Can one argue that we live in an all-inclusive Information Society Essay

Can one argue that we live in an all-inclusive Information Society Illustrate your answer by offering examples from the media a - Essay Example ICT has proven its worth for providing economic developments, improving the quality of living, opening employment opportunities, and linking people no matter where they may be located in the world. The purpose of this paper is to examine whether or not one can argue that people live in an all-inclusive Information Society. Hence, it will dig into details such as the background of the network society, the definition and facts about all-inclusive information society, some issues that surround it, the influence of media and other communications industries, and the arguments, advantages, and disadvantages of the issue in focus. Background of All-inclusive Information Society The e-inclusion policy of Europe aims to lessen disparities when it comes to ICT usage among every single person despite social status. This policy wishes to create an all-inclusive information society, also known as the network society wherein everyone can create their own opportunities in business, education, and e mployment by being able to access reliable information through the different tools and services provided by ICT easily (International Telecommunication Union 2012). Manuel Castells (cited in Glass 2005, p. 9) once postulated that ‘in a new network economy, information becomes a key factor in economic productivity.’ For example, the flow of stocks in the market is based on relevant information regarding businesses and finances, as well as social and technological trends. Hence, information is made known through ICT and the relevant information is being used to improve businesses and increase economies. The all-inclusive information society is needed in order to balance development in a nation—both the urban and rural areas. The ICT tools and services must be fairly accessible and convenient to all citizens so that they will access information equally relevant for the improvement of their quality of living for all types of people including the disabled, old, and th ose living in remote areas where there used to be difficulties in finding good signals to access the net (European Commission 2007). In the advent of technology, only few people were able to make use of the internet especially the educated ones. These days, almost everyone can use and access ICT tools and services—even children can go online and be able to do e-learning. However, despite these advancements, studies have shown that factors such as education, age, employment, culture, and language may impede the e-inclusion policy because these are major drawbacks in the effective usage of information and communication technologies (Webster 2006). Solutions to these have constantly been researched and studied in order to realise the policy fully. Countries like Europe have implemented this and are close to around 80% of success in the e-inclusion. They still need to do a lot of work, though, and they are aware of it. Other countries, especially those belonging to the third worl d country will find this a difficult task because first and foremost the availability and affordability percentage of people in using ICT tools and services is quite low, but the positive side is that there are more and more people becoming more literate to these technologies little by little (European Communities 2006). In an all-inclusive network society, every ICT user will be able to express his or her opinion, which is a great way to make