Last updated on: February 23, 1998

International information Structures and Technologies: the Social Perspective

Training course at the United Nations, Division for Social Policy and Development

December 11, 1997; February 24, March 5 and 6, 1998

The rapid and unprecedented growth of the international information economy is beginning to have profound social consequences as well as improving the ability of social policy professionals to acquire and use an unprecedented range of information for development analysis, planning, advocacy and evaluation.

The seminar and workshop will consider: (1) the nature of the new information technologies and their international implications, (2) the emerging global policy issues in the new information economy and (3) the application of the new technologies to work of the United Nations in the field of social policy and development.

Co-directors:

Charles C. Kuhlman, Director of Telecommunications, New York University and John R. Mathiason, Adjunct Professor, NYU and Managing Director, AIMS

Assignment:

Before the session on February 24, participants should prepare a brief analysis of the relevance of the new information technology to their work, by answering the following five questions:

1. What is the main function of the unit in which you work?

2. What is your main role within that work unit?

3. What is the main substantive task that you are expected to accomplish over the course of the year (1998)?

4. What aspects of that task could involve new information technologies of any kind?

5. What would you need to know to be able to use the new information technologies in that task?

Suggested References:

A major source of scholarly inquiry into the internet and its future has been Harvard University's Information Infrastructure Project. Their most recent Conference on the Impact of the Internet on Communications Policy contains a number of relevant papers.

The OECD has had a major research project on the Global Information Infrastructure and has completed a solid report on the issues raised. It recently organized a conference on the future of electronic commerce in Turku, Finland.

Anthony Rutkowski's description of the origins of the Internet can be found at a site which he has created on behalf of the World Internet Alliance. His history of the Web is found in an annex to a paper he prepared for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Seminar on the Internet in November. He also has an argument against any form of regulation of the Net.

The growth of the Internet and the changes that this will make for world commerce and information exchange have been studied by a number of commercial enterprises. One of them, International Data Corporation (IDC), has just issued its 1998 predictions. available, as is often the case with studies on the Internet, on its Web Page. IDC has also completed a study on projected world-wide growth of the Internet which shows considerable growth outside the United States and Europe.

A series of maps showing the Internet structure and growth can be found in An Atlas of Cyberspace. The imbalance between industrialized and developing countries can be seen in several geographic maps.

The issues of privacy, content control and who should regulate electronic commerce are discussed by a group called the Internet Law and Policy Forum. The need for international agreements on legislative principles for electronic commerce and authentication is set out in a set of draft principles.

An otherwise arcane issue that has considerable importance for internet commerce is encryption, in which the EU and the US have divergent position. A perceptive analysis of the encryption issue is found in Susan Landau's paper for the Harvard Conference.