Information as Commodity – Information as Reality

In fact, notions such as “free flow of information” or “universal access to knowledge” are as old as UNESCO, representing core elements of its mandate. Whereas these principles are as relevant today as they were when UNESCO was established, the measures for achieving them have constantly changed and adapted to the changing conditions of the world’s political, economic and technological landscape. Many of today’s actions have their roots in older activities, with one such example the movement known as the New World Information and Communication Order (NWICO), culminating in the so-called MacBride report entitled Many Voices, One World. ⁹⁷¹ The report outlined challenges that the world was facing as a result of technological developments in communications in the 1980s, referring to commercialisation and market dominance, imbalance in information flow, a lack of means to collect and disseminate information, as well as linguistic, economic and social constraints, which are still relevant today. A more recent initiative addressing similar problems is the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), a worldwide undertaking initiated within the UN for establishing the foundations of an information society for all, for example by devising political, technical and financial measures to bridge the “digital divide”. This digital divide refers to inequalities between and within countries in terms of their capabilities to access and use information mainly by means of digital technologies.⁹⁷² Concepts such as “information society” or “knowledge society” already emerged in academic circle in the second half of the twentieth century to reflect the changes that the economy of developed countries was undergoing. For instance, one author theorising the knowledge society concept explains that:

“The changes in the structure of the economy and its dynamics are increasingly a reflection of the fact that knowledge becomes the leading dimension in the productive process, the primary condition for its expansion and for a change in the limits to economic growth in the developed world. In the knowledge society, most of the wealth…is increasingly embodied in its creativity and information.”⁹⁷³

Although WSIS incorporates “information society” in its title, UNESCO expressed its preference to “promote the concept of knowledge societies rather than that of global information society since enhancing information flows alone is not sufficient […].”⁹⁷⁴ Accordingly, knowledge societies are “about capabilities to identify, produce, process,

971 UNESCO, Many Voices, One World: Towards a More Just and More Efficient World Information and Communication Order, Report by the International Commission for the Study of Communication Problems, (Paris/ London/New York: UNESCO/Kogan Page/Unipub, 1980).

972 United Nations, Declaration of Principles, Building the Information Society: A Global Challenge in the New Millennium, adopted on the Information Society, Document: WSIS-03/GENEVA/DOC/4-E. 2003, http://www.itu.int/wsis/docs/geneva/official/dop.html

973 Nico Stehr, Knowledge Societies, (London: Sage Publications, 1994).

974 UNESCO, UNESCO’s Contribution to the World Summit on the Information Society, Geneva 2003 and Tunis 2005, UNESCO no. Executive Board Meeting, 166th session, 3 March 2003, Item 3.5.1 of the provisional agenda, Paris: UNESCO, http://unesdoc.unesco.org/ulis/cgi-bin/ulis.pl?catno=129531

transform, disseminate and use information to build and apply knowledge for human development.”⁹⁷⁵

Despite conceptual differences, the notions are most typically used interchangeably, with both conceptualisations sharing an underlying view that information or knowledge are commodities.⁹⁷⁶ Van der Velden sustains this argument, explaining how it is framed in relation with the digital divide metaphor, which “implies a conceptualisation of knowledge as commodity, something which can be extracted and transported from one place to another.”⁹⁷⁷ It resembles the transportation view of communication, referring back to the aforementioned concepts of James Carey.⁹⁷⁸ While Van der Velden argues against such a view, to understand her position it is useful to briefly recall Olick’s distinction between collective memory as a product and process, mentioned in chapter two.⁹⁷⁹ Van der Velden makes a similar distinction concerning the notion of knowledge in order to set some limits to what can and should be digitised. From her perspective, products can be digitised, whereas social processes cannot, and knowledge is not a product but rather a process.⁹⁸⁰ Treating knowledge as a commodity is problematic, particularly in communities of indigenous peoples where oral traditions are prominent and knowledge is passed through interpersonal relations.⁹⁸¹ Knowledge as a commodity is passed on through political and economic relations, as emphasized by Dan Schiller, arguing that views of information as a commodity, which in essence bring together information theory with political economy, have reached overtly into other areas, including library and information science, sociology, law and literary criticism.⁹⁸² Schiller argues that information as a concept has a sense of objectivity abstracted from social life and in order to

975 UNESCO, Towards Knowledge Societies (Paris: UNESCO, 2005), 27.

976 There are important conceptual differences between words such as data, information and knowledge, with the difference between them often ignored. This aspect could not be discussed in the space of this present dissertation but for a brief discussion on their differences see Frank Webster, “Information,” In New Keywords:

A Revised Vocabulary of Culture and Society, eds. Tony Bennett, Lawrence Grossberg and Meaghan Morris (Malden, Oxford, Victoria: Blackwell Publishing, 2005), 186-89.

977 Maja.van der Velden, “Invisibility and the Ethics of Digitalization: Designing so as not to Hurt Others,”

(University of Bergen, Norway. 2005) http://www.cdu.edu.au/centres/ik/pdf/MvdV_paper1.pdf

978 See subchapter 4.2.1 in this dissertation.

979 See Olick, “From Collective Memory”, that has been discussed in subchapter 2.2.1 in this dissertation

980 Maja.van der Velden, “Invisibility and the Ethics of Digitalization”.

981 This has been discussed by Sahlfeld in a study about the use of digital technology in indigenous communities, who states that “not all languages are traditionally written and read and therefore cannot easily be represented in text format on the computer[…] Fixation in a written form could even hinder the weaving of personal experience into the narratives.” See Miriam Sahlfeld, “Commercializing cultural heritage? Criteria for a balanced instrumentalization of traditional cultural expressions for development in a globalized digital environment,” in Intellectual property and traditional cultural expressions in a digital environment, eds. Christoph B. Graber and Mira Burri-Nenova (UK: Edward Elgar Publishing Limited, 2008), 278-279.

982 Dan Schiller, “From culture to information and back again: Commoditization as a route to knowledge,”

Critical Studies in Mass Communication 11, no. 1 (1994): 93–115.

link them again he approaches it as a commodity, which allows reintroducing historical, social and political aspects in discussions concerning information.⁹⁸³ Whether tangible like a physical product or intangible such as a service, by definition a commodity implies links to capitalist modes of production and to market exchange. Schiller sustains that the commoditisation of information, which is nevertheless a route to knowledge, as emphasised by the title of his article, is also evident in the cultural sector, for instance in cultural industries and also in public libraries, which “now give way to commercial cultural productions and marketed information services.”⁹⁸⁴

In this regard, it is worth noting a remark by Blanchard, who, writing about how libraries adapt to the demands of digital technology, states that the information economy dominates the service economy (at least in the US), and that the “future of wealth accumulation is information services.”⁹⁸⁵ As the traditional providers of “information services”, libraries are currently experiencing a decline of utilisation and are in danger of being marginalised by transformations of both technology and popular culture.⁹⁸⁶ Consequently, being aware of the challenge, libraries “are mobilizing to respond. Almost everybody has some sort of ‘initiative’

underway, most with the word ‘digital’ or ‘electronic’ prominently featured.”⁹⁸⁷ For Innis, the library was also a place that reflected commoditisation processes, even though he wrote several decades ago. He states that “the library catalogue reflects an obsession of commercialism with special topics, events, periods, and individuals.”⁹⁸⁸ Innis paid attention to political-economic aspects and saw information as a commodity, which was exactly what prompted him to worry that the interest in tradition or time was being lost, leading to human relationships based on political and economic rather than social and community criteria.

However, in contrast to libraries, which adapt by adopting the technology with its ideological baggage, Innis suggested turning attention to other media that display opposed characteristics.

According to Blanchard, the development of an information economy resulted from three developments: the recognition that information holds value; the possibilities triggered by the Internet in terms of distribution and access to information; and the transformation in “popular information culture”.⁹⁸⁹ Indeed, as shown thus far, the Internet has played a crucial role in the

983 Schiller, “From culture to information,” 98.

984 Schiller, “From culture to information,” 100.

985 Blanchard, The Digital Challenge for Libraries, 15.

986 Blanchard, The Digital Challenge for Libraries, 7.

987 Ibid.

988 Innis, Bias, 77.

989 Blanchard, The Digital Challenge for Libraries, 15-16.

changes that have been taking place; however, by following an Innisian approach it results that the conceptualisation of information as having economic value as well as the emergence of a popular information culture have been triggered by the medium. An interest in information could only develop after technology made it ubiquitous and changed its character, as discussed below in relation to the second view described in this subchapter, namely information as reality.

Borgmann distinguishes between three different types of information as follows. First there is natural information or “information about reality”, which we take from the surrounding environment. In this respect, Borgmann exemplifies that “an expanse of smooth gravel is a sign that you are close to a river. Cottonwoods tell you where the river bank is. An assembly of twigs in the tree points to ospreys. The presence of ospreys shows that there are trout in the river […].”⁹⁹⁰ Second, there is cultural information or “information for reality”, which allows us to transform reality, and includes recipes, instructions for making wine and bread, plans, musical scores, constitutions, information for erecting buildings, amongst others.⁹⁹¹ Cultural information is made of conventional signs that stand out of nature, are detached from their environment and mobile, enriching the realm of natural information. At this point, it should be clarified that for Borgmann natural information was not in fact reduced to natural signs, despite his example provided. He considered that the paradigm for natural information was the record and report; whereas the recipe was the paradigm for cultural information. However, this distinction may not be sufficiently clear, especially in light of an anthropological understanding of culture, given that both reports and recipes are cultural objects. Furthermore, we would not recognize natural signs without being taught how to interpret them, and thus it can be said that the natural signs we see are in fact cultural, given that culture determines what we see. However, what Borgmann intends to say is that natural information describes, tells us what things exist; whereas cultural information instructs, tells us how to use or do things. Third, there is technological information or “information as reality”, which is carried neither by natural objects nor cultural texts, but rather by “a technological device, a stream of electrons conveying bits of information.”⁹⁹² Borgmann sustains that information steps forward as rival of reality through the power of technology. As he explains, cultural information has enhanced natural information and added something new; while technological information has

990 Albert Borgmann, Holding on to Reality: The Nature of Information at the Turn of the Millennium (Chicago, London: University of Chicago Press, 1999), 1.

991 Ibid.

992 Borgmann, Holding on to Reality, 2.

enhanced the other two types and similarly added something new; but “technological information is the most prominent layer of the contemporary cultural landscape, and increasingly it is more of a flood than a layer, a deluge that threatens to erode, suspend, and dissolve its predecessors.”⁹⁹³ Natural information makes reality perspicuous and visible;

whereas cultural information makes it surveyable; and technological information makes it transparent.⁹⁹⁴ Borgmann explains that the geographical information systems (GIS) are the paradigm of technological information, revealing things otherwise invisible on, above and beneath the earth.⁹⁹⁵ Borgmann’s further views concerning technological information resemble preservation problems of digital documents in libraries and archives. For example, he explains that technological information is very robust because it is based on the binary system, which is irreducible and sufficient to express anything that can be rendered in any other notation, which is an opinion shared by many other authors.⁹⁹⁶ However, he also acknowledges that technological information is very fragile, because while cultural information is intelligible to people, technological information depends on technological devices that are physically and socially fragile. They are physically fragile because the media on which they are inscribed are also fragile; and socially fragile because we rush for ever-more powerful technologies.⁹⁹⁷ While both aspects have been mentioned in the present dissertation,⁹⁹⁸ Borgmann adds two further notions. For instance, he also speaks about structural fragility, given that technological information is becoming increasingly complex, rendering it increasingly difficult to comprehend how the system functions. Consequently, they are not designed perfectly, leading to flaws in programs, which may further cause errors, or even the collapse of the systems it sustains.⁹⁹⁹ According to Borgmann, it is also possible to speak of cultural fragility, because technological information actually draws its existence from traditional culture, as revealed by what we see on the monitor, namely familiar things like calendars, note pads or clocks.¹⁰⁰⁰ While this exact subject has been discussed above in chapter five, the arguments raised by Borgmann resemble conclusions drawn so far from an Innisian analysis, thus enforcing it. Nevertheless, the purpose of this subchapter was to emphasise that digital technology encourages two different conceptualisations of information as commodity and reality, these ideas being reflected again in the next subchapter.

993 Borgmann, Holding on to Reality, 2.

994 Borgmann, Holding on to Reality, 170.

995 Borgmann, Holding on to Reality, 171-172.

996 Borgmann, Holding on to Reality, 130; Ibid, 193.; See also Floridi, Philosophy and Computing.

997 Borgmann, Holding on to Reality, 195-196.

998 See especially chapters 3 and 5 in this dissertation.

999 Borgmann, Holding on to Reality, 196.

1000 Borgmann, Holding on to Reality.