Information Society Indicators Research Articles

Information Society Indicators: Algeria as a model

This research deals with the issue of information society indicators based on the importance of relying on statistical standards to measure the development of any field, especially the development of societies in the direction towards the information society, and which have been developed by international bodies specialized in this field, the research aims to identify the indicators for the Arab countries with a focus on the Algerian case, and that is based on the reports on measuring the information society issued by the International Telecommunication Union, this study falls within the descriptive studies. Progress has been reached in the Gulf countries in the field of orientation towards the information society, and some other Arab countries, including Algeria, have been late, where were a set of proposals submitted, on top of which is the adoption of an Arab strategy to move towards the information society and cooperation to eliminate the digital divide.

Vývoj struktury hodnotících rámců pro měření rozvoje e-governmentu ve světě

E-government benchmarking frameworks are important as they guide countries' focus of their efforts to develop information and communication policies and allocating resources to implement these strategies. With the decrease of importance of basic information society indicators in the past and use of new technologies and trends, new criteria and approaches needed to be introduced in measuring e-government development. Therefore, the existing frameworks should be updated and reframed. The main aim of this paper is to examine a progress in the structure of these benchmarking frameworks and propose a new benchmarking framework, which uses modern technologies such as cloud computing, open data, big data, social media and e-participation. It focuses on this new set of domains of activities and assesses many of them. Methods of decomposition and aggregation are used.

STATISTICAL ASSESSMENT RESULTS REALIZATION INDICATORS OF DEVELOPMENT INFORMATION SOCIETY IN RUSSIA

Efficiency of the state policy aimed at the development of information society in many respects is defined by quality of the used tools of its assessment. The important role in development and realization of policy is played by a complex assessment of a state and development of indicators of information society. The analysis based on an integrated approach and which is carried out taking into account the international standards and recommendations allows to increase quality of the made decisions, to provide authorities, professional communities and the international organizations with regular, full, timely and reliable information about development of information society in the Russian Federation.In article the analysis of key indicators of development of information society in the Russian Federation based on data of official state statistics, indicators of a state program «Information society (2011-2020)», and also information of the international organizations in the considered sphere is carried out.

Econometric Modeling of Influence on Turnover Concerning Indicators of Information Society Across the European Union

The impact of information society – as a factor of organizational change (Dovenport, 2003) on performance of firms is increasingly approached and measured – by means of statistical indicators – in the specialty literature, developing in a fast pace. Across the European Union, indicators that measure information society emphasize many disparities and especially characteristics of this sector, aspects that will be detailed further, in this paper in order to justify the approach of this study. However, the goal of this research is to analyze and suggest, by means of the statistic-econometric methodology, a model through which we emphasize – for member countries of the European Union – as it influences (and practically how “contributes” to them) the formation of turnover on total business sectors, indicators of information society (enterprises with fixed broadband access,enterprises using the Internet for interaction with public authorities, enterprises having received orders online, enterprises having purchased online)simultaneously with macroeconomic indicators, respectively: average number of employees, EU - 15 country member or EU -27 country member.

Do ICT Influence Economic Growth and Human Development in European Union Countries?

This study analyzes the influence of the introduction of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) on economic growth and human development in the countries that make up the European Union 27. The remarkable interest that the European Commission has shown in the Information Society (IS) and the introduction of ICT inspired us to analyze to what extent ICT had established themselves in these countries. More specifically, countries are grouped in accordance with some of the main IS indicators published by Eurostat to ascertain whether or not there are different groups of countries with different levels of development and where ICT have been implemented to different degrees. We determine whether they have achieved different levels of economic and human development. This enables us to confirm (or reject) the main theories that suggest ICT have a strong influence on economic and human development. Results show the existence of four clearly distinct groups of countries which register significant differences.

The (Un)Happiness of Knowledge and the Knowledge of (Un)Happiness: Happiness Research and Policies for Knowledge‐based Economies 1

Abstract This paper explores the current state and interfaces of two broad policy discourses, i.e. that of policies for knowledge‐based economies (KBEs) and policy implications of happiness research, which so far have exhibited little explicit cross‐referencing. I first review the state of ‘mainstream’ knowledge policy associated with the OECD, the related but somewhat separate literature on information society indicators, and some ‘non‐mainstream’ knowledge policy analysis. This is followed by a brief overview of some of the major policy implications and controversies in happiness research. Next, I discuss major interfaces of the two policy discourses. They mostly concern the nexus of education, work and innovation. I also illustrate the diversity of beliefs and values about some core elements of KBEs in a group of what are usually regarded as similar countries, and advocate the use of subjective variables to capture these differences. The main argument put forward in this paper is that policies for KBEs should be informed by insights from happiness research.

The variety of information society development paths in central Europe

Mainly on the basis of the eEurope+surveys the variety of Information Society developments paths in Central European countries is analysed, focusing on ICT infrastructure, Internet usage, e-commerce and digital divides. Despite the big progress made by the Central European countries since transition began, most of these countries lag behind the EU-15 average on most Information Society indicators. The variety within Central Europe is enormous, with Slovenia and Estonia close to main-stream Europe and, on the other hand, Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary lagging far behind. In most surveyed countries fixed telephone line penetration is stagnating or declining on a rather low level, putting a break on IS development. This makes alternative access devices to Internet, such as cable TV modem, even more important.

Analysis of Information Society Indicators with Time Distance Methodology

A novel generic statistical measure S-time-distance complementing existing methods of analysis of time series data is briefly presented. The application to indicator analysis shows that the gap between compared units may be very different when compared with commonly used static measures and with time distance measure, leading to a special typology of indicators. Analysis of indicators like PC per 100 inhabitants and Internet users per capita will show the empirical results for EU countries.

Towards a Global Sustainable Information Society (GSIS)?

The development, diffusion, and adoption of new ICTs doesn’t automatically result in ecological sustainability, it poses both new opportunities and risks. Embedded into the antagonism between capital and economy it seems like the logical of profitability frequently offsets ecological awareness and hence has negative effects on the realization of positive potentials of ICTs on the environment. Environmental problems are social problems, not technological problems, they are neither caused by science or technology as such, nor can they be solved by science or technology as such. The discourse on sustainable development shows a shift from the view of nature as an enemy that must be controlled to a view that considers nature as an important pre-condition of human existence that must be treated carefully. In the discourse on sustainability there has been a shift from a focus on ecological issues towards the inclusion of broader societal issues. It has now become very common to identify an ecological, an economic, a social, and an institutional dimension of sustainability. One can distinguish four types of sustainability concepts based on where in the nature-society-relationship they locate sustainability: ecological reductionism, social projectionism, dualism, man-nature-dialectic. Both nature and society are self-organizing systems in the sense that they permanently produce themselves. Ecological sustainability means that humans appropriate nature in a way that allows ecological diversity, i.e. the autopoiesis of nature can develop in such a way that nature flourishes, reproduces its subsystems, differentiates itself and produces new qualities, i.e. new ecological life forms and subsystems. Societal sustainability can broadly be defined as a good life for all. A sustainable society encompasses ecological diversity, technological usability, economic wealth, political participation, and cultural wisdom. Ecological sustainability is based on social sustainability and vice versa. The discourse on the information society has been accompanied by discussion on how to measure the transition towards this new social formation. Institutions such as the EU, the OECD, and the UN, US Census Bureau, the ASEAN, or WSIS are using and discussing various indicators for measurement. These indicators are classified according to various typologies. There are on the one hand indicators of sustainability that focus on ecological aspects and on the other hand indicators that besides the ecological dimension also take into account broader societal issues. The EU and the UN use a classification scheme that groups indicators according to environmental, economic, social, and institutional aspects. The discourse on sustainability has shifted from an early ecological focus towards the inclusion of economic, political, cultural, and social issues. The approach suggested in this paper argues that sustainability is a multimodal issue having an ecological, a technological, an economic, a political, and a cultural dimension. Existing sustainability indicators lack aspects of information and ICT, existing information society indicators lack aspects of sustainability. What is needed are indicators that measure the degree to which a sustainable information society has been achieved in the various societal dimensions.

Towards a Global Sustainable Information Society (GSIS)?

The development, diffusion, and adoption of new ICTs doesn’t automatically result in ecological sustainability, it poses both new opportunities and risks. Embedded into the antagonism between capital and economy it seems like the logical of profitability frequently offsets ecological awareness and hence has negative effects on the realization of positive potentials of ICTs on the environment. Environmental problems are social problems, not technological problems, they are neither caused by science or technology as such, nor can they be solved by science or technology as such. The discourse on sustainable development shows a shift from the view of nature as an enemy that must be controlled to a view that considers nature as an important pre-condition of human existence that must be treated carefully. In the discourse on sustainability there has been a shift from a focus on ecological issues towards the inclusion of broader societal issues. It has now become very common to identify an ecological, an economic, a social, and an institutional dimension of sustainability. One can distinguish four types of sustainability concepts based on where in the nature-society-relationship they locate sustainability: ecological reductionism, social projectionism, dualism, man-nature-dialectic. Both nature and society are self-organizing systems in the sense that they permanently produce themselves. Ecological sustainability means that humans appropriate nature in a way that allows ecological diversity, i.e. the autopoiesis of nature can develop in such a way that nature flourishes, reproduces its subsystems, differentiates itself and produces new qualities, i.e. new ecological life forms and subsystems. Societal sustainability can broadly be defined as a good life for all. A sustainable society encompasses ecological diversity, technological usability, economic wealth, political participation, and cultural wisdom. Ecological sustainability is based on social sustainability and vice versa. The discourse on the information society has been accompanied by discussion on how to measure the transition towards this new social formation. Institutions such as the EU, the OECD, and the UN, US Census Bureau, the ASEAN, or WSIS are using and discussing various indicators for measurement. These indicators are classified according to various typologies. There are on the one hand indicators of sustainability that focus on ecological aspects and on the other hand indicators that besides the ecological dimension also take into account broader societal issues. The EU and the UN use a classification scheme that groups indicators according to environmental, economic, social, and institutional aspects. The discourse on sustainability has shifted from an early ecological focus towards the inclusion of economic, political, cultural, and social issues. The approach suggested in this paper argues that sustainability is a multimodal issue having an ecological, a technological, an economic, a political, and a cultural dimension. Existing sustainability indicators lack aspects of information and ICT, existing information society indicators lack aspects of sustainability. What is needed are indicators that measure the degree to which a sustainable information society has been achieved in the various societal dimensions.