Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
other technologies that changed communication and information transfer patterns
is found in Chapter 3.
Revolutionary Change in Contemporary Society
Five hundred years after the invention of the printing press, the world is again
radically changing. Just as the Gutenberg invention significantly increased the pro-
duction and dissemination of information, so does today's networked world. Not
only the spread of knowledge, but also its diffusion and utilization have become a
political and economic necessity.
What has changed? What is this emergent world that surrounds us and that
we speak and speculate about every day? For one, it is a networked world with
an ever-increasing transborder flow of goods, ideas, and people: an economy in
which a significant portion of the Fortune 500 companies listed 30 years ago have
completely disappeared, merged and lost their identity, or have become smaller
and less significant. We have become a world where the once dominant Western
values are being questioned and challenged, where conventional warfare is being
replaced by individual terrorists and cyber warfare, and where soldiers on the field
are being replaced by remote devices piloted from a great distance with devastat-
ing effect.
The hallmark of the networked world is connectivity and instant communication.
Digitization, miniaturization, and the merging of a bundle of technologies, like the
cell phone, for example, are just the beginning of a reconceptualization of not only
how we live, but also how we work and think. The challenge we all face is to ac-
quire the values of the networked world that requires a different way of thinking and
doing, a world marked by complexity, diversity, and individuality, where information
and information technology provide the potential for every person and every voice
to be heard. That is the cultural revolution taking place today.
An Analysis of Our Current Paradigm Shift
The creation, production, diffusion, and utilization of knowledge are central
to the advancement of humanity. The Greeks introduced the notion of salvation
through knowledge. Thomas Kuhn posed the fundamental question: How did we
move from Aristotle's physics and concept of the universe to those of Einstein?
The result of this inquiry led to his remarkable topic
The Structure of Scientific Re-
volutions
(1970), where Kuhn developed the notion that scientists work within a
distinctive paradigm. Kuhn describes “paradigm” in a variety of ways, but simply
put, a paradigm is a set of fundamental beliefs, assumptions that provide a coher-
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