The Information Society is one of the recurrent imaginaries to describe present-day structures, discourses and practices. Within its meaning is enshrined the promise of a better world, sometimes naively assuming a technological deus ex machina, in other cases hoping for the creation of policy tools that will overcome a diversity of societal divides.
1 Bart Staes:
Foreword: Towards a New Democratic Lingua Franca
5 Jan Servaes and Nico Carpentier:
Introduction:
Steps to Achieve a Sustainable Information Society
17 Bart Cammaerts & Nico Carpentier:
1: The Unbearable Lightness of Full Participation in a Global Context: WSIS and Civil Society
Participation
51 Claudia Padovani & Arjuna Tuzzi:
2: Communication Governance and the Role of Civil Society. Reflections on Participation and the
Changing Scope of Political Action
81 Divina Frau Meigs:
3: Civil Society's Involvement in the WSIS Process. Drafting the Alter-agenda
97 Ned Rossiter:
4: WSIS and Organized Networks as New Civil Society Movements
117 Stefano Martelli:
5: How Civil Society Can Help Civil Society
129 Miyase Christensen:
6: What Price the Information Society? A Candidate Country Perspective within the Context of
the EU's Information Society Policies
151 Michel Bauwens:
7: Peer-to-Peer: From Technology to Politics
169 Paul Verschueren:
8: From Virtual to Everyday Life
185 Claudio Antonio Feijóo González, José Luis Gómez Barroso, Ana Laguía González, Sergio Ramos Villaverde, David Rojo Alonso:
9: Shifting from Equity to Efficiency Rationales: Global Benefits Resulting from a Digital
Solidarity Fund
195 Barbara Thomass:
10: PSB as an Instrument of Implementing WSIS Aims
203 Afterword
Peter Johnston
Towards a Knowledge Society and Sustainable Development.
Deconstructing the WSIS in the European Policy Context
207 ECCR:
Recommendations on the Subject of Research and Education in the Area of the Information
Society
211 Notes on Contributors