Debate

Many participants in the session strongly believed that the development of the Information Society cannot be left only to market forces, because the market cannot take responsibility for the marginal and the less favoured groups in the population. Moreover, fears were expressed that as ICT technologies are accelerating the pace of economic life, the risk of leaving behind weaker people actually increases since many of them cannot adjust to the new changes.

The actual process of development of the Information Society was considered by many to be too centred on the commercial aspects of the launch of new services and markets.

“Observation of the past and future trends reveal the risks entailed by an exclusively mercantile conception of information. The currently predominant rationale supports the supply of equipment and services rather than the satisfaction of needs, which will be to a large extent those revealed by a market whose suppliers spend most of their energy tapping the most profitable segments… It is necessary to give priority to previously and clearly identified needs of human development, rather than to the satisfaction of unidentified expectations.”

Conclusions

For the participants in this session the Green Paper is only a first step towards building an IS geared to individuals and to social needs. More participation is needed by grass roots organisations in the creation of the Information Society. EU projects in particular should involve participative design techniques while the European Commission was urged to harmonise work in its different directorates (III, IV, V, XKKK, XVI, XXII) to more strongly support the social and cultural needs which arise in the creation of the Information Society.

The European Information Society should preserve traditional European values of solidarity and an active role for public and social services. It should encourage public and social services to adopt innovation not just to improve efficiency and effectiveness, but also to satisfy people’s needs, to reduce inequalities and to improve the quality of services.