The Challenges of Semi-Peripheral Information Society: the Case of Poland

Abstract

The challenges of developing an information society in semi-peripheral countries are immersed in a struggle between Westernizing processes and local cultural and social specificity. The expansion of the internet and communication technologies in Poland, a “newcomer” to the European Union, provides an instructive example. This article presents the case of the Polish online landscape as a culturally separate but interrelated with Western socio-cultural space. Although there is a dynamic users’ migration towards global communication tools and social networking sites, high involvement in local e-commerce platforms and information portals remains constant. More interestingly, global internet communication tools facilitate local social needs, attitudes, and motives, resulting in enormous number and strength of social protests expressed online. This analysis is based on the review of the current Polish internet audience research, social studies literature as well as case studies. The article describes some of most vivid challenges facing Polish information society and its social, cultural, economic, and technological determinants.