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Open knowledge, free society

Editorial line of the III ONLINE Congress of the Observatory for the CyberSociety

The popularization of information and communication technologies (ICT) have generated a debate and concern that go beyond mere technology. It is a crosscutting and strategic issue. The ICTs are tools, means and spaces of training, thus they are not an asset or an objective by themeselves, but rather a powerful social accelerator, as well as economic/labor, individual and collective. Therefore, the generalized interest in using these technologies arises from the assumption that if we have an open knowledge or an unrestricted and free of obstacles access to knowledge we may have more egalitarian, autonomous and trained societies; all in all, freer societies.


ICTs are experiencing a generalized progress but there is still a long way to go. In February 2005 the United Nations Organization expressed the following: “The digital gap separating countries is not insignificant: it represents nearly twice as much the average inequality level of incomes”. However, during the last years digital advance has not slowed down in most countries; the most significant progress – often linked to events like the free software development – occurred in developing countries.

On this account, access continues being essential; the question what for? begins to acquire more importance than for whom? On this issue and taking into consideration that cybersociety keeps growing, the questions making up the core of the call for the III ONLINE Congress arise: Which is the cybersociety we want? Who produces the contents? How do these become visible? For whom? What use do people give to the information they access to? In short, the major question is: What role can ICTs and the open unrestricted access to knowledge play in the creation of freer, more democratic and more egalitarian societies?

Which is the cybersociety we want? Since the network democratizes communication, we hope that along with it opportunities will become universal. But this requires technical capacity, participation, commitment and a critical use of technology. Therefore a sine qua non condition is that cybercitizens know how – and for what purpose - to use the electronic tool. This places us again before the mission of promoting and attaining an effective digital, critical, committed and accountable literacy, starting with users-producers of contents and continuing with users-consumers. It is about developing new abilities but also encouraging a new type of attitudes.

Who produces contents? The information available in the network is there thanks to the gradual addition of efforts made by social groups that express their interests. Traditional sectors share the cyberspace with those that are traditionally excluded, amid a cooperative dynamics which can also be conflicting. On this account, and because of the omnipresence of the network, there is not necessarily a central authority producing contents, nor distributing them; in fact, together with the free software, copyleft, creative commons practices, the organization of online communities allows and even promotes that any user may participate both in the definition and construction of those communities and the creation - and use – of knowledge. Up to what extent this (new) model is valid for an eventual and more mature cybersociety in the future? Will it be possible to maintain an ethical code based on sharing knowledge and not competing to acquire it? Or, on the contrary, are we witnessing the (re)birth of an (old) new model of cooperative knowledge that may aspire to disrupt the hegemony of a predatory market founded on benefiting from the barriers of knowledge?

For whom? With the gradual incorporation of larger sectors of the population to the everyday use of computers and the Internet, we must question the model of “societies of information” we are constructing. The II ONLINE OCS Congress aimed to that direction. To the question: To what society of knowledge? it is worthwhile asking now for the reasons cybercitizens have in using ICTs and the society of knowledge. Is knowledge open? Was it closed before? Or has it been always open to some and those “some” are now more numerous than before? Is this apparent democratization of information and access to it generating new less stratified social models? Who are the new users and producers and what do they do with ICTs? In the core of this discussion the old public/private topics arise, though restated from the characteristics and discourse of the digital field.

An finally again, What for? The opening and access to information should serve in principle to the educated construction of opinions. Ignorance and freedom are mutually exclusive, as the one who ignores his/her options is incapable of choosing among them. The culmination of democratic participation occurs when knowledge is accessible, that is, when the ideal of the society of information is fulfilled. Therefore, what use do people give to the information they access to?

In the face of this set of open questions and issues to be solved, the Observatory for CyberSociety wants to open again a space of open discussion, in the framework of its third ONLINE Congress. The key formulation, under the form of a naive equation, of critical positioning and interrogative statement that we have chosen as heading will lead not only our debates and reflections but probably the immediate future of our economies, cultures and cybersocieties. Thus, by way of invitation, question, statement and provocation, we open the creative process: Open knowledge, Free society.

(c) III Congreso ONLINE OCS - http://www.cibersociedad.net/congres2006 - Legal Notice