Contemporary Society - Evolving Global Information Infrastructure and Information Transfer - page 24

national, or international level and is addressed in the section above on legislation
and regulation. Those laws and regulations that specifically address the creation,
production, distribution, use, and storage of information may also be considered in-
formation policy. However, policy may be adopted within small and large agencies
and groups of all types.
A policy is a generalization or general statement that provides guidelines for the
transfer or use of information. For example, any social organization, school, library,
college or university, business, or government agency at any level may articulate a
policy for information use. Organizations may elect to keep no papers or financial
records after seven years because the requirement for keeping tax records is typ-
ically seven years. Another organization, conscious of its historic contribution to a
community, may elect to preserve all correspondence and donate it after five years
to a local historical museum. While the practices outlined are much different, they
are both policies that govern the transfer of information for their respective agen-
cies and are consistent with their culture.
Economic System
An economic system supports a culture and social system financially. If capital-
ism is the basis for economic activity in a society, information is a commodity that
appears in the marketplace as well as in the halls of the academies. Privacy and
proprietary perspectives are very evident in this society. Other economic systems
(e.g., communism) employ different approaches to the creation, reproduction, and
distribution of information.
In a capitalistic society, the marketplace determines the marketability of a
product. Since information is a commodity, the format and content of information is
influenced substantially by the economic feasibility of the information package. For
example, the marketability of a new information system, like the Internet, must be
accompanied by affordable accessibility. The Internet was created in the 1960s by
the U.S. government to exchange defense information, using state-of-the-art com-
puters, software, and networking technologies of that time. This system was not
available to the public until personal computers, telecommunications, and software
became affordable to regional, state, and local government agencies and individu-
als. The widespread availability of the Internet became a reality in the mid-1990s
with the confluence of technology and affordability.
The diffusion of the Internet into municipal governments, schools, colleges and
universities, and individual homes took approximately 30 years. Often the diffusion
process occurs first through the diffusion of information for recreation, followed by
use for educational purposes. The use of film, audio recordings, compact discs,