[eccr] New Book: Towards a Sustainable Information Society. Deconstructing WSIS

Title: New Book: Towards a Sustainable Information Society. Deconstructing WSIS

From: http://www.intellectbooks.co.uk/ppbooks.php?isbn=1841501336

Towards a Sustainable Information Society

Deconstructing WSIS

Edited by  Jan Servaes & Nico Carpentier

Publisher: Intellect, Bristol
ISBN 1841501336
Price £19.95, $39.95 

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Towards a Sustainable Information Society: Deconstructing WSIS 
Edited by Jan Servaes and Nico Carpentier
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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. 

With the two-phased World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), the United Nations attempted to stimulate the development of such tools. 
Simultaneously, the WSIS is a large-scale experiment in multistakeholderism. The objective was to create a more balanced decision-making process that would allow the voices of civil society and business actors to be heard in international politics. 

This book aims to evaluate the potentialities of both the Information Society, and the WSIS in supporting and constructing more democratic, just and developed societies. It is the second book arising from the intellectual work of European Consortium for Communications Research members. 

Contents include: 
• The Unbearable Lightness of Full Participation in a Global Context: WSIS and Civil Society Participation 
• Communication Governance and the Role of Civil Society. Reflections on Participation and the Changing Scope of Political Action 
• Civil Society's Involvement in the WSIS Process. Drafting the Alter-agenda 
• WSIS and Organised Networks as New Civil Society Movements: How Civil Society Can Help Civil Society 
• What Price Has the Information Society? A Candidate Country Perspective within the Context of the EU's Information Society Policies 
• Peer-to-peer: from Technology to Politics 
• From Virtual to Everyday Life 
• Shifting from Equity to Efficiency Rationales: Global Benefits Resulting from a Digital Solidarity Fund 
• PSB as an Instrument of Implementing WSIS Aims 


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