Information Society Importance

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The first topic I am going to discuss is information policies. But before I get into what exactly an information policy is I feel it is beneficial to talk about the information society to give us a better understanding on why these information policies are so important to us.
What is an information society? An information society is one where the creation, distribution, use, integration and manipulation of information are significant economic political and cultural activity. In addition to the core economic activities of the society that is tied to information production and the provision of services, the key to this type of society is using information and communication technology (ICT) in creative and innovative ways. The people who have the means to participate in this society are called digital citizens. This information began in the 1970’s. The growth of technology has facilitated this rapid development. Fritz Machlup was an economist who first put forward this concept of the information society. Fritz Machlup, in 1933, started to study patents and record how they reacted to research. He discovered that it sparked further innovation. From his findings Machlup introduced the concept of the knowledge industry. He distinguished five sectors of the knowledge sector; education, research and development, mass media, information technologies and information services. With all these categories combined he calculated that in 1959 29% of the GNP in the United States of America had been produced in knowledge industries. So why is having an information society so important? To me, never before have individuals had the chance and potential to freely act, create, speak and reach out. But in saying that it is also now true that, never bef...

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... Nationality: Depending on where you live in the world has a huge result in your ability to obtain into. Countries such as Canada, USA and alos western Europe are more socially involved which results in the availability of more information. This could be put down to language and education system similarities in these countries. It is vital that these factors are understood by information professionals so they can transform their services and resources to correspond to these patterns, to better serve users information needs. Information professionals can benefit from these information seeking models as it can help them in knowledge representation, designing websites and help improve electronic service quality. When information professionals understand human information seeking behaviour they can better develop and implement their information resources and services.

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