Dear colleagues,
A new book has been published which may interest you:
INFORMATION OBESITY, by Andrew Whitworth (Chandos, Oxford, UK): 231pp,
ISBN (pbk) 978-1-84334-449-0
There is also an accompanying ("Web 1.0") web site at
http://www.informationobesity.com, which presents some additional
resources to accompany the book text; finally, a ("Web 2.0") social
network at http://informationobesity.ning.com for discussion, debate
and extension of the book's themes and arguments.
The book develops an "environmental" model of information and links
together this, critical theory, and the historical development of ICT
skills education and information literacy. These result in the notion
of "information obesity": a failure of filtering strategies, and a
consequent inability of individuals and communities to learn and to
embed the results of their learning back into the environmental
resources on which they must draw in the future. It then presents some
educational techniques which may help combat these trends. To quote
the book (pp. 36-37):
"Information obesity is a failure to use informational resources in
ways that build, within individuals and communities, sustainable
foundations for future activity. In other words, the information is
not becoming knowledge and is not, therefore, becoming embedded by
individuals and communities into their own environments. This happens,
broadly, because of a failure of filtering strategies, caused by:
? a lack of understanding of technological change and its
consequences, within individuals, communities and the education system;
? the noösphere having increased its dynamism to a point at which we
often do not have, or are not granted, the time to reflect on
information before absorbing it: we could be said to live in an era of
?fast information?;
? there are economic pressures on us to consume information, due to
the profits it makes for the information industries; these pressures
encourage us to buy, or at least absorb, information before judging
its worth, rather than the other way around;
? there is a lack of management of the informational environment, with
many parts of it being exploited in an unsustainable way, rather than
being nurtured; this is linked to the deterioration of social capital
and our communities, and results in the enclosure of the information
commons, a lack of diversity, and a general decline in quality;
? the lack of individual creativity within many organisational roles.
In summary, the modern world promotes economic and financial value as
the chief measure of effectiveness and worth, and this applies to the
production and consumption of information?thus, the ongoing evolution
of the noösphere?as much as to any other activity. We are also
encouraged to use subjective value as our main filtering strategy (as
Part Two will explain), but as with food and physical obesity, this is
often ineffective in resisting the psychological, economic and
organisational influences which push information at us, of highly
variable quality. Subjectively valuable information also runs the risk
of collapsing into counterknowledge. What is needed is to reassert the
position of the two other types of value: objective value, and
intersubjective (community) value. Through doing so, I believe we can
develop an educational strategy for coping with the increased dynamism
of the noösphere brought about through ICT, and as a result, build
resources which individuals and communities can draw on, for their own
empowerment, in sustainable ways. "
Yours,
Drew Whitworth
University of Manchester, UK
--
"Telepath wanted. You know where to apply." (Steven Wright)
http://www.MAdigitaltechnologies.com
http://personalpages.manchester.ac.uk/staff/andrew.whitworth
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