History and Past Activities
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History and Past Activities |
Pietro Morandi
Università della Svizzera Italiana, Istituto delle science sociali della comunicazione (ISSCom)
Lugano
Switzerland
e-mail: morandi@rz.uni-potsdam.de
Information- and Communication-Technologies and The Use of Knowledge.
The Case of Switzerland
Starting from an historical and sociological perspective, this paper discusses the role of information- and communication-technologies (ICT) and related professional qualifications and competences in their meaning and relevance for the development of knowledge society and their conflictive and changing relation towards the 'commodification of knowledge'.
Focussing on the case of Switzerland the paper firstly reconstructs the rise of ICT as the leading economic sector in the period of the 80ies and 90ies. Special attention will be set at the educational system and educational politics, which not only provided to a high extend the cultural, imaginary as well as the material conditions for the development of this sector and its effects on knowledge production, but were significantly affected by its progress, and one main institutional actor in defining its shape.
Especially discussed will be the social and scientific visions resp. cultural orientations about the use, the forms of access and the distribution of knowledge provided by new technologies within education, and the historical, social and institutional contexts affecting the oscillations and changes between conceptions of knowledge as for instance 'shared knowledge' and 'commercialized knowledge'.
The paper presents theoretical considerations and empirical results gained in a research project about the historical development of ICT in Switzerland, conducted within the Swiss National Science Foundation Program: Education and Labour (2000-2003).
Sociology of Science and Technology NETwork - last update: April 2006