Managing societal changes in the information era

Information flows conveyed by IT are said to have become an information explosion; electronic flows integrates, cross boundaries and made societal impacts--affecting lifestyles, making cultural changes, generating new concerns of information overload, stress, medical and health. The health’ of the industry as perceived by the community determines the amount of their concerns; E Commerce, Y2K, mobile phone electromagnetic signals are some challenges we are facing today.

As there are much faster changes and more complexity in the IT industry, and therefore more opportunities for confusion in the marketplace under pro-competition policies, clearer directions and more help are needed by the community. The Government has the responsibility to shape a healthy information society’ with which citizens are comfortable  and to guide them to enter it. The following are some possible ways:

As shown in Figure 9.1, establishing an one-stop centre’ serving IT users and consumers, including but not limiting to (*)

[Diagram showing interactions with ITBB, OFTA, Consumer Council, PCO, law-making organs of the Government, learning institutions, research organisations, etc] 

- *offering community education (which is beyond IT in education’ and teaching skills to operate user terminals), so that they can learn their rights, understand impacts and see bigger pictures covering IT products and services

- *doing more needs-oriented, not only technology-oriented research

- *giving more channels for the community to air their concerns and participate, for example, on what future services they want

- *helping the community to adjust their lives in pace with technological advances. For example, the definition of basic/universal services’ and laws relevant to E Commerce need to be actively reviewed to meet the needs of all citizens

-planning societal projects based on needs researched covering the questions on where, when, how, for what, etc. Projects include ESD, information society gateways, community facilities such as libraries, government offices, schools, community centres, etc

-making IT laws and regulations more user-friendly. One way is to link up different chapters of the Hong Kong Law relevant to IT and telecommunications, through the help of IT e.g. web links.