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The European Information Society
A reality check
By Jan Servaes Intellect Ltd
Copyright © 2003 Intellect
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-84150-893-1
CHAPTER 1
The European Information Society: A wake-up call
Jan Servaes
In many ways the European plans to build an Information Society (IS) emerged as a reaction to Japanese and American initiatives (Edelstein, Bowes & Harsel, 1978). As in many other previous technological projects, European policies on information and communication technologies (ICT) were lagging behind the policies of its main global competitors.
This situation has changed slightly since the beginning of the eighties, when it became clear that information and communication would be one of the main technological factors and markets for the future. From then onwards Europe has spend a growing amount of its R&D on ICTs.
This went hand in hand with a radical change in policy orientation. Starting from the Green Paper on Television Policy (Television without Frontiers) in 1984, the area of communications became gradually and more or less totally liberalized. From 1998 onwards, the whole ICT field became deregulated.
Though, in the eighties, the term information society as such wasn't used in the R&D and policy discourse of the EU, the idea underlying it was nevertheless captured in most R&D programs in terms of 'wired society', 'broad band networks' and so on. Thus the EU didn't start from scratch in this field. On the contrary, a very considerable research effort was made. Nevertheless, in terms of user acceptance, these first generations of large-scale R&D projects in integrated communications were not very successful.
This might explain why, when the idea of an 'information highway' was officially 'launched' by the Clinton-Gore administration, Europe almost immediately integrated it into its own discourse. First, under the label of trans-European networks, in the so-called Delors White Paper (1993), but much more prominently in the Bangemann report (1994) with an unconditional belief in the market as the driving force.
What resulted is the EU way to build the information society: pushing politically the wiring of Europe and the building of its highways, but leaving it up to the private sector to implement. Europe clearly wanted no lagging behind this time and, at the same time though not explicitly, got a brand new 'grand societal project' for its official policy. The information society indeed became a discourse in which it was possible to integrate many of the at first sight disparate European ambitions: from competition policy over competitiveness to maintaining cultural diversity and subsidiarity.
Two waves of IS-rhetoric ... and several contradictory discourses
The first initiative of the European Commission in its 'information society planning' of the nineties was the white paper 'Growth, Competitiveness and Employment' of 1993. The Commission under the chairmanship of the former French Socialist Minister of Finance, Jacques Delors, prepared this paper. It starts from a Social-Democratic concern for job creation and equal opportunity combined with a focus on Europe's competitiveness in an increasingly internationalizing world economy. This rather neo-Keynesian white paper was followed by the much more neo-liberal Bangemann report in 1994 on the basis of an initiative by the Council. This report, chaired by the former German FDP (liberal) Minister Martin Bangemann, focuses more on the issues of liberalization of telecommunications and the primacy of the private sector in the development of an information society.
Therefore, the information society policies of the European Union in the nineties can be presented as two waves, one in the first part of the decade with an emphasis on liberalization of telecommunications and information technology development, and the other in the second half of the 1990s with more focus on social aspects of information society developments. This understanding is, to a large extent, well founded especially if the first wave is seen as being represented by the Bangemann report and the 'Action Plan' of 1994. The development in the EU information society policy has thus been characterized by an oscillation between broader social concerns and a more technology and market-oriented focus. However, by doing so, it probably portrays the development in too rosy colors as a continuous development without the differences of opinion or emphases that have existed.
In 1995, for instance, a high-level expert group (HLEG) and an Information Society Forum were established to analyze "the social aspects of the information society" as the HLEG poses it in its final policy report 'Building the European Information Society for us all' (Soete, 1997). As a justification for this focus, HLEG wrote: "Until that time, the debate on the emerging information society had been dominated by issues relating to the technological and infrastructure challenges and the regulatory economic environment" (CEC, 1997a). There was, therefore, a perceived need for re-focusing on the social dimensions of the 'European model', in line with the white paper 'Growth, Competitiveness and Employment', as stated in the HLEG-report.
In yet another document, 'The Social and Labor Market Dimension of the Information Society – People First – the Next Steps' (CEC, 1997b), the Commission suggests that information society policies should have as basic aims to "improve access to information, enhance democracy and social justice, promote employability and lifelong learning, strengthen the capacity of the EU economy to achieve high and sustainable growth and employment, achieve and enhance equal opportunity between men and women, promote inclusion and support people with special needs and those lacking opportunities to improve their position, and improve quality and efficiency of public administration". In other words, the Information Society will solve all problems of humankind. Often, the recommendations are less ambitious and comprehensive. Quite a number of them give priority to social and labor market dimensions (see, for instance, CEC, 2002a+b; Johnston, 2000; or Johnston's contribution to this volume), but also other issues such as political integration, EU-citizenship and cultural diversity feature prominently In other contexts, other issues have been given priority. Especially, educational policies and lifelong learning and the combination of information technology-related policies with other policy areas have come to the fore in the last couple of years. One of the reasons for the change of priority in favor of social concerns is that the liberalization of telecommunications has developed in a satisfactory way seen from the point of view of the Commission. However, the basic aims listed still remain an expression of a development in the EU information society policy.
Questions, questions, questions
Though it remains to be seen whether a mixture of Marshall Plan type of 'grand works' (the Delors imprint) with an unconditional belief in the market as the driving force (the Bangemann influence) has a feasible future, the information society has become a discourse in which it is possible to integrate many of the at first sight disparate European ambitions. Or, as argued by Garnham (1997): the claims made for telecommunications and IT, as catalyst for economic development should be seen as good old political rhetoric. "It meets the needs of politicians because it promises a technological fix to deep seated social and economic problems, but as a 'new' initiative it distracts attention away from the failure of previous similar initiatives to solve these problems" (Garnham, 1997: 327).
Furthermore, the policy of an IS has to be checked against its underlying assumptions. Starting from the assumption that information and communication technologies undoubtedly possess the potential to contribute to socio-cultural change, it can be questioned whether this potential will be converted into advantages for everyone under the given scenario's the EU has planned. As largescale application of information and communication technology increases, new problems will arise which 'the market' as such will not being able to resolve. More and better regulatory mechanisms will have to be developed to deal with these. If it should appear that the means proposed by the European Commission representatives are inadequate to arrive at the intended result, then the current strategy will have to be amended, or, if necessary, an alternative strategy will have to be proposed. In other words, is it enough to state, as the fifth framework (1999–2002) for R&D of the EU did, that it has to be a "user friendly information society in the benefit for all" to make it happen?
Sophia Kaitatzi-Whitlock (2000) notices that so far the questions that dominated policy discussions about the 'information society' deal firstly about the 'astonishing' quantities of films, shows, data etc. that can be consumed online and on the spot, and secondly, about the variety, the level and the speed of services that can be performed from home. Both sets of issues stress the consuming function. Such an approach obscures another set of questions that have to be addressed but remain default. What agency enhancing potential is actually offered to the citizen by the information society? How far does the famous interactivity element reach? What skills, and job-creating capabilities are conferred by information technology sold on the market? What new outlooks, options are provided to individual members of society? What familiarization processes have been initiated? These issues need to be focused closely and systematically. Unless, these questions find viable solutions, citizens and underfunded consumers will not create demand for supplied information networks, contents and tools.
In general, the European Commission realizes that it still has a long way to go. Therefore, top aide Maria Rodrigues, the chief organizer of the EU's first-ever IT summit which took place in March 2000 during Portugal's presidency of the Union, readily admitted that "we have to recognize that Europe is late compared with the US regarding the transition to an innovation and knowledge society. We must speed up this transition not just because we are late but also so that we can find our own way -- a European model" (in Jones, 1999: 30). Since this Lisbon summit official texts of the European Commission teem with new terms coined with reference to the Information Society, such as 'New Information and Communication Technologies (NICTs)', 'on-line world', 'knowledge and innovation economy', 'e-Europe', etc. Specific aims include: adopting a legal framework for ecommerce; fully liberalized telecommunications markets by 2002; cutting the cost of Internet use; all schools to have Internet access in 2001 and all teachers to be skilled in Internet use in 2002; Internet access to basic public services by 2003; and an e-Europe action plan specifying targets for interconnected low-cost, highspeed Internet and telecommunication networks (see CEC, 2001, 2002c; or Mather, 2000).
Is the European IS-policy sustainable?
Relating to telecommunications and with the benefit of hindsight, the question can be raised whether information society policies have not just functioned as the sugar around a policy of telecommunication liberalization. Telecommunication liberalization was the main issue in the Bangemann report of 1993 and the 'Action Plan' of 1994 and is still the most marked result of the information society initiatives taken from the beginning of the 1990s.
However, such an understanding would be a misconception of the general outline of the EU information society policy. Telecommunication liberalization is not an alien element in this policy but an important integral part. Although there are disagreements on specific policy elements and directions, information society policies are answers to technological and international economic developments and general policy trends with a clear liberal taste, which is also why there is an overall consensus around EU information society policies even though they fluctuate and have different emphases depending on the people involved and the phases of development.
Regarding the field of telecommunications and broadcasting a distinction between liberal economic (in favor of deregulation) and cultural policies (mostly in favor of regulation) respectively is visible in Europe.
Early analyses of EU public policy show that the EU was not anticipating an overall policy on the convergence of these formerly distinct services (see Burgelman & Pauwels, 1991, as well as their contribution in this volume, and Venturelli, 1998). In telecommunications development the emphasis is on liberalization and deregulation, providing private corporations with a maximum of freedom to invest on the telecommunication networks.
Public policy in the broadcasting field is guided by another logic. In the media sector political concerns to safeguard a public sphere of pluralism and national sovereignty leads to the ambition to offer a diverse media system, containing public as well as private media (Wang, Servaes & Goonasekera, 2000; Servaes & Heinsman, 1991).
As the two historically, separately evolved sectors of telecommunications and broadcasting converge, the different policy consequences of the economic versus the cultural, and local versus international interests have to be taken into account. Research indicates, however, that the national, and especially the European policies regarding telecommunication services in general and broadcasting in particular are based on economic instead of cultural considerations. This trend has even increased after 1992 (Weymouth & Lamizet, 1996; Natalicchi, 2001). Also the public service broadcasting structure and philosophy have undergone major changes throughout the last decades. These changes, initiated by internal as well as external factors, have affected the organizational and finance structures, and the programming of public service broadcasting (Wolton, 1990).
Therefore, it is questionable whether the European policies will be in the advantage of the so-called smaller countries in the EU, like for instance Belgium or the Netherlands (Servaes, 1993), on the one hand, and whether these policies will be able to secure a free and balanced flow of information, ideas, opinions and cultural activities within the EU on the other hand. In other words, it is no longer sufficient to concentrate on a distinct sector from only a technological or an economic perspective; a multi-dimensional analysis of the different policy options and their respective consequences is necessary.
Therefore, it could be argued that the EU strategy is not sustainable in the medium and long term. The reason for this is that policymakers and market parties have thoroughly neglected the principle of balance between productive and consumptive functions. This is caused by the fact that the Commission and the politically accountable EU policymakers and institutions have assigned the transition to the digitized information economy to market forces and logics alone (see also Preston's analysis in this book). Similarly this is the reason why the EU failed to develop a longer-term vision of the future global networks.
The convergence issue
The convergence between telecommunications and broadcasting occurs at three levels: at the levels of networks (infrastructure), service provision, and corporate organization (Wang, Servaes & Goonasekera, 2000).
In Europe policy decisions or policy perspectives are mainly technology and/or commercially driven. A lot of attention focuses on the research concerning (and the implementation of) hardware. A lot of money is spent for the development of network infrastructure, broadcasting facilities etc. (Foley, 2000, Heinderyckx, 1998; Salak, 2000).
Second, regarding media ownership, we always seem to meet the same players in the different sectors on different global, regional and national levels. These are telecommunication operators, major publishing firms and media moguls. In most of the countries we observe that one or two of these actors (or a merger of them) control the telecommunication sector, major parts of the broadcasting sector and sometimes an important part of the print media (Doyle, 2002, Grimes, 2000).
Third, because of these concentration tendencies, national governments are afraid of broadcasting monopolies. Their legal reaction is the promulgation of anti-trust and anti- concentration laws. Examples of this legislation are the prohibition of controlling more than two national television networks and the restriction of market share percentage in the media landscape.
Last, the emphasis in public policy making is on hardware. Software/content development is heavily neglected.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from The European Information Society by Jan Servaes. Copyright © 2003 Intellect. Excerpted by permission of Intellect Ltd.
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