[Irtalk] News - Humankind in period of historic transition...

[Hilton Gibson]

Castells argued that advances in Information and Communication Technology
(ICT) are making it easier for people to organise themselves and press for
change.

"About 3 billion in the world now have access to the internet. And there
are about 7 billion mobile phones. So, we have a global network of
communication that can mobilise and construct spaces of autonomy from where
societies change themselves."

But, "[t]he notion that we are in an information and knowledge economy is
absolutely misleading."

"It is not because information and knowledge are not import. But it has
always been important, in fact, absolutely critical for the generation of
wealth and power. What has changed is something called the ICT revolution.
Technology affords us the possibility of effectively processing
information."

*Castells referred to a study published in Science, which found that in
2002, 52% of the information on the planet was digitised. In 2007 it was
95%, and now it is 98%. "And the vast majority of this information is
accessible by via the internet and other computer networks."*

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