to the definition of the Information Society and consider whether our society can be called Information Society from this point of view. Another question which I believe demands attention is the following: how does economic basis of mass media change in the Information Society and knowledge society?The notion “Information Society” is directly connected with the progress of information and communication technologies and growing role of information in the modern society. Vision of the Information Society is based on the theory of post-industrial society, that is society characterized by acceleration of technological progress, minor role of material production, development of service and information sector, change of motives and character of human activity and considerable modification of the whole social structure1. The main production resource of post-industrial society is information, while dominating type of industrial activity is consecutive processing (as distinct from production in the industrial society and mining in pre-industrial one). An important difference lies in the character of basic technologies: in the post-industrial society they are science-intensive, while in the preceding epochs they were capital- and labor-intensive.Specialists disagree in considering the term “post industrial society” sufficient for determining the most advanced countries. They note that transformation of non-material resource – information – into economic and political one, which to a great extent determines material welfare both of the society and its members, is the key feature of the modern economy. Information more and more acquires features of consumer goods, main sectors of economy become connected to the ICT sector, consumption to a great extent transfers to the sphere of information and communications. With the development of Internet political life enters this interactive media: e-Government, e-Democracy become the new forms of interaction between government and civil society. Education,

2 F.Webster “Theories of the Information Society” / ed.by E.Vartanova. – M.:Aspect press. - 2004. – p. 371.


healthcare, and culture find new forms of existence in the virtual world. In other words, new forms of economic and social life appear, new individual practices emerge, which allows to declare emergence of a new type of society. It is often called an Information Society, although sometimes the term “Knowledge Society” is used.Considering qualitative changes in the use of information by business and society it should be mentioned that in the present conditions quality and systematicity become crucial. British sociologist Frank Webster analyzed modern concepts of the Information Society. He added a notion of “theoretic knowledge” to the number of elements necessary for civilization development. He believes that this notion describes “abstract, generalized and codified knowledge” characterized by such quantitative indicators as expansion of higher education and employment in the sphere of research and investigations2. According to Webster, Information Society appears not only when information becomes a commodity, information technologies create business infrastructure, and the number of jobs in non-material production sector exceeds the number of jobs in material production sector. In the Information Society theoretic knowledge bears determining influence on the decision-making process, assessment of economic and political risks, control over public and private life, which determines our lifestyle. According to many investigators, the basic feature of the modern stage of society development is a network structure of social and business communication, which appears as a result of penetration of telecommunication networks in all spheres of life. Thus the importance of the principle of “networked” communication which becomes fundamental for the Information Society; it becomes the symbol of new democracy promoting models of horizontal communication in all spheres of life.It should be admitted, though, that there are plenty of assumptions in the theoretic construction of the “Information Society” or even Knowledge Society. Thus, an important problem of dependence on energy resources, which was crucial for the industrial economy, remains unsolved even in the modern system. Without energy there is no activity of telecommunication networks, and the major controversy of the modern ICT-based economy producing surplus product owing to the use of information lies in the fact

Discussion 33

that Information Society cannot exist without traditional sources of energy. It is impossible without known energy sources and the information itself as the main resource cannot support its activity, which makes the concept of the Information Society and the following concept of Knowledge Society theoretically vulnerable.The second problem casting doubts in the foundations of the concept of Information Society as a new scientific theory lies is the digital divide. At present it follows all problem points that were characteristic to the industrial society, almost without eliminating former inequities. Information-poor people today are people who belonged to the most economically challenged strata in the industrial and post-industrial societies. This means that they were the most vulnerable in social aspects: they had the worst access to education, healthcare and culture. At present it is those social groups who fall under this digital divide that was acknowledged at the global level as the basis of new inequality. However, digital divide is mainly a new form of social injustice that existed before in the form of unequal economic conditions of access to the information resources.Notwithstanding the controversy of reasons raised in support of the concept of Information Society, there are a lot of features of dramatic changes in the modern world. One of the spheres that underwent considerable changes is mass media. On the one hand, mass media becomes a major sector of “content” production – it creates content for multiple media-channels and media-carriers; on the other hand mass media is integrated in the circulatory system of the modern society, that is, in the telecommunications networks. Internet, digital television, mobile telephony – all these channels are suitable for content “transportation”, be it a newspaper article or video film. Interactive communication and digital form of presentation, dissemination and storage of media-content make mass media a key actor in the new economy and new society, where virtuality and individuality become the main consumption features.As the result economy of mass media has come through considerable changes. Economy of mass media in the industrial society based on the fact that the main commodity for mass


media was the audience constituted by mass media enterprises for sale to advertisers. Therefore, the main paradigm of media enterprise development was the trend to maximize audience. The larger the audience is, more potential consumers can be offered to advertisers. In the conditions of industrial economy aimed at mass production, it is production of mass audience that became the main result of mass media activity. In the non-market economy and authoritarian ideologicalized society mass audience has its

“buyer” – political elite, which was also interested in receiving mass audience via mass media.This is how mass newspapers and over-the-air television appeared, and in the mass consumption market and in the conditions of advertisement-based financing they turned into economically profitable enterprises. The 20th century witnessed industrialization of media: mass media content became shaped by the logics of commodity production and exchange. That is why in the industrial society high payment for mass media is uncommon, since they represented a sort of a “grant” industry. In market democracies

“grants” were supplied by advertisers, in the industrially developed socialist economy – by the government. But the principle remained largely the same: mass audience allowed business or political elite to “grant” mass media.Development of industrial society touched all spheres – economy, social structure, education, and lifestyle. Changes led to increase in the share of service sector of economy, growth of non-material sectors, starting from education and mass media, and customization of consumption. This brought evident results for the mass media economy: mass audience became segmented – according to professional and individual interests, social, educational or gender criteria. The audience parted into more clear segments which lost interest of the former advertisers. Audience instability led to substantial cut of profits from advertising, and mass media began turning into individualized media. This bears evident consequences for the economy: prices on print media rose, while in the sphere of audiovisual mass media, where audience previously did not have to pay at all, a lot of fee-based services were introduced. All media, including those who were mass media previously, followed the way paved by magazines, which have always been addressed to narrow target audiences.

Discussion 35

Increased selectivity of content, individualization of choice became the main peculiarities of audience behavior, which largely determined mass media economy in the post-industrial society. The second development tendency that increasingly determined the dynamics of media sphere, namely, technological progress, cheapened production and dissemination of information. It became clear that access to mass media becomes more expensive for the readers, while content production for media companies cheapens. Media economy experiences a revolutionary breakthrough.Emergence of information-based, or, better, knowledge-based society led to the fact that considerable part of economy became connected to the information production, dissemination and storage. It should be noted that on all stages information existed in the digital form. Information is increasingly transmitted via interactive networks, which allows complete individualization of choice and consumption. Network user has the possibility to set their own information agenda, choose entertainment and education infoservices. This completely transforms the basis of mass media economy: it is not advertiser who determines the content of media information via subsidized mass media, but the audience. Thus, to survive mass media have to introduce fee for access to information channels and content. Besides print media traditionally paid for by the audience (newspapers, magazines), cable channels, digital TV channels, Internet, and telephone content-services appear. Against this background tariffs for access to information in “conventional” mass media are also growing: price for newspapers and magazines, subscription price for public channels where it exists, specialized cable channels (news, cinema, music) become more expensive. This tendency is most evident in the Internet: services of music files exchange (like Napster), which were free of charge in early 2000-ies, die out, leaving space for fee-based services. More often the audience has to pay for access to mass media, while the key feature of its behavior is individualization of information choice. This means that advertiser, who previously was the most prominent player

3 Williams R. Television. Technology and Cultural Form. New York: Schocken books. 1975. P.14.


in mass media economy, has no guarantees or possibilities to be part of audience’ or individual users’ attention.Alongside with the change of main sources of income in mass media and society development relations between mass media also undergo transformation. In the industrial society mass media equally compete for audience’ time and money, in the post-industrial society priorities are shifted. Profits from audience come to the fore. Mass media economy in the Information Society characterized by comparatively high standards of living turns to the most rare resource – attention of the audience. Only capturing this resource mass media can guarantee allocation of time and money by individual users.The history of all mass media development is closely connected with technological progress, moreover, it was stimulated and promoted by the latter. Famous principle of J. Reuter “follow the cable” that formed the basis of market strategy of the British information agency Reuters, reflects this connection to the full extent. But alongside with filling the “gaps” in the mass media market the impact of technologies on media-systems became more comprehensive and indirect. Already in the 20th century ICT stopped being simply a developing force which, according to R. Williams, “either creates new way of life or lays the basis for its creation»3. Media technologies start bringing profit only when they are required by the society. Implementation of technology directly depends on social needs: even if economic level of development is sufficient for introduction of a new information and communication technology, its mass implementation needs new systems of social communication. According to R. Williams, first of all it concerns communication requirements of army and business.From the point of view of media economy general idea of R. Williams is best illustrated by the development of new mass media. Development of Internet requested by Pentagon was stipulated by economic requirements as well. The main direction of ICT introduction is business, where use of online interactive communications considerably cuts expenditures on management, logistics and production.

Discussion 37

At the same time Internet acquired features that are important for journalism:1) Presence of digital content, which integrates all new media

(CDs, digital video, web-publications);2) Substantial capacity of content and its multimedia

peculiarities;3) Interactive and two-way communication in the Internet

leads to decentralization of sources and greater freedom in selecting information or changing digital content by the user.

In the recent decades most advanced countr ies star ted implementation of programs of transition to the Information Society. This gave rise to speculations on the decline, or at least on the start of crisis of traditional journalism. Individual choice of news, which became possible owing to direct satellite television broadcasting and Internet, growing communication activity of citizens, segmentation of audiences – these and other events became real in mass media. According to experts, this can lead to two types of consequences for traditional mass media. On the one hand, these consequents touch the profession of journalist itself, on the other they concern mass media economy.Let us view possible positive consequences of ICT progress for mass media economy on the basis of newspaper industry. Among them there are:• Cutting expenses on printing and distribution;• Possibility to recycle newspaper content in the Internet

determined by digital content format; at the same time “secondary use” of journalist product can be enhanced by additional possibilities provided by the Internet (moving image, sound, hypertext);

• Appearance of new feedback forms due to interactivity (possibility to conduct polls among readers in online mode, creation of common discussion groups of readers and journalists, conducting forums on urgent issues);

• Offering new services: in the conditions of growing audience segmentation abundance of digital newspaper archives available via Internet brings another possibility to


satisfy readers’ interests; special programs allow to speed up search of required news within a single newspaper issue;

• Growing profit due to deeper knowledge of audience: Internet helps newspapers to study tastes and habits of their readers thus allowing them to “sell” specified information on consumer groups to advertisers;

• Journalists are free from physical limits characteristic to newspapers, such as size of newspaper page: digital storage of articles doesn’t limit the volume of materials.

Changing economic paradigms of mass media require special attention to traditional and new income sources of media industry.First of all, it concerns advertising. In absolute figures growth of advertisement expenditures in the Internet is impressive. By 2002 the volume of Internet advertisement in USA reached 3% of all advertisement expenditures, which makes US$1 940 million. In all countries, irrespective of their level of economic development, the volume of advertisement expenditures in the Internet is growing. Thus, in Latin America the share of advertisement input in the Internet reached 1.8%. In Europe the volume of Internet advertisement was about US$ 2.5 billion in 2002, next year this sum reached US$ 3.5 billion. Great Britain has the major share of Internet advertisement: according to general forecasts in the nearest five years it will grow up to 50% of all advertisement in the European sector of the Net. It is indicative that in relative figures the major growth of Internet advertisement is seen in North European countries – 10%.Advertisement appears in the Internet in different forms, the most well-known of them is banner and target ads. Banner is a small, usually square graphic image with a hyperlink connecting user with the source of target advertising. Size of banners vary, but often its width differs from 120 to 500 pixels and height – from 45 to 120 pixels. Usually banners serve as a source of information and a sort of invitation to the target advertisement sources.Target ads, as distinct from banners, are enhanced in information and can vary from elementary web-page to comprehensive ones

Discussion 39

using audio and visual effects or links to corporate sites, e-Shops, fairs, etc.The key difference between banners and target ads lies in the degree of freedom of choice. Banner appears on the screen only because user visits particular web-page or requests a certain word combination in the search system. User passivity is an essential characteristic of the given part of advertisement. The same concerns paid links that often occur in catalogues. Banners have a lot of parallels in traditional mass media, therefore, size, color, position and place on page or screen is very important for them. Internet advertisement has unique features present in online mass media – presence or absence of movement, intensity. Its major drawback is the fact that it is “intruding” and that banner appearance is controlled by marketing agency without user’s consent.To the contrary, target ads sources react only to the users activity. It is the user who decides whether to visit the advertised site. This allows differentiating Internet advertising and advertising in conventional media.Alongside with these “old” types of advertisement specific ones gain value – “pop-up” and “rich media”. The first type, “pop-up”, is considered by the majority of users as too annoying, but clicks statistics shows that users pay attention to this type of ad more often than to usual banners.The second type of ad – “rich media” – integrates animation and moving image. From user’s point of view it is more entertaining and graphically enhanced. In the recent time this type of Internet advertisement gained great popularity among advertisers due to its graphic and information value. In 2002 this ad type was very popular among traditional advertisers, like Coca-Cola, General Motors, Procter & Gamble, and less popular among new economy enterprises conducting business in the Internet and selling their goods and services in online mode.The reasons why Internet users attract advertisers’ attention, are evident. Average network user is more educated and richer than average reader or viewer even in the developed countries. Internet advertisement has an evident “added value”: it gives possibility to use it as a tool for marketing research. When users visit web site


their browser can receive a cookie file, which allows to identify user in the future. At present only few sites can say that their advertising revenue totally or largely cover expenses. However, search systems Lycos, Alta Vista and Yahoo! claim that their advertising revenue is sufficient for total financing.The second type of profits – fee for online services. The source of online media income is mainly advertising, but there are other types of financing: transactions (fee for services provided in digital format) which constitute 2–5% of the transaction amount, fee for services (including access to paid-for content, fee for some links). The share of profits from advertisement and subscription fee of Internet companies can vary considerably. The main criteria here are the type of Internet services provided by the company, period of its existence and popularity of corporate brand.The third type is selling client databases. This way of making profit was mentioned above and often exists in online media that provide services for free so far. However, specialized sites (like free e-mail) often require that their clients register and voluntarily communicate their data, which allows to outline their consumer profile. Further sale or lease of this data, as well as selling information about Internet predilections, which are also tracked by these sites, become a significant source of income. Interestingly enough, that many Internet services and content providers often don’t even ask users’ authorization to transfer information on them to large advertisers.Another income item is profit from content marketing. For online media this way of making profit gains popularity and is likely to become very significant. In 2002 income from content marketing reached US$50 billion, and according to specialists estimations, it is about to increase annually by 20%. Interestingly enough, the growing number of Internet users – both corporations and individuals – are ready to pay for access to reliable, fast and multilateral sources of information.Web-sites specializing in content are already receiving some 25% of income from content marketing. These sites are represented by online media, information portals and publishing sites. Content marketing is available both for general audience and specially selected target groups. In the Internet it is very easy

Discussion 41

to create such groups. For example, Medscape – a site of medical information, a sort of online magazine - requires registration and asks users to specify their medical specialization. On the basis of this data the site determines content sections. Further step is attracting specialized advertisements to these sections. As a result cardiologists receive specialized information and ads that cost four times more than usual Internet advertisements.In 2002 about 80% of online newspapers in USA provided paid-for content access. Having analyzed possibilities of content marketing, many online newspapers emphasized that audience is mainly interested in access to archives. Users are ready to pay for that first of all: up to 95% of content marketing profit is made by US online media by providing access to archives. As usual, online publishers collect $2 per article. Selling photographs, illustrations, and commentaries to the current events usually brings low profit. On the whole USA and developed countries of Western Europe show clear tendency of audience readiness to pay for online content: growth of expenditures on content access showed significant stability in early 2000-ies.Analysis of new models of mass media economy leads us to interesting conclusions. There is no doubt, that the concept of the Information Society is based on increased supply of media content and information services in the modern society. Today Internet is turning into a highly competitive market of opinions and media content. While mass economy builds on supply, or production organization, attention economy existing in the Internet is responsible for demand formation. “Presence” in the information system is the main quality of product, idea or individual. Internet is first of all a flow of attention, and unlike the traditional mass media the Net registers behavior of active audience where there are few passive viewers and casual spectators so far.However, the time allocated by users to information consumption has increased insignificantly in the recent decades: only one third of the day is allocated for leisure, which takes different forms. That is why media economy is more often called a “free-time economy”, and mass media compete in this sphere with such seemingly different forms of leisure as sport and fitness, theatre and museums, and computer games. As a result the process of


concentration changes its direction in the media business, leading to appearance of diagonal media concerns including not only different mass media enterprises but companies of neighboring sectors working in the sphere of mass culture and entertainment as well.That is why mass media compete mainly not so for the audience as such as for its attention to certain media products. Mass media economy in the Information Society is not only a struggle for a reader of viewer, but a struggle for their free time and attention.Andrey KorotkovSenior Vice-President of Vneshtorgbank UN Information and Communication Technologies Task Force Advisor Chairman of Bureau of UN ICT TF EuCAsDuring the First Phase of the World Summit on the Information Society in Geneva a number of important events took place there. Among them I would like to specify the world electronic media forum, which was conducted on 9-11 December 2003 (while WSIS was held on 10-12 December) and discussed the role of mass media in the Information Society. Its key topics were universal access to information, cultural diversity, economic development, social unity and education. To my mind, this event was very important due to several reasons.First, in the course of establishing the partnership of WSIS participants mass media joined the event too late, and thus were not involved as equal partners in the multi-stakeholder dialogue which took place there. Now it is time to view participation and role of mass media in the development and promotion of information technologies differently. There are four reasons for that.First, information and computer technologies are actively used for information circulation. Computer make-up, digital photos and image graphics form the basis of publishing activity. Digital radio is very popular, television is impossible without computer processing of video signal. This means that mass media are interested in using these computer and information technologies.

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The second reason is that mass media are based on the same channels of information communication and delivery that are used in modern ICTs. These include Internet, networks and digital satellite communication channels which are essential for modern mass media.The third reason is the technological process of information collection and distribution. Today journalists professionally work on computer, make professional photos, have skills for processing digital images and working in the Internet. They retrieve information from the network, process it in the network and often publish it in the network. There are Internet versions of newspapers, television companies are presented in the Web, radio stations broadcast via the Web.And finally, mass media make profit using new information technologies, which was covered in detail by Elena Vartanova.Thus, the whole sphere of mass media activity is penetrated by information and communication technologies. That is why it is so important for Russia to conduct comprehensive assessment of the role and place of Internet and new information and communication technologies in mass media on the one hand, and mass media influence on popularization of ICT and their lawful use on the other hand. I would like to stress the idea of lawful use.At present Russia has quite a number of laws regulating dissemination of information in any way, including via new information technologies. And I believe that we do not need any new legislative acts that describe Internet as mass media in detail. Perhaps, there will be need in them later, but today we should concentrate only on developing common standards and technologic approaches which lies beyond legislative area. The issues concerning information content are liable to civil, administrative and criminal law and can be resolved within these areas.Today the whole world is preparing to the Tunis stage of WSIS, and Russian mass media should look more carefully at the processes currently underway in their society, and outline priority problems in all spheres mentioned above. After that it could be


necessary to draft national peculiarities most relevant for our region. I believe that setting these objectives is quite enough.Tatiana Ershova:Mr. Korotkov, what is your point of view on participation of mass media in the popularization of the Information Society? It is evident that the future depends on the entire society, and its views are formed under the influence of mass media. That makes the role of mass media in creating the system of Information Society values and civil identity of the Russian population even more important. In the course of the round table there was an opinion that mass media is first of all business, which leads to the question, who will pay for such a campaign? How do you think this problem can be resolved?Andrey Korotkov:Transition to the Information Society is a comprehensive social, economic, cultural and political problem. It involves interests of many other sectors of economy that are not directly connected with high technologies and new information technologies.Advertisement, mass media as business, use of mass media by the business for lobbying their interests – all these issues are becoming highly relevant owing to the fact that ways of information delivery became very different with the advent of new technologies.For us it is very important to attract attention of all participants of the Information Society to resolving the problems of Russia’s future. Besides the above mentioned government and business this concerns research and education community. We can build up a matrix on age, occupation, level of technologies penetration in the society – this will result in 3D matrix. Some new and special relations will appear at each node, the majority of them are still underdiscussed by philosophers, sociologists, culturologists, politicians and researchers. It is also important to extend horizontal and network structures. They pave the way for every citizen’s initiative, which is a tremendous resource for SMEs for new ideas to appear and be implemented quickly. Thus we all will have a great mutual work to do, but there is no doubt that the government should play the key role here. This is not a tribute to the popular tendency for centralizing resources and not relying on the governor who will come and

Discussion 45

decide everything. On the one hand, the government can act as a developer of common rules of the game; it should establish right standards and models for transition to the Information Society. On the other hand, it should act as a participant and an arbiter in inevitable arguments and conflicts of interests in different societies that will appear in transition to the Information Society. We understand that legislation needs to be improved; we understand that development of standards should not be conducted by business exclusively, because this can lead to infringement of citizens and users rights.At the same time the power of masses can contradict even to the most rational ideas. And it is far from being the best way to manage such structured systems as Internet. That is why the role of government is highly important and we should welcome governmental attempts to organize dialogue among all participants to the process of transition to the Information Society.In my opinion the role of mass media in this process is underestimated at present. Today we have time to think over this problem before the Tunis stage of WSIS. But it is even more important that we have time to think of what should be after the Tunis event. The process of transition to the Information Society will take decades. What will become of the Information Society in the world and in Russia largely depends on all participants to this process, and much depends on mass media.Armen OganesyanChairman of the Russian State Broadcasting Company “Golos Rossii” (Voice of Russia)I would like to continue discussion of the role of government in the processes of the Information Society development; in particular, I would like to touch an urgent problem of mass media development in the new technological medium. Professor Zassoursky is absolutely right, there is no future plan for using ICT in governmental media.Let me adduce a simple real-life example. All radio broadcasting in the world is being transferred to digital technologies, as you know; this is a part of information and technology revolution. Soon it can turn out that all radio receivers in the world will be digital, while we will broadcast in analogue. This will cause


another “iron curtain”, not ideological but technological. The “Voice of Russia” is the sole company that is broadcasting ten hours a day owing not to the government but to our partners in Germany, in particular, a large company “Deutsche Telecom”. We do not see any support from the government, because what is needed is federal program of digital technologies implementation in governmental media, but, as I have already said, there is no such program.What can make government show interest to this sphere? In my opinion, only one thing. When information consumers, particular listeners and viewers will feel that they can receive new qualitative content via new technologies and that they need it, I believe, then this moment of truth will come.By the way, I should mark that commercial broadcasters are absolutely unwilling that Russia promotes digital standards, since this will mean growth of competition for them. That is why it is commercial and not governmental mass media that impede development of new technologies on the market. But the government should regulate this process and be interested in introducing modern technology. We cannot manage without digital radio. The same concerns television. Introduction of digital technologies will lead to increase in the number of channels and growing competition. That is why part of mass media is interested in this process (mainly governmental channels), while the other part is not. This area also needs regulating and promoting role of the government.There is another problem. Probably all of you at some time were disillusioned about Internet. I guess, Professor Zassoursky also experienced that. When we mastered Internet and became regular users, it appeared that our content expectations were overestimated. In my opinion, Russia has not accumulated content which could be presented as our national information resource yet. It is bad that we have not sufficiently developed a communication system, it is also bad that we think only of technical aspects of information delivery without thinking of the information itself. Thus, the question of Russian content in the network is very important. And we ought to think about it.

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Nikolay DeryabinFoundation of Information Technologies in Aviation and Rocket-and-Space IndustryFirst of all, let me thank the organizers for inviting me to participate in this event. I would like to thank publishing house “Economica i zhizn” (Economics and Life), which has been supporting us, for the possibility to be here.I am holding a brochure “Virtual revolution: myth or reality. Development of Russian defense industry complex as a process of management in the Information Society”. It says about the necessity to develop and adopt national e-Development strategy alongside with establishing a multi-stakeholder partnership of all communities. This brochure has never been on sale. It was published as an explanatory note to the program currently developed by the defense industry complex and was sent to the main governmental authorities: President’s Administration, Government Office, Council of Federation and State Duma (Parliament). All these structures seemed to support the principles stated in the brochure, but it is very hard to make them support implementation of these principles. Thus, I absolutely agree with Professor Zassoursky that government should play the key role in transition to the Information Society on one major reason: in all advanced countries such spheres as fundamental science, defense, healthcare, education, especially elementary and secondary, and culture have never been in the sphere of business authority. Business has other aims. These spheres should be supported only by the government. In the developed countries (like USA, France and Germany) at least 50% of economy is controlled by the government. As for Russia, this index amounts only to 33% at present, and it is planned to lower it to 20%. After that officials will complaint (as they do now) that there is no money for governmental support and development of these spheres.I fully agree with one of the speakers that before one does or writes about something, they should analyze and study it thoroughly. In Russia everybody has their own approach to the issue of information technologies implementation. What about us, the defense sector? Our approach to solution of this problem is comprehensive. This revealed unexpected issues. Any target


program whether it is dealing with science, nation’s healthcare, protection of disabled and senior citizens, culture or education system, is directly connected with introduction of information technologies and national security of our country, with Russia’s future.Let us remember the defense complex, or rather its most developed industry (alongside with shipbuilding and space) – aviation, which has always been the core of progress in science and technology. This industry is introducing information technologies at the level of international standards. What problems does it face?The first and most important one is age. Average age of person working in defense complex is about 60 years. It sounds so simple – let us teach young generation which will replace them. But in reality this is not so simple. Gerontologists claim that by 2050 every second human being will be old, as the planet’s population is ageing catastrophically. In Russia this indicator will be reached by 2020. As for China, by 2050 every third will be senior citizen. Thus, the more into the future the older will average age of hi-tech workers be. Education of a young professional (for example, good aviator for 4th generation airplane) lasts minimum 10 years. Continuity of generations in hi-tech industries in the recent 15 years was almost lost in Russia. In the 90-ies this process was suspended. It turned out that all knowledge base of industrial processes and processes of hi-tech industries management are governed by middle and senior age workers.What does this have to do with journalism, one would think. The fact is that mass media should raise awareness of all social strata, tell the audience that Information Society will show completely different gradation of citizens’ age categories – differing from the one that had been in the industrial society. According to domestic and foreign sociologists and gerontologists, the category of “young person” will comprise people up to 45 years old; “middle-aged person” – from 45 to 65 years; “senior person” – from 65 to 75,

“elderly people” – from 75 to 90, and “long-living persons” – over 90. Data obtained by gerontologists state that young people work by 20% faster, while middle-aged make their work by 60% more qualitative. In the Information Society quality is the crucial component, thus, the major hi-tech production force today is

Discussion 49

middle-aged and senior people, and this tendency will remain in the future.Urgency of these issues is also proved by the following example taken from foreign experience. In June-October 2004 Space Ship One, the first manual private spacecraft in the world made spaceflights. All three times the craft was piloted by a 62 year old pilot Michael Melville, that is, a senior astronaut. Is that accidental? The fact is that 10 million US dollars were at stake. I believe, that it was not accidental. Notwithstanding the acceleration load, to lower the risks and make the flight safe, experience and quality outweighed the speed of operation performance. Thirty or forty years ago this was impossible, nobody would even think of that.The second question is education. It should also be supported by the government. Today 80% of market value (or capitalization) of any enterprise is made up by intangible assets, while in early 70-ies their share amounted 32%. What are intangible assets? First of all, this includes human capital, information capital and organization capital. Unfortunately, few people know that and understand that the major production resource in the Information Society covers personnel, their knowledge and skills. This is what Tatiana Ershova was referring to in her introductory statement. I am confident that training system-wide specialists of the highest level with deep knowledge of Information Technologies and basis of strategic development is most urgent today. Now such specialists are needed on all management levels in Russia, starting from the federal one. This is proved by the fact that management of intangible assets is one of the main objectives of strategic management in the Information Society. At the same time one of the main results of strategic management in the Information Society is materialization of collective knowledge and collective experience of implementing industrial and management processes in full scale through information technologies, which makes these processes independent from the source of materialized information resources which can change in quality and quantity in the future.In this connection let us turn to the positive example of Malaysia. For your information: since 1988 to 1966 GNP in Malaysia grew


almost three and a half times and reached 5 thousand US dollars per capita in the first half of 1997. For comparison: GNP per capita in Russia, which is very rich in natural resources, decreased by 1998 as compared to 1970 almost time and half and amounted to less than 4 thousand US dollars. What provided such an impressive growth in Malaysia? As far back as in mid-80-ies Prime-Minister Doctor Mahathir Mohamad started to introduce in the country strategic management in the main spheres of governmental activity. One of the major factors contributing to the generally acknowledged success of Malaysia, including success in transition to the Information Society, is education, which is considered the most important dimension in the government regulating development of the country’s economy. Malaysia has a strategic program for reforming the education system and a special program aimed at the Information Technologies development. Education program “Universal Quality of Management”, adopted in the second half of 90-ies, first of all provided training specialists for the education system itself. The strategy provided education for specialists of the international level which can compete on the world labor market. Naturally, first of all this concerned specializations needed by Malaysian science and industry. In other words, personnel training in all spheres of production and management was a priority task for the nation’s progressive advance.In 1996 Malaysia adopted a decision to develop a special program aimed at information technologies development. Implementation of this program is supervised by the Prime Minister’s Department. According to the estimations by Bill Gates, head of Microsoft Corporation, at present Malaysia advances such developed countries as France and Germany in the sphere of information infrastructure development.I consider this an indicative example of government playing the leading role in the Information Society. Besides, we should note that Mahathir Mohamad celebrated his 75th anniversary in December 2000. This shows that although he is a senior person, this does not prevent him from qualitative work. Maybe even to the contrary: his own information resources are decisive, since there resources tend to grow in the course of time. In any case,

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results of Dr. Mohamad’s works deserve high estimation not only in his country but outside it as well.I would like to say a few words about the new possibilities that Information Society provides to people. Information technologies are very interesting in that they make people reconsider a lot of things which previously were regarded as established and inviolatable. Among them – attitude to the sense of life of the whole mankind and every individual in particular. In the second half of the 19th century there was an ingenious Russian scholar Sergey Podolinskiy (he was Karl Marx’s student). Famous scholar Vernadsky based all his studies of biosphere and noosphere on Podolinsky’s works. Podolinsky lived only 40 years, was not published in Russia until 1991 and was unknown here. Now we can say that his law in applied use can give the possibility to provide quantitative forecast of the Information Society development. Podolinsky’s law states that labor is the main thing in individual’s life, as distinct from work – he divided work and labor. Labor is individual’s main aim, mission. It is widely known that in the Information Society all traditional resources are depleted while information resources of the mankind are increasing. Today according to expert estimations these resources are comparable in value with natural ones in the advanced countries. At the same time increasing information resources appear to be that very potential energy that Podolinsky was referring to. Using his law we can make quantitative assessment of individual, society or humanity on the whole.It follows from what has just been said that the most accomplished model of governmental structure is the one where objective of every member of society consists in completing the main mission of a human on Earth. According to Podolinsky’s definition, this mission consists in labor for the benefit of the society, while governmental structures should provide most favorable conditions for supporting it. In other words, government should establish favorable environment, legislative and social motivation for more productive labor of all citizens and be responsible for protecting territory, natural resources and citizens, their rights and freedoms, dignified life and free and full-fledged development of individual. These conditions, physical, psychological and information resources are needed for supporting and implementing the above objectives.


It is evident that only in that case maximum effect could be attained. Otherwise the necessity to individually resolve all life support problems and establish favorable environment will distract the individual from the main mission. Besides, unfavorable conditions lead to dissipation of efforts and energy, overload with lower-level “information resources” will affect the time and quality of person’s labor for the benefit of the humanity. This is also detrimental for the physical duration of the individual. Only right system and strategy of the government gives every citizen the possibility to actualize themselves. It is natural that this approach should be extended to the industries, corporations and individual organizations. I believe that this topic also presents interest for the journalism in the context of the Information Society development.Dmitry ChereshkinVice-President of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences Chairman of the Board, Russian National Association of e-Commerce ParticipantsAs far as I understand, we are discussing what the government should do and what it will not do? Let me brief you on what has already been done by the government in the sphere of information. At present the Government has adopted three concepts: “Concept of the Information Technologies Market Development”, “Concept of Regional Informatization”, and “National Strategy for Information-Based Development”. The program “Information Technologies for All” is almost ready. It was developed mainly by the Russian Academy of Sciences. Thus, we cannot say that Government does nothing. Government is moving in the right direction, although very slowly. Nevertheless, I believe that we are far from becoming an Information Society.Let us view the situation from another side. Transition to the information economy is not only introducing information technologies. For example, Microsoft invests over 20%, Intel – over 25% of their income in research. As for us, we mostly talk about knowledge without having clear understanding what knowledge is and how we can use it. In most countries this issue is treated seriously, they have created a special infrastructure transforming information and knowledge in real products. It is a special

Discussion 53

infrastructure. But however much speculation there is on the subject, nothing of the kind appears in our country. By the way, the major opponents here are our industries. They do not want to spend their income on research.Let us return to discussing the role of mass media. First, journalists should be acquainted with all documents that have passed or entered the Government, and this is our fault. For a common person it does not matter what information technologies are, people are not interested in them. It is only when people start to understand (with the help of mass media) that Information Society is aimed at them, not at officials, that public authorities should provide information services to the society, that is people and organizations, will they understand that in this society information is really belonging to everyone, and this information is crucial for life.Tatiana ErshovaI would like to return to the role and needs of mass media. Open any newspaper, turn on the radio or TV, and you will see that journalists around the world complain about crisis of trust in social, political and economic institutes. There is a feeling that all this is approaching the end. Why is this happening? The answer is quite simple: development of telecommunications brings a new order in the world, which is not aware of it. Our future is emerging on the so-called information highways.But speaking about the Information Society, we imply that it should exist for all. Answering the question, who should have access to ICTs, information and knowledge, we say that everything should be easily accessible for everybody, including those who live in remote and rural regions, socially unprotected, marginalized and vulnerable groups of citizens (migrants, refugees, unemployed, senior, physically and mentally challenged people, different minorities). What values should form the basis of the Information Society? Of course, those relevant to the mankind: equality, justice, democracy, solidarity, mutual tolerance, human dignity, economic progress, respect to cultural diversity, environmental protection, etc. There is a hope that global Information Society (if the world will agree on cooperation for reaching these global values due to


the World Summit) will not turn to another global utopia, but will become a reality.How our Russian mass media can contribute to making Information Society an economic imperative and work for people? I would like to ask the journalists this question.Olga VershinskayaLead Researcher, Institute of Socio-Economic Studies of Population, Russian Academy of Sciences Expert on Information Society problems, the European CommissionLet us add an item for discussion at the round table: role of mass media in the Information Society development is agitation, promulgation and raising awareness on the “information lifestyle”.Let me adduce France as an example (from the book “National Models of the Information Society”, Elena Vartanova, MSU). This country adopted the program of the Information Society development later than others (in 1998). Its major aim as outlined by the Prime Minister, is “developing an Information Society for All”. According to social studies by IPSOS Institute, only 10% respondents said that they were going to connect to the Net in the nearest future, 36% were uncertain, and 52% said definitely that they were not going to use the Net at all. According to these studies, the majority of those who recline to use the Net (23%) saw no need in the Internet. After that all French mass media conducted awareness-raising campaign explaining Internet possibilities to the public. At present 96.8% of French people use the Web, 57.7% have e-mail, which corresponds to the common European standards.As for us, even when we have the technology, it is of low use, since population does not use it. We can ask questions and receive answers using ICT. But do people know about new possibilities? The major problem in the country has always been the problem of using ICT, and it is still increasing. According to IIS data, 40% of Muscovites do not want (!) to use the Internet, and this indicator is even higher if we look at the national level – 60% (!). People over 40-45 do not want to use information technologies at all, and as we know, the population is ageing. The most active

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users are naturally the youth, which, according to different estimations, amount to 25% of population, as in case with people over 60 (25%). Rough estimates show that population use ICT very little or does not use at all. It is mass media who should introduce them to the Information Society, and they should do it by explaining new possibilities. Example of modern France is clear evidence to that.Andrey VaganovExecutive Editor, “Science” supplement to the “Nezavisimaya gazeta” (Independent Newspaper)First of all I would like to say that almost all speakers used the word “propaganda”. Should mass media promulgate something or not? I remember the statement of one of the Public Relations founders, Edward Bernays, who said that “propaganda is a preaching of something we do not believe in, while education is preaching of something we believe in”. This is what concerns propaganda and what mass media should promulgate. Now I would like to comment on emotional speech of Professor Chereshkin.According to Prof. Chereshkin, something in the Government moved to the right direction, in particular, it has adopted the

“Concept of Information Technologies Implementation in Top Government Authorities” for the period until 2010. But how is it being implemented? For example, it is impossible to contact any official in the government house via e-mail – they are isolated from the Internet for the reasons of safety and preservation of state secrecy, as they say. What should we promulgate in this case? Shall we explain the governmental officials via mass media that Internet is good, while its absence is bad? They know it better. As it was rightly stated by Mr. Deryabin, representative of defense industry complex, if he has Internet access at home, why should we promulgate it to him? Propaganda deals with something else in this case.As it was noted by Professor Zassoursky, mobile communications are developing in Russia best of all, at the same time this industry has appeared from scratch independently from the government. What is ICT promulgation? As a journalist I can write as much as I wish that Internet is good, that computer is perfect, as it can help to do everything, but if people do not have money to


buy it, such promulgation will lead only to negative results. That is why I think that the society is somehow overestimating the role of mass media.What served as an impetus, a starting point of explosive growth of things like notebooks sales on the Russian market? The whole world wonders: the fastest-growing market of notebooks is Russia. This owes to the reduction of price to psychologically acceptable level, something between a thousand and thousand and a half dollars. As soon as the price on these notebooks dropped, people started buying them without any propaganda. According to the recent data, 30% of sales occur not in company shops, which should be the most interested ones in promulgating their commodities, but in the public trade systems - “Aushan”,

“ElDorado”, etc. That means that notebooks are usual domestic appliances – this is where propaganda occurs. Adoption by the Government of three concepts and the fact that communication with the Government reminds communication with the other side of the moon is not propaganda, but rather to the contrary, it is a counter-propaganda. And no mass media is likely to help here.By the way, I should note that there are a lot of publications dedicated to the information technologies in Russia. Some of them appear, others pass away – all this is evident. Those who want to know, hear and see that. Another matter is that there is no political will. When the President of Jordan claims that his aim is making Jordan a “digital” country, I understand that. When Arab Emirates, which 30 years ago were a stone desert with huts and donkeys, become a leading center of information technologies in their region, I understand that either. These are clear examples of emergence and practical implementation of political will.And the last thing I want to say on this issue. Andrey Korotkov mentions in the book “National Models of the Information Society” (Moscow, 2004) that since 1980 40% of all American investments in European electronic industry have been allocated in Ireland. Why Ireland, then? I have been to Ireland, in the region, which is called Dublin Technological Corridor (local analogue of American Silicon Valley or Indian Bangalore). And I asked the director of Fab 10 plant within Intel Corporation, which produces well-known Pentium processors: why the largest plant of your company

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outside the USA is located in this country? Explain me, a person from Eastern Europe, what is the secret of such an interest to this country? Top-manager answered, that the success formula is very simple. It requires only three simple conditions: sustainable political system, good ecology and highly educated workers.As for Russia, when we talk about concepts, which lie (or smoothly f low from cabinet to cabinet) somewhere in the Government, according to preliminary expert estimations, up to 15 million dollars will be carried out officially only in 2004. Let us summarize – what our country really needs, ICT propaganda or something else?Vladimir PolyakovEditor of political department in “Literaturnaya gazeta” (Literature Gazette, LG)I support my colleague from the “Nezavissimaya gazeta” in what concerns the best way to promulgate information and communication technologies. Let us take another example – powerful coming of Internet channel “Stream”. I believe that its aggressive advertising campaign will lead to considerable growth in the number of Internet users, since it is really comfortable – 20 dollars, no traffic limit and a decent speed. It is a pity that this concerns only Moscow, since “Stream” is unavailable in province. But on the other hand, in province, for example, in Vladimir and Ivanovo regions average salary of two thousand rubles, which is considered a decent one, will not allow people to pay this sum for Internet access. However much newspapers promulgate that wonderful Internet, people with low income will not be able to use it.Another question concerns the present state of print media. They are in a very unfavorable condition needing urgent help for themselves. First of all we should help the voice of the Information Society, enhance its propaganda possibilities, and only then ask to promulgate something. Hence the question, who is ordering ICT propaganda? Government does not want to deal with it, ICT producers do not show any activity but still claim “communist conscience”, as it was in the recent past, from mass media so that they come to a conclusion that this is necessary and start active ICT propaganda in the forthcoming year.


Let us view the situation from another side. Apropos, why we, the press, should promulgate the Internet? Let us take Vladimir Region again, since I happen to know it well. Even there it is very difficult to enter the market of print media, because huge expenditures are necessary for becoming a new marketed magazine (newspaper). In due time owners of “Literaturnaya gazeta” made a big mistake of leaving the Vladimir market, now it is very difficult for them to return. There are not so many subscribers, which owes to the same reason that is with the case of Internet users – it is very expensive. Nevertheless, I think that there are much more Internet subscribers of “Literaturnaya gazeta” in Vladimir Region than subscribers and readers who buy newspapers in kiosks. Thus, if we start to promulgate ICT, we will hereby increase the number of Internet readers but decrease the number of subscribers and those who buy print version, which is very unprofitable. Shall we go against our business? It would not be wise of us to do so.I do not agree with another colleague in the content matter. To my mind, content is improving, I am almost living in the Internet, I am there from morning till night. After morning shower I switch on the computer, the last thing I do in the evening, is switching off the computer at midnight. And for me television has become a less interesting object than Internet.It has already been said that initially our expectations from the Internet were overestimated. However, Internet today is indispensable for a professional who knows where to search and what to take. Moreover, new communication technologies at large and the Net in particular provide professionals with almost unlimited possibilities for communication. It is becoming ever more difficult to find a workplace that is not equipped by computer with Internet access now. Moreover, if social status of an individual was determined by their income in the past, now information wealth comes to the fore. And both these success indicators depend on each other. The majority of people still use a traditional mass media model – mass media receive, promote, PR and inform the major share of the audience. This is conventional. Meanwhile, there are people who are not satisfied with this state of affairs. These are people for whom freedom of information access and its flexibility are principal, they throw away television,

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they do not have time for newspapers, as for the radio, they listen only to the music, when they are driving. All the necessary information they find in the Internet.And the last remark. The case is not that we search and find something interesting in the Internet. There is the other side of the question – if we develop communications only as means of information delivery, we’ll be a suffering side receiving information from outside, its inflow in Russia. If our country wants to be a global Internet player, it should accumulate enough interesting content which it could present in this global network.Ludmila VlasovaHead of Information Projects, newspaper “Economics and Life”I would like to point out that there is much speculation on the role of government in developing the information and communication technologies market and transition to the Information Society. But we should admit that our government has discovered this market by chance, after 10 years of its emergence. First of all we should pay tribute to business, to be more exact, to financial business. It is business who promoted creation of tools for record keeping and funding planning on the basis of information and communication technologies (to be correct, business did it for itself).Private business created this market – both technical base, computers and infrastructure, and software. As for transition to the Information Society, let me adduce an example from my personal experience connected with an assignment in Evenkia, in Eastern Siberia. It is a small autonomous area with the population of about 19 thousand. Its governor used business principles in regional administration. Literally in a year all activity of bureaucratic system was transferred to paperless technologies. Yes, this needed launching a satellite – and they did it. Now every trading station, where hunters’ families live, has mobile communications and access to the Internet. Moreover, all accounting of furs and results of gathering natural products (mushrooms, nuts, etc) was transferred to paperless technologies.The region has 110 budget enterprises, all of them using electronic accounting. Regional center – Tura settlement – hosts administration that interacts with business, different organizations and population via Internet and e-mail, that is via electronic communications. I


would like to draw your attention that government has played next to no role in these processes. Political will of the governor was enough – and here we see Information Society in a particular given region.As for the mass media, it is hard to say, what practical possibilities we have to influence the government. I think all of you know one of the peculiarities of information structure development in Russia, that is, that the majority of mass media are private publications which are forced to publish not only materials with information and social relevance, but advertisement as well. Subscribers are of little help here. Let us take our newspaper which has a special column dedicated to ICT since 1993. Of course, ICT producers and suppliers support it actively. If we draw our mind from economic difficulties, we will see that the role of mass media should lie in popularization (not propaganda) of information and communication technologies, in making them in the mind of general public not a business instrument but an everyday tool.Tatiana ErshovaThe previous speaker mentioned Evenkia – one of the first subjects of the Russian Federation that adopted a comprehensive program “e-Evenkia”. If I am not mistaken, it was adopted even earlier than the “eRussia” program. Today we have “e-Moscow” and other programs. The key to success in implementing such target comprehensive programs is dialogue and development of partnership among all interested communities. And these stakeholders can act as customers for mass media.Apropos, very much was said about participation of mass media in transition to the Information Society during the First Phase of WSIS in December 2003 in Geneva. This topic was reflected in official documents of the Summit – Declaration of Principles and Plan of Action, which were signed by Russia as well. Various conferences and events dedicated to the role of mass media in the modern world acknowledged the necessity to promote print and electronic media for active participation in popularization of the Information Society in wide circles of public and raising awareness about the advantages of this development. It is independent mass media who are main political institutes of the civil society which bear influence on mass conscience, and it is difficult to

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overestimate this. Ideas broadcasted by mass media are most likely to be popular among citizens.Let me adduce as an example a national program that was adopted in Ukraine – “Journalist of the Information Society”. Its main objective is contributing to Ukraine transition to the global Information Society at the same time preserving and developing nation’s intellectual potential as the basis for nation’s sustainable development. The program organizers are confident that Ukraine should stipulate and coordinate efforts of all community sectors, since only consolidation of government, business and society using experience of advanced Western countries will allow to form the basis for the Information Society development in Ukraine.During three years of its existence the program “Journalist of the Information Society” has become a powerful tool for attracting attention of different social strata. Journalists and public at large gained possibility to get to know influential representatives of ICT market better, managed to find ways for mutually beneficial cooperation. Unfortunately, our Ukrainian colleagues could not join us today, but they provided their materials, which could be of interest for you.Thus Ukraine found the answer to the question “who pays?” Now it is Russia’s turn.Alexander YevtiushkinHead of Directorate of Innovation and Investment Projects, Institute of the Information SocietyI do not agree that it is the banking sector which was the main force of ICT development. Why banks started dealing with the information technologies at all? Only under heavy pressure of the government which established an order that demanded daily accounting before the Central Bank. This objective compelled banks to implement ICTs. Only later they came to know these technologies and started developing them, also with participation of the government.The question of the role of government is the key one. In transition to the Information Society governmental policy should first of all be oriented at resolving three major problems: supporting and implementing structural shifts in the economy raised by


transition to the Information Society; taking into account and smoothing inequalities in transition to the Information Society of different countries; and analysis of the state of socio-economic background and creation of favorable conditions for transition to the Information Society.One of the main factors contributing to transition to the Information Society is the level of citizens readiness to use advantages provided by this society. Like in any other public sphere, real meaning of informatization and obtaining real advantages from its use depend on creativity and realism of different users, from their psychological structuring and sincerity of intentions. If we view the role of government from the point of view of using information technologies in everyday life, what is needed from the government? First, it should use information technologies itself; second, it should create such conditions for all the rest market subjects that they would have inner motivation to use ICTs. Our government does nothing of the kind yet, besides development of rather ambiguous concepts which have not found their way according to the previous speakers. We shall hope that something will move in that direction, although everything our government has done so far makes us think that it should better not intrude in the ICT market, because as soon as government interferes with the market, everything collapses there. For example, we are speaking that it is necessary to establish more centers of Internet access for people who do not have computer at home so that they could use the Internet. It seems to be very simple – just create conditions so that people could equip Internet cafes. Until government interfered with this, Internet cafes spouted up like mushrooms. As soon as the government set very strict rules of licensing and control over these Internet cafes, for many potential entrepreneurs this business became totally unprofitable. Why was this done? There is an opinion that it was done to suppress potential competitors to make people use points of public access at post offices which were established by the Ministry of Communications.I would also like to touch the education topic. As it has already been said, people do not use ICT because they do not know how to use them. There is much speculation on the necessity to reform education, but why is that needed? It is not meant for replacing a

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“German” model by an “American” one. It is needed because the paradigm of education should be changed. What education was in the 19th and 20th centuries? A system that invested knowledge in people. What is education now? Is it needed in the present form? The answer is no, because everything that should be known, exists in the Internet already. That is why people should not be taught to remember information, but to know where and how they can find it. And how to use this information. It is necessary to develop practical skills among educated people. This is the major issue for today.Tatiana ZaretskayaAnalytical Journal “Information Society”In the age of authoritarianism the journalism was constrained, and in this environment 50 years ago the journalism faculty of the MSU started functioning. Now we are gathered in the same location, but the Information Society set completely new objectives before the journalistic education.I would like to tell about one initiative of the journalism department of the MSU, or, to be more exact, initiative of professors Yassen Zassoursky and Elena Vartanova, which deals with a new outlook for journalistic education in the information era. In due time we have dedicated a separate column in our magazine to this subject. I am referring to the so called

“journalistic education for all”.The growing role of mass media in development of the Information Society make us think about the necessity to acquaint public at large with the main aspects of mass media. Understanding the mechanism of journalistic work becomes a part of general education. Probably, it was due to this that the concept of media education appeared in the journalism department; today it is implemented in new program modules. This education was meant for teaching the basics of understanding journalism among pupils, students of different departments and citizens in the course of lifelong education. Knowledge of television and radio broadcasting and other mass media mechanisms becomes vital for modern citizens.Mass media have a great influential potential, and to overcome possibilities of manipulating the public opinion and help citizens


develop freely it is necessary to teach them to understand the principles of mass communication and structure of its activity correctly. This will allow to perceive information about the world more consciously and contribute to free people’s choice during different political campaigns and communication with mass media.Some time ago an English philosopher Edmond Berk referred to journalists in the English parliament: “Here sit the representatives of clergy, aristocracy and communities. You, journalists, are the fourth power”.To make the “fourth power” serve public interests every citizen should understand the way it functions which will help to prevent excessive influence and use its achievements for public and individual interests.Thus, in fifty years after emergence of the journalism faculty journalistic education grows beyond the scope of university and gradually becomes a part of general education, a necessary set and level of knowledge needed for an individual to be literate and educated.Tatiana ErshovaAmong the experts present today there is Sergey Shaposhnik, who has recently completed a comprehensive survey. He headed a study group which drafted an analytical report “Russia e-Readiness Assessment”. Sergey Shaposhnik leads a group of specialists within “e-Moscow” program, who are is monitoring Moscow’s transition to the Information Society. By virtue of his responsibilities they have accumulated a vast volume of interesting statistic information concerning Information Society development in Russia and abroad. That is why I would like to give him the floor and ask him: should mass media be attracted to release results of his team’s work to the public domain?

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Sergey ShaposhnikHead of the Center for Computer Telecommunications, Institute of History of Natural Science and Engineering of the Russian Academy of Sciences Chairman of Committee on Information Society Monitoring, High-Level Expert Group on Information Society Development at the Moscow City Duma (Council)First of all I would like to say a few words about the methodology we used in our studies so that you could understand how we managed to achieve our results.Monitoring e-Development in different spheres (education, healthcare, etc) was conducted according to readiness indicators (e-Development factors) and indicators of information and communication technologies (ICT) application. Readiness was viewed in two major aspects: ICT access (presence of electronic and computer equipment, Internet access, etc) and human capital readiness (presence of skills and special training, information obtained by personnel, etc). ICT application monitoring, in its turn, was carried out from the point of view of indicators of ICT integration in professional activity, as well as indicators of providing and using services on the basis of ICT. While drafting reports ordered by the Institute of the Information Society the team conducted social studies (polls) in Russia (2500 people by quota retrieval) and Moscow (1950 people).Thus, for the first time in our country an attempt was made to implement a full-scale system of monitoring transition to the Information Society that is based on combination governmental and departmental statistics with representative public opinion poll conducted by professional sociological organizations and expert polls and special studies. This is largely a pioneering work, since this objective has not been resolved to the full extent even in the world practice.Objective picture of the present state of affairs reflected by monitoring revealed a number of surprising problems. Thus, for example, the level of information literacy among Russians turned out to be much less then among citizens of the European Union, to say nothing of the USA. And the gap starts at the level of education system, which does not give necessary training


for working and living in the Information Society, although traditionally we still consider it one of the best systems in the world. The outcomes are disappointing: Russia starts to lose advantages in the education system accumulated in the recent periods, and if this tendency is not to be stopped, the country is risking to lose them completely in the nearest decade.Old problems that were not resolved in the recent years, still demand attention, notwithstanding different federal and regional programs. Among them there are low level of informatization of museums, libraries, polyclinics and other governmental institutions, lack of public access to ICT services and socially relevant information, etc.Insufficient level of Internet development in the capital is combined with another two problems – low pace of growth (number of Internet users in Moscow is growing much slower in the recent two years than in Russia on the whole) and limited use of broadband channels, first of all in the budget sphere and households.The monitoring data demonstrated misbalance between the level of ICT infrastructure and the level of IT integration in the main business processes. First of all this refers to the budget sphere and concerns two aspects of ICT use:1) Integrating information technologies in professional activity;2) Providing and using services on the basis of ICT for citizens

and organizations.As an example let us adduce results obtained in Moscow – its ICT infrastructure is rightly considered the best in the country and according to several indicators approaches average European level, as compared to the EU countries:•Schools are fairly well equipped with computers and

telecommunications, while less than 12% of teachers use computer technologies in education, less than 5% of teachers use Internet during the classes (in EU these indicators amount to 68% and 53% respectively);

•Only insignificant percent of doctors in municipal authorities (about 6%) monitor patients with the use of

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Internet, while at average in EU this indicator amounts to 26.5%, in Denmark – 75.8%;

•Less than 5% of Muscovites actually use different forms of interaction with public authorities on the basis of network technologies. At the same time implementation of e-government services in Moscow does not go deeper than providing information on services and possibility to download sample forms;

•Moscow libraries (fairly well equipped with computers) digitalized less than 10% of funds for e-Catalogues (in the majority of EU countries this indicator varies from 70% to 100%), for Internet readers – 4.5%;

Only 3.7% of the total stock of museum items in Moscow have digital representation.Low level of ICT integration in professional activity of teachers, doctors and cultural workers ref lects low general level of automation of profile business processes in municipal authorities of the city. While computerization and automation is covering administrative financial bloc, ICT use in the main activity and corresponding ICT infrastructure of institutions are still at initial levels of development.The above problems are connected with the problem of rather low motivation to use ICT among citizens. According to the poll results, Muscovites are much more conservative and rarely prefer to use ICT to interact with public authorities and do shopping than Europeans and orient mostly at traditional channels. The same is characteristic of Russia at large. That is why it is no surprise that in the recent rating of e-Readiness conducted for the World Economic Forum, Russia obtains 63rd place lagging behind the majority of European countries and many countries of Asia, Latin America and Africa.The question arises: “Why Russia, notwithstanding high pace of Information Technologies development in the recent decade, could not narrow the gap with the developed countries in the level of economics and society informatization?”In my opinion, one of the key reasons for this state of affairs is not economic factor but psychological barriers and human


capital problems. Narrowing everything down to price barriers is simplifying the situation. Comparison with mobile telephone is not correct enough in this case. Telephone is known to the majority of people from childhood, and transition to the mobile communications which present next to no skills barrier, does not evoke such difficulties as in the case of computers and Internet.I would like to repeat that it is the state of human capital and particularly knowledge and skills of population in the sphere of ICT that is among decisive factors determining dynamics and efficiency of the Information Society development. In the meantime, according to the polls, the system of computer skill training and special training for using ICT in professional activity is insufficiently developed even in Moscow – the share of population and professional groups that received such education is insignificant. At the same time business, as well as government, does not provide enough support to increasing information literacy of population and special training to use ICT. Specific weight of enterprises allocating funds for personnel training in the sphere of ICT amounts in Moscow only to 6% (as distinct from 83% of EU enterprises). This reflects general underestimation of the necessity to make corresponding investments in human resources by decision makers in business and governmental sectors, and presents an urgent problem of human capital as e-Development factor.As I have already said, less than 5% of Moscow citizens actually use different forms of interaction with public authorities via the Internet. The least satisfactory situation is witnessed in the sphere of ICT application by public authorities and urban organizations for interaction with population and enterprises on the most topical issues of everyday life (for example, when dealing with house exploitation facilities, municipal council, prefecture, technical inventarization bureau, social welfare department, etc). At the same time it is known that ICT-based services not only optimize communication between citizens, organizations, public authorities, social infrastructure organizations and commercial enterprises, but also are an important motivation to explore and implement the technologies themselves.

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Summarizing the results I would like to draw your attention to the idea that further development of the Information Society needs active support of its ideas by all citizens. Only under this condition Russia can become a really electronic nation. And the leading role is played by the mass media here. An important attention should be paid to the introduction of modern information and communication technologies in professional activity of mass media, which will contribute to improving the quality and efficiency of achieving the objectives set.Nikolai DeryabinSound implementation of Information Technologies in any industry requires modification, or, using the term generally accepted today, complete structural reengineering of the organization where the ICT are introduced. Thus, if such changes are applied to the defense industry, it needs the restructuring not only of the production facilities themselves, but of the whole Russian defense system, including the Defense Ministry. This work is not easy and it cannot be done without the assistance of the government.We all know that the Internet was developed in the United States for the needs of the Pentagon. It was not created by any private business. Only later the network turned into the World Wide Web. That is why governmental coordination of all reengineering in the Information Society is essential. The primary stage of this development is already over in other countries, and now they say, for example, that it is impossible to implement ICT in any organization unless its CEO realizes their necessity. The primary indicator of successful implementation is the support of the company’s CEO, the second prerequisite is that all the employees are taught the basic computer skills. It is a pity that this idea has not been realized in Russia yet.Sergei ShaposhnikConstant changes of today’s business world call for appropriate modifications in business technologies. Under these circumstances reengineering of business processes is the strategy that allows companies to survive and to become leaders in tough competition. This is a well-known fact. Now let us consider this statement in terms of the state’s responsibility for the Information Society development.


Schools are a good example of how organizational problems hinder informatization. Even the schools that have many computers follow the model of teaching basic computer skills at specially equipped computer rooms. It means that computer rooms are operated by the computer skills teacher, and such organization hinders the use of information technologies by other teachers. Unfortunately, this model prevails, despite its contradiction with the real integration of information technologies into studies.I would not quite agree with Alexander’s [Yevtiushkin] remark that the state should better “stay aside”. The state should establish free points of public access, but it should not enter the competition.Alexander YevtiushkinLet us go back to the definition of the Information Society. To my mind, this is a society that is based on transfer, creation, storage and use of information. Many scholars believe that the Information Society appears when the cost of goods and services produced by constantly updated new ICT is more than 50% of GNP, growing steadily. Besides, Information Society is characterized by openness (informational transparency), ability to maintain stable economic growth and permanent renewal of the structure of economics, as well as all aspects of the public life, increase in personal income and elimination of inequality.What is our government? It is a certain number of officials who are far from being interested in the informational transparency of their activities. Then how can we speak about Information Society?Tatiana ErshovaIt is apparent that in any country the dynamics of national development in certain branches of economy influences the rates of national Information Society development. It is also obvious that in different countries the development of new applications will not be the same: in some cases they may be created within the framework of existing companies or industries, in other cases new business areas may be established. In order to secure efficient solution of social problems, simply having a well-functioning physical infrastructure and a regulating environment is not

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enough. These two factors are necessary to attract investments in implementation of projects in various practical areas.Russia is not ready for the Information Society yet. The economy lacks strong educational initiatives, complete computerization of schools and efforts to open public access centers in the regions. Besides, the country seems to be unprepared for transparency of power centers and consumer services, as well as unwilling to integrate new information flows into the existing infrastructure, which does not allow to simplify the interaction with bureaucratic organizations.However, the positive trends are obvious. National Strategy of Information Society Development has been prepared. The ICT sector is developing rapidly. The Ministry of Economic Development and Trade projects that more than 30 million people will own computers by 2007. This means that the number of Internet users in Russia will double, which is consistent with the optimistic forecasts of coverage growth. However, we should keep in mind that one of the key factors affecting such projections is the state policy in this area, that is, its ability to invest in computerization of the education system, social and industrial initiatives. The governmental information resources should be effectively used by all the authorities, irrespective of their location. An important role here is played by the press, which can, using its objectiveness and wisdom, contribute to decreasing several social tensions in the regions and to enhancement of the people’s belief in the appropriateness of the reforms. This is what I think about the role of the state and the mass media in Russian Information Society development.And now I suggest that we should go back to one of our agenda items – the World Summit. What do you think should be discussed there?Ludmila VlasovaTo my mind, the international community should pay more attention to the objectives of peace protection and, probably, cultural unification.Andrey VaganovWe are speaking about Information Society, but what is actually Information Society? It is a metaphor of a network community,


which is completely opposite to the concept of “vertical strengthening of power” so enthusiastically implemented in this country now. That is why I suggest that in Tunisia we should pay attention to the social structures, to the development of community networks within the society. As soon as the society comes to the network model of development, information and communication technologies are implemented easily and successfully. If we turn to the analysis of this all-penetrating nature of network communication technologies, it should be noted that it is not due to either anybody’s bad will or a sophisticated design. It is particularly obvious in the development of network information technologies. Manuel Castells, a well-known modern economist who studies the nature of Information Society, noted in one of his works: “Our metaphors constitute the essence of our culture. As culture is introduced and transmitted by communication, the cultures themselves, i.e., our historically formed systems of beliefs and codes, are fundamentally transformed under the influence of the new technological system – more and more as time goes”. And indeed, the universal character of the new metaphor seems to be overwhelming: network graph, neural network, network economy, network logic, information network, network marketing, intelligence network, network enterprise, casual nets, network intellect, global terrorist network, network society... To put it short, all of us are surrounded by networks: social, professional, informational ones; even the epidemiologists have a new term – venereal networks. It is the network paradigm that defines most dramatic social and political changes in all spheres of public and private life.However, it would be wrong to believe that deliberate transfer of information technologies into the vertical hierarchical structure of the industrial society will automatically lead to the establishment of Information Society and the welfare state. Just otherwise, the hierarchical character of such society will be only enhanced; this is how the industrial giants emerge and die.A typical example in this case is the history of the USSR. Having failed to see in time the trend of the Western economies’ transition to the network organizational forms, to the Information Society development, the Soviet Union attempted to preserve its competitiveness (on which, in fact, its civilization identity

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depended) by massive implementation of various automatic management systems, computers, production process automation. For example, the “Directives of the 24th meeting of the Communist Party on five-year plan of economy development in USSR for the years 1971–1975” set out the goals very definitely: “To start developing and implementing automated systems of planning and management of industries, territorial branches, organizations and enterprises with a view of establishment of the national automated system of accounting, planning and management of the economy on the basis of the state network of computer centers and the single national automated communication network. The principle of organizational, methodological and technical integrity of this system should be followed from the very start”. But the society, which was firmly vertically structured both politically and economically, could not “swallow” these initiatives. It is indicative that the computerization and informatization in the USSR was mainly based on the large-scale and super-large-scale computers and a limited number of terminals connected with them. However, even if the Soviet transistor-based computers of the sixties were no worse in their architecture than the Western ones, still, the elementary basis on which they were built was already obsolete. The Western powers were rapidly changing from transistors to integrated circuits and super-large integrated circuits. By the end of the sixties the technological gap in the sphere of computers was already 6–7 years. At the same time, the Western countries chose a completely different way – they turned the personal computers into a horizontal product (a marketing term), integrating them thereafter into clusters and networks.Tatiana ErshovaI fully agree with Andrey [Vaganov]. Some time ago I initiated establishment of the Russian e-Development Partnership (PRIOR), which is one of the few informal communities promoting equal cooperation, network structures, opposed to strict hierarchy.Vladimir PolyakovAs a representative of the Russian Federation I would suggest that the countries which are more advanced in ICT development should provide assistance to those behind. And the representatives of the states which realize the importance of ICT better should help


those where the leaders and the government pay little attention to the new technologies.Yassen ZassourskyI believe that the problems of Information Society are, of course, important, but, unfortunately, the level of our public awareness in this area is too low. For many people, the concept of Information Society consists primarily in the fact that it is a society where people use information, where they read newspapers and watch TV. However, Information Society is actually a new phenomenon, which presupposes an essentially different structure of production management. Usual notions, such as building, workspace, ministry, plant, etc., lose their meaning. The development of distant work, new communications allow people to be very mobile and quick, using all their personal resources. As they used to say, new productive forces and new productive relations emerge.I would like to adduce an interesting example. Several years ago the author heard a speech of the Italian Minister of Finance, who said that he did not need officials to be present in the ministry. They would write their reports at home and send them by e-mail to him (by the way, this minister was later elected President of Italy). Naturally, this was an overstatement, but the idea is clear. Information and communication technologies enable us to adopt a principally new approach to organization of an executive body. The ICT bring unprecedented mobility of the cabinet, new prospects of administrative resource development and ability to use every official’s skills and experience.The same concerns production. Distant work allows to decentralize it. Time and space acquire new characteristics today; it is possible to travel through them with the help of ICT. In Italy, said that Minister of Finance, we are not going to move the people who do not have jobs from the south to the north. We will provide for their employment by distant work. Even the problem of warehouse capacity utilization may be resolved by placing offers in the virtual space, which are then actualized by e-Commerce. In this respect the movement of capital is faster and it is different in nature from what there used to be. But, on the other hand, new, most difficult, problems of the Information Society appear. When performance level is so high that it depends very little

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on the availability of the workforce, taking into account only its quality, there appears a category of people, which may remain unemployed forever. The society is getting so rich that it can keep a certain portion of its population even if they are unemployed. And, as you know, in the eighties in France there was a serious consideration of the schemes, according to which a part of the population would be excluded from productive work, and they would be equal to retired persons. This was a fantasy in a way, but there emerged a problem of people being unable to actualize their working function during their lifetime. And, apparently, the need to employ excessive workforce will be a serious problem for the Information Society in the future.The Information Society makes a person mobile, enables them to develop personal initiative, to implement new ideas and technological achievements quickly. But to benefit from the advantages of the information century we need to decentralize governance and develop horizontal and network structures. The reasons of the Soviet Union collapse have been studied time and again, but there is another circumstance to be taken into account: it was impossible to enter the new era with such a rigid centralized vertical governance as the one in the USSR. That is why today it is important to establish horizontal network structures for the development of the Information Society, as it has already been said. They enable each citizen to develop his or her own initiative. And this is a great resource, especially for the mid-sized and small businesses, for the new ideas not only to appear quickly, but also to be quickly implemented for the benefit of the society.That is why I believe that the Information Society problem is very interesting for the mass media. They should prepare people for these developments.The modern production and the Information Society require not the quantity of the workforce, but its quality. Therefore, the question of education, training and retraining of employees is the key one. And in these terms the activities in Russia are absolutely wrong. They are aimed at reducing the expenditures on education, thus undermining the fundamentals of the Information Society. We may come to a situation when we will have no skilled


personnel. The level of education today is very important for the development of national economy. This is my point of view, which has been developing for quite a long time – since the eighties.Tatiana ErshovaDear colleagues! To sum up the results of our work I will briefly point out certain outcomes of our discussion. According to the widespread opinion, Russia really enters the new information era when the global Information Society is established, when many fundamental issues affecting the structure of relations in the society itself may be resolved only by joint efforts of all development communities.The role of mass media is to promote equality of development opportunities: each person should have equal opportunities, and this is important for achievement of the UN Millennium Development Goals. Besides, mass media may contribute to recognition of the comprehensive access to the ICT at affordable prices as one of the basic rights of citizens of any society and any country. They may also encourage market competition, transparency and predictability of the government.Allow me to thank you for active discussion and your positive attitude to the organizers and to each other. I would like to wish you all to see the time when we will feel in the Russian Information Society as comfortable, sure of ourselves, fine and nice to each other as we do today.

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Additional Materials

Journalist of Information Society – Ukraine’s National ProgramUkraine needs its own Strategy of Information Society development, which would define the main priorities and directions of country development. One of the elements for e-Readiness is the level of accessibility, openness and transparency of the information, which grants an active participation and concern of mass media in the processes of the modern society evolution. These indicators assume a paramount political, economic and social significance now.During the First Phase of the World Summit on the Information Society the participants stressed and discussed many things concerning the participation and influence of mass media on the Information Society development. This idea finds its reflection in the official WSIS papers - the Declaration of Principles and Plan of Action, which have been signed by the representatives of Ukraine. The representatives of various industries have recently acknowledged the necessity to stimulate and encourage the traditional and digital mass media for the active participation in the popularization of the idea of Information Society development among grass-roots. Thus numerous conferences and events dedicated to the role of mass media in the modern world took place. Today, it is the independent mass media that are considered to be one of the main political institutes of the civil society. It is impossible to overstress the importance and the level of its impact on the public awareness and shaping of public consciousness.Realizing the leading role of mass media in the process of building-up, development and popularization of the idea of Information Society development, the Information Society of Ukraine Foundation has developed and launched a first phase of the project “Journalist of Information Society” in 2001.Its main idea is to promote the inclusion of Ukraine in the global information domain. The program aims at reaching the global information field on the assumption of preservation and development of the nation’s intellectual potential as the basis of the state’s sustainable development. The organizers believe

78 Additional Materials

that Ukraine should stimulate and coordinate the efforts of all sectors of the society because only coordinated collaboration of the government, business and public sector with the utilization of the experience of developed countries will allow creating a basis for Information Society development in Ukraine.We assign a special role to the young but perspective ICT market which over the last years has evolved greatly and turned into a thriving industry. Our expectations are those that during the realization of the new phase of the project both journalists and the publicity itself will have the opportunity to familiarize with the influential and powerful representatives of this industry, and will evolve and sustain the mutually beneficial cooperation.It is a well know fact that there is urgency in the strengthening of the legal foundation of the Information Society in our country and the expansion of its role among the publicity. Thus this problem concerns not only our daily life but the future as well.This urgency is strengthened by the demands stipulated in the official documents, passed and adopted on the high-level as well as the fact the Prime Minister of Ukraine has signed a “Plan of the Events and Preliminary Works for the Participation of Ukraine in the World Summit on Information Society (Phase II, Tunis 2005)”.Since the its launch (2001), the program “Journalist of Information Society” has become a powerful tool both in the actualization of the ICT problematic in the modern society and in drawing the attention of various strata of Ukrainian population. The support and encouragement of the representatives of the media business and mass media testify the effectiveness of this initiativeThe first stage of the program started in July 2001. Generally in the competition participated over 100 journalists from Kyiv, Lviv, Cherkasy and other regions, over 180 materials were passed for the assessment of the jury. In order to highlight the program in the Internet and to draw a maximum attention of the audience, the organizers conducted a chat-event on the topic “Information Technologies and Their Necessity in the Life of Ukrainians”. Chat’s guests were such band as “Vopli Vidoplyasova”, singers Nataliya Mogilevska and Ani Lorak, tennis-player Andriy Myedvedev, gymnast Olena Vitrichenko and actress Olga Sumska.

Journalist of Information Society – Ukraine’s National Program 79

In 2004, the Information Society of Ukraine Foundation has launched a new phase of “Journalist of Information Society” initiative. Apart from the regular competition on the best material, the organizers, in the framework of the program, will conduct a number of formative events for the journalists (lectures, seminars, meetings with the experts) on the role and place of ICT in Ukraine. We also plan to hold special events meant for all the participants of the program.All the materials will be reviewed by the competent jury, including the representatives of the leading ICT companies, chief editors of the information partners, the representatives of the programme’s partners, the leaders of the public opinion.The nominations are:

•“The Information Society Radio”•“Information Society TV Channel”•“Publication on Information Society”•“Internet Publication on Information Society”.

There would be also a special nomination “The Best Program, Idea or Project on Information Society”.Taking into account the last political developments in our country (the presidential elections), and also considering the request of the partners and journalist-participants of the program, the organizers made a decision to postpone the “awards ceremony” to October 15, 2005.In November 2005, there is a Phase II of the World Summit on the Information Society taking place in Tunis. Ukraine, alongside with the rest of the world’s publicity, is preparing itself for this important event. Supposingly a number of projects represented by Ukraine would be dedicated to the mass media achievements in the sphere of Information Society development in Ukraine. And we hope that the “Journalist of Information Society” initiative would appear as a demonstrative example (a so called case study) of the effective and successful realization of such projects on the territory of Ukraine. We also hope that the partners as well as the participants would have an opportunity to showcase this initiative during the Summit in Tunis.


We are sure that the successful implementation of this program would play as a catalyst of the Information Society development in Ukraine particularly and in region generally. The participants would gain new perspectives for the partnerships and dynamic cooperation. All this gives an additional motivation for the development and formation of stable regional information domain which comes at an opportune time for the Second Phase of World Summit on the Information Society Development. We believe that our experience could be helpful for all those who are interested in the appropriate representation of the region during the Summit. We are open for the new partnerships, exchange of information and cooperation in the framework of this program as well as the expansion of its territorial and time frames. We are also interested in any propositions and suggestion as for participation of the Information Society of Ukraine Foundation in the international and regional initiatives.For more information on the history and development of the Journalist of Information Society Program, please visit http://www.isu.org.ua/viewarticle/article/57.

Mass Media as an Effective Tool of Digital Divide CombatingAndriy Kolodiuk is the President of the Information Society of Ukraine Foundation.The search of a new paradigm of the world’s establishment that necessitate the globalization of knowledge and scientific achievements, as well as solution of problems that concern Ukraine’s socio-political transformation, has preconditioned the emergence of the information society as a new stage of the mankind development. Its impetuous progress has been made over the last fifteen years due to the emergence of global information networks, information and communication technologies (ICT), including Internet. Nonetheless, the process of the Information Society advancement has not yet transformed from theoretical domain to the practical in the majority of world countries, including Ukraine. In turn it has caused the increase of a new socio-political and socio-economic gap, referred to as a digital divide in international communication. According to the

Mass Media as an Effective Tool of Digital Divide Combating 81

outstanding ideologist of the postindustrial (information) society Daniel Bell, the rich will be those who put main emphasis on intellectual abilities, instead of anything else (for example, physical labor that has been traditionally typical of agrarian and industrial societies). Therefore, the end of development of anyone (organization, community and group, individual) will mean the loss of competition and automatic transfer to the class of “poor”, or return to the framework of the industrial order. On the higher level, this is referred to the interstate political struggle, as well as in economic respect it means global competition, division of global markets and resources. In such a way, yet the “information-not-haves” are people who due to certain socio-economic reasons are unable to ensure an access to ICT on their own. In a couple of years the use of Internet, for example, will become the same commonplace as the traditional use of TVs and radios. The focal problem lies in the citizens’ willingness to use information resources for development.It is worthy to note that the information society development is an integrative process that requires high motivation on the part of key stakeholders, including government, business and NGOs. One of the key role in the very process should be played by mass media, which by means of informing (in due case I mean the promotion of the Information Society concept), favor the formation of e-Awareness, that is to say, they stimulate the latter to more active use of information, knowledge and modern technologies in virtually all social domains through the access to the information infrastructure. Consequently, the higher is level of e-Awareness, including e-Readiness, e-Literacy and e-Inclusion, the lesser are digital divide indicators, and vise versa. Therefore, the primary problem in the transitive process from the industrial towards the Information Society concerns the formation of e-Awareness.In the post-Soviet societies, including Ukraine, an interest to information problems has been on constant increase since 80s. The authors mainly focus on ICT and valued aspects of information and its components, as well as on the influence of information on human awareness in the process of democracy establishment. Nevertheless, it is almost unlikely to find applied researches dedicated to the effect of mass media on the transformation of social awareness within the transitive process. This up-to-date


problem will be broadly highlighted in the article, taking into consideration the strategic role of domestic mass media prior to the consolidated representation of Ukraine within the framework of II phase of WSIS that is to be held in Tunis in November 2005.

“Under the contemporary conditions of the Information Society development on international, regional and national levels – the parallel process of social divide emerges, that is digital divide, as the result of which the overwhelming majority of people is nor aware, or rather refuses to comprehend the variety of opportunities offered by the new social order” [1]. In this respect, the urgent is the issue concerning a part that should be played by mass media, which should mediate between the initiatives promoted by government, businesses and NGOs to form the critical mass of e-Citizens.There is the group of factors that significantly reduce the level of digital divide, which includes the availability of high-tech telecommunication network that corresponds with the requirements of full-functional information structure and educational system that in turn ensure the demand for ICT in society [2]. The emergence of digital divide caused the widening of the already existing socio-economic gap between well-developed democracies and the rest of the developing world, as well as between particular regions that are referred to either as “digital haves” or “digital-not-haves” [3], young people and the elderly, men and women etc. According to V. Koliadenko, the main reason of the digital divide globally is explained by the low living standards in the third world countries. For instance, in the majority of African countries the monthly cost of Internet use exceeds the monthly wage rate earned by most of the citizens [4]. Therefore, the widespread of digital divide as a global problem is caused by the following drawbacks:•Insufficient level of social readiness to meet the challenges

of information age;•Low level of e-Awareness;•Failure of state policy to ensure the strategic and

institutional promotion of the Information Society;

Mass Media as an Effective Tool of Digital Divide Combating 83

•Failure of the information society propaganda through mass media on the national level;

•Lack of social partnership of the main stakeholders in combating digital divide;

•Lack of political willingness on the part of elite establishment;

•Insufficient action aimed at fulfillment of information reforms.

As a result, the tackling of digital divide requires, on the one hand, the balanced nationwide systemic approach, whereas on the other hand, implementation of focus initiatives aimed at the wide inclusion of social groups in the process of ICT application as far as possible. More than that, ICT for development is the progressive tool to solve the variety of today’s socio-economic problems, including Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) that have been achieving by UN since 1990. To this end, I regard the following measures a priority that will enable to attain impetuous outcomes on the national level in the foreseeable future:•Implementation of the national strategy of the Information

Society development on the national level;•Provision of favorable conditions to fasten the effective

multi-stakeholder partnerships, including the cooperation with international authorities;

•Establishment of appropriate grounds for foreign investments;

•Development of digital access points infrastructure both in urban, semi-urban and rural areas;

•Increase of the variety of e-Services, including e-Government, e-Health, e-Commerce, e-Learning etc;

•Focus on e-Literacy skills.The end of 2005 will be marked by the strategic changes in the Information Society domain, which practical outcomes will be assessed by the international community at WSIS [5]; each state is to demonstrate its own achievements to the rest of the world.


Considering the domestic mass media, the utmost priority should be given to:•Partnership of the domestic mass media with East Europe

and Central Asia partners within the framework of joint representation of the very region at WSIS;

•Active participation of the domestic mass media in the Digital Media Global Forum;

•Wide highlight of the information society developments by the national media sources;

•Contribution to the initiatives aimed at the Ukraine’s transformation in to the high-tech knowledge economy.

At the same time, the main emphasis should be put on the tackling of the variety of social divides upon the information age emergence. Therefore, I am confident that digital divide issue, as well as the scope of the mass media inclusion in the process, will be high on the agenda of further research and development initiatives, scientific and business projects and state programs.References:1) Колодюк А.В. Цифровий розподіл – нова форма соціального розмежування в умовах глобалізації // Вісник державної Академії керівних кадрів культури. – 2004. – № 4.2) Баранов А.А. Подолання цифрової нерівності – шлях до побудови інформаційного суспільства в Україні. // http://www.isu.org.ua/uploads/publications/17.doc.3) Emmanuel C. Lallana “The Information Age” an e-premier. http://www.eprimers.org.4) Коляденко В.А. Інфокомунікаційні технології як чинник політичної модернізації: Автореф. дис. канд. політ. наук. – Одеса, 2002.5) Arrangements for the Tunis Phase of the Summit. Document WSIS-03/GENEVA/DOC/10-E 10 December 2003.

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