The Ethno-Cultural, Linguistic and Ethical Problems of the “Infosphere”

Abstract

If we wish to extend co-operation among the different peoples of the world on the basis of information exchanges, we must do more than create the global information infrastructure and highway which form the technological basis for the information society of the 21st century An effort must also be made to resolve sensitive issues involved in mutual understanding between peoples belonging to different cultures and speaking different languages. This will not come about if the tendency for some languages and cultures to dominate others is allowed to persist. A long-term international programme of action is needed to preserve cultural diversity and multilingualism in the infosphere. The basic forms of such action could include: preservation — by means of the appropriate media — of the cultural heritage of peoples with no written language; the development of computer translation systems; extension of the study of the most widely spoken languages (in terms of the number of speakers) in secondary and higher education; the elaboration and adoption of general ethical standards for the writing, reviewing and citing of scientific publications, particularly articles in periodicals; the elaboration of agreed scientific terminology in different languages; the development of co-operation on the inclusion of national literature in international databases; the devising of ways and means of protecting the infosphere from pollution. Given the world-wide importance of such action, it would be appropriate to conduct it under the auspices of UNESCO and of the International Council of Scientific Unions, as was done in the late 1960s and early 1970s for the UNISIST programme.