The question of the Digital Revolution and of the change of the political, economic and social structures it is, at this time, one of the most frequent debates and, I believe me, more transcendent. This debate, far away enough of the stockings and of its" transmission" almost minute to minute of the changes of the companies point com, it is, however, intense.
Intense he/she doesn't mean, necessarily, abundant. The since map, of this shortage - at least conceptually and in my particular perspective - he/she belongs together on time with the map of the development of the main effects of that Revolution.
In this first part, some of the limits of the current situation state are presented in the reflection process on the effects of the change, as well as the initial position of those questions that I find transcendent for the debate that I have mentioned.
The Digital Revolution is based on the advance and the fork in three big areas: the electronics, the software and the telecommunications. The electronics has contributed the development of process equipment from the information to a very quick rhythm. Then, the development of logical support for those you scheme that has grown in complexity as the support constituted for you scheme them it has evolved. Nevertheless, great part of that logical support or software has been designed to improve its" friendliness" with the user, trying to become simpler for an user than possibly, it doesn't evolve in its knowledge to the same speed that makes it the rest of the system, allowing a masificación in the use of the computers. The telecommunications have given to the above-mentioned the interconnection capacity
The evident effects of the Digital Revolution, this is, perceptible for the great majority of the individuals, they embrace one period of scarcely two thousand days.
In the humanity's big changes a technological element has been presented that acts about the productivity. This Revolution is characterized because the technologies and the knowledge constitute a system in the one that interactúan and you potencian mutually the technology, the prosecution of the information and the knowledge applied to you scheme them of process of the information.
Those" you revolutionize" they are characterized by an initial development that then expands, reaching the world context practically, and causing changes in the production that you/they can be considered irreversible. This way, it happened with the Industrial Revolution and this happening to the Digital Revolution, even when the speed of expansion of an and another is incomparable, in particular because the Digital Revolution operates exactly about the communication and the information.
It could be said that the Industrial Revolution finished the day in that the market capitalization of Microsoft overcomes that of General Motors. That day it could locate the beginning of the Digital Revolution. It is necessary to consign that this" end" of the Industrial Revolution it means their culmination like historical and economic process, dista enough of any statement in the sense of a" end of the industry."
In this sense, Don Tapscott understands that, in front of these changes, it is not convenient to use the denomination of" economy of services", because the use of those terms seems to insinuate that the industrial production stops to be important and what counts is the services. It is obvious that it is necessary the agricultural production and the industrial one. The question is other: the new economy and the new means revolutionize the form in that the activities of those sectors are made.
"The mentioned fork has taken to a great development of the denominated TIC (Technologies of the information and of the communication). The new complementary asset to the growth and the use of the new technologies of the information and of the communication it is the investment in human and intangible capital. The mentioned triangle, in consequence, it is the denominator common of the economic fabric of which has been denominated as the" New Economy."
The consumption of the information doesn't imply a" I use" in the physical traditional sense. The information can be used by successive users, but, also, it can be used simultaneously by two or more individuals.
Juan Luis Cebrián, it has pointed out that it is a revolution, for" you reason strictly technical", since the incorporation of the digital technical systems to the manipulation, transport and reception of the information has allowed to reduce to a single element. the bytes - that that before was made up of different elements. That characteristic is the one that summarizes the convergent character of the new culture (text, lively image and sounds constantly interrelated). The focus of Cebrián concentrates on the argument of the existence of a Digital Society, with a group of evidences that you/they characterize it, those that, in its majority they are objectively compartibles, still when they are argument object some of its conclusions:
• The digital society is global, not presenting opposite geographical and temporary, in that sense, Internet has a destination and a planetary behavior.
• The digital society is convergent, converging in her many disciplines, tasks and specialties of the knowledge and making that they accustomed to be managed for separate and, before or later, it will light a new epistemología.
• The digital society is interactive, where the foundation of its action is the I dialogue and the cooperation.
• The digital society is chaotic: it doesn't admit grateful hierarchies neither he/she undergoes the habitual parameters of the authority easily.
• The digital society is the cradle of a new virtual reality that is not only an imagined reality or represented.
• The digital society is at this time, impredecible: it is developed from an autonomous way to great speed and it has overflowed all the forecasts about its growth.
The new technologies of the communication - among other things - they increase the access to the information, but they don't grant a better education or a better use of that information automatically; they increase the freedom of speech.
In the hinge of the millennium, the convergence of the media, the computer science and the telecommunications in a conglomerate hipermedia are consolidating quickly. The Era of the Information has come being predicted with more grades almost for thirty years or smaller than approach
In the context of the integration of the different technologies around common protocols something is believed that goes beyond a sum of parts. Radical changes in the production, in the work, and in the relationships of power, they are framed in a deep social change that doesn't admit a setback.
Leaving from a perspective of the real world, it is necessary to recognize that around the humanity's 5% he/she has a true access to the Net.
Also that is almost a natural thing, being civic of a developed country, to have a phone line and a computer, what is not natural in wide and vast regions of the planet. This way, something more than three hundred million people has a shortcut to the" world in net", while, for other five thousand seven hundred millions, it is a problem that gives, undoubtedly in front of other urgencies or, simply, their infrastructural base doesn't make possible or directly it transforms it into an element of sumptuary nature that should give place, in the assignment of resources to other more urgent necessities. Without damage of that abundance and of that lack, the phenomenon of change and their consequences don't stop.
The installation of the digital society is bound to the density of the phone nets and the world traffic of the telecommunications. More than 80% of the same one it is concentrated among the United States, Canada, the European Union, Japan and Australia. Of the three hundred million users that he/she is considered they exist in the world, more than 50% they are North American and whole regions of the planet exist, fundamentally África, but also big extensions of Asia, Latin America and the region eurasiática that you/they live temporarily absent of the main effects of the change. Internet is, from that point of view, a revolution with a diversified epicentre but for the most part concentrated in the developed nations, a phenomenon that if it is not managed appropriately it can contribute to enlarge the distances among the regions, countries and individuals.
"We are playing ourselves the place that we will occupy in the emergent society of the Digital Revolution. I don't only eat country, as region, but I eat something more important, as culture. The Castilian organizes an universe cultural town of different identities. For that reason, instead of being the branch of translation of the culture taken place in Silicon Valley, China or Japan, we can generate autonomous cultural products"
I believe that [Castells] places one of the most transcendent accents here inside the question to try. Up to now, alone in counted occasions, the sensation is that the branch of translation still works, and, vigorously besides. Possibly, the translation would not be the biggest problem, but what it is what is translated, what it is what is acquired and what it is it that you [internaliza], under what approaches of previous knowledge to allow a reflection of objective nature. The reading of this analysis, especially in their second part, it will justify this comment thoroughly.
This panorama makes give the visions rose quickly as those that affirm" the life in the [ciberespacio]... it is but equitable that elitist and more decentralized that hierarchical. It benefits the individuals and the communities, not to the massive audiences."
Undoubtedly, to consent to the circle of the equality and of the decentralization, it is necessary to be able to knock down a digital breach of not simple resolution. That question, also, it should be confronted with two quite opposed positions with regard to the same essence of the human participation in the Net. For [Negroponte], for example, the Net is" equitable" and" anarchical." For [Furio] Colombo, far from being equitable, the term used by the North American author mentions to the concept of" liberal", translating an ideological position and that it is in a thing very different from the" egalitarianism." In consequence, the idea that a great multinational meets fraternally with the lady that looks for a cooking recipe in the [ciberespacio] is truly unlikely .
Also, the definition of anarchical applied to the Net is extremely relative and in this point the agreement is practically total in most of the authors. The apparent anarchy could be applied to the pioneer phase of the Internet and it lasted until the entrance to her of those" facilitators", this is, those software designers and of applications to make possible the sailing. "The sailing, when being made easier, becomes more orderly and to the most orderly being, he/she becomes more rational and, to the rational being it is developed through stations and of support points that one comes settling down inside the Net for the corporations. There is not anything of bad, be enough to say it. It is not worth to camouflage it, like he/she has made Bill Gates in their last book, the normal and legitimate function of to buy and to sell, without disguising him of dream, of religion, of mission, of utopia of the future."
On these bases he/she settles a debate where many intellectuals are participating at the present time. For example, [Umberto] Echo that has pointed out that the new interactive technologies of the communication have produced the inverse effect to the one predicted by George [Orwell] in [The] [Big] [Brother], opening the way to a great anarchy situation for the participation of millions of" small siblings" in the context of the Net. Echo sustains that at the present time, the use of those technologies is still in the entire world for a minority of individuals and the problem is how to determine the step of an use on the part of an elite to a massive use and that, in definitive, it is a democracy problem.