Monday 30 April 2007

KNOWLEDGE POLITICS QUARTERLY

Knowledge Politics is launching a journal.

We are open to submission from anybody and everybody, but we specifically expect to provide a forum for postgraduate research students working on subjects related to the Knowledge Politics remit. Media, internet, broadcasting, technological development, social implications - in terms of theory, policy or practice.

Instructions for authors:

2500 - 8000 words.

Times New Roman, size 12, single-spaced, justified.

Harvard system of referencing, eg (Author, YEAR: 45).

Bibliography at the end of the article.
BOOK Author, A (YEAR) Title (Place: Publisher).
ARTICLE Author, A (YEAR) 'Title', Journal (40/4), pp300-325.
CHAPTER Author, A. (YEAR) 'Title' in Book Title, Editor Name, A. (ed.) (Place: Publisher), pp30-55.

Headings. Section headings should be lower-case and emboldened. Sub-section headings should be lower-case and italicised.

Acknowledgements. Seperate section at end of the article, before the bibliography.

Please include also an abstract (approx 100 words) and a biography (approx 30-50 words).

Authors retain ALL copyrights at ALL times.

For further information email c.berry@knowledgepolitics.org.uk

e-readiness rankings

The Economist Intelligence Unit has published its 2007 E-Readiness Rankings, which you can find here. This is effectively a league table of countries, ranked according to internet accessibility. This year there are some interesting findings.

The first thing to note is the change in methodology by the EIU this year. Instead of just the availability of the internet in a country, rankings depend on the speed, security and affordability of internet connections. And the use of high-speed, safe internet is not enough to secure a high spot - the actual delivery and consumption of services online is given greater weight now. Overall, it's a more complex picture of e-readiness, but it's a more accurate one.

In terms of the rankings, the Scandinavians are the big winners - Denmark are 1st, Sweden joint 2nd, Finland 10thand Norway 12th. The US is joint 2nd, while Britain lies in 7th. Scandinavian nations have long led the world in digital development - Manuel Castells wrote of this a decade ago and it remains true today. Hopefully Knowledge Politics will be examining the reasons for their continuig success in a forthcoming report.

The most improved nations in the rankings were from Asia. Hong Kong (4th), Singapore (6th), South Korea (16th), Taiwan (17th), and Japan (18th) all increased their positions. The EIU puts the change down to governmental commitment to the development of the digital infrastructure. African nations also made good progress.

Overall findings were encouraging, with the report showing that broadband is becoming more affordable around the world and the digital divide is falling. Finally, most governments are waking up to the fact that the information society doesn't just happen, it is made to happen.

Sunday 29 April 2007

Lonesome no more

There have been a few changes to the Knowlege Politics website recently, and we'd like to give people a brief explanation. First of all, we've decided against providing a news service on the site. With our resources severely stretched, the news coverage was taken up most of our time - and we didn't think we added much value to what was already available elsewhere on the web.

So we're focusing efforts on what we always wanted our core business to be - providing access to a wide range of information society resources for researchers interested in this area. Some of these resources will be those we directly produce, and we have interesting plans for publications on localism and on the Finnish model in the near future. And - let this be the start of the rumour - we are making provisional plans to launch our own online journal.

As for the external resources (still, I believe, our main priority), we have redesigned the way visitors can access these. There is now a dedicated Gateway page on the site. This is the direct route for anyone looking for new research, links elsewhere or details on events.

Of course the day to day news still matters to us. But instead of telling visitors things they already know, we're going to concentrate on responding to new stories, in particular through this blog. We hope to be posting on a more regular basis - in our comfortable new surroundings - and to make this a more integral part of our work.

RB

RIP Kurt Vonnegut. Thanks for the logo.

Saturday 28 April 2007

Really new localism

Knowledge Politics' blog is back after an enforced layoff. The more observant among you will have noticed the change of setting.

Our absence has coincided with some interesting information society-related developments, in particular regarding the global/local relationship. Norwich put the final touches on its free wi-fi initiative, following a path set by some US cities and certainly showing the way forward for others in Britian. This comes weeks after an achievement gaining less recogition, when Sunderland was recognised nationally for its success in enhancing social inclusion through the application of information technology - including extra support for carers and disabled people. And recently we heard more about campaigns in some major cities (London included) for the creation of a new top-level domain for that city (i.e. a website might end in .london rather than .uk).

For me this all shows the importance of local political action in advancing the information society. Some of it is fantastic, like in Sunderland, while some of it might be relatively meaningless, like the London campaign. But overall it reveals that locality (and local government) will remain vital components of an information society.

What we are seeing are local solutions to national or global issues. This happens in many other policy areas, such as the environment, and there is no reason why it can't happen for the information society too. This is a theme we'd like to explore further in our work, and we're open to suggestions as to how we might do this.

RB