Моральные вызовы глобального информационного общества

The article is dedicated to the problems of global information society’s influence on the social morality and to the issues connected to regulating of such an influence. The interconnection between morality challenges of the global information society and the social risks is analyzed. The social, cultural, psychological and moral aspects of the information’s influence on the morality, behaviour, and communications of modern people within the society are summed up. The author points out that modern information society contains a lot of obvious and hidden unethical temptations, and points up the very necessary meaning of the moral self-consciousness in the process of perception of all information influence. The article notes the moral challenges of the global information society as follows: the widespread technological manipulation of the consciousness, both of separate persons’ and of the larger social groups, societies in general; the growth of pressure of informational confrontation and informational wars, creation of fiction and propaganda; the decreasing face-to-face communication; blurring of the line between the real and virtual reality; the loss of the need to connect to the surrounding environment and society, and the problem of loneliness and estrangement; the continuing distraction of the modern men from project-based, aimed action, from social activity and work of thought. Also, the information flows surpass human ability to conceive them; the sensibility threshold of the critical perception of the information lowers; «information garbage» and information overload lead to the patchiness, randomness of a worldview and intensify the disorientation in the social environment. It is also noted that the temps of the information’s quantitative increase, which includes scientific information, outpace social and cultural transformation; technology-humanity misbalance causes the augmentation of existing sources of social risks and the origin of new ones. The so-called «dangerous knowledge» grows as well. The problem of the progressive traumatisation of the people by the means of mass communication is highlighted. It is noted that the distance between scientific and technological progress and the ethic state of the society is expanding, thus the conflict of cultural time-lag strengthens. Ethical insensibility becomes a difficult contemporary challenge. It is also mentioned that the globalization and IT cause dilemmas, such as universalization, «westernisation» of the world, intrusion of the western culture and western values on the one hand, and the loss of the identification, identity and cultural diversity of the local (national) cultural worlds on the other hand. The author emphasises that the necessity of information management grows with the need to neutralize or reduce the mentioned dangers. The issues of regulating the ethical dimension of the information society on different levels — of major norms such as international regulation, of national norms, and of self-regulation and mutual regulation, are considered. The necessity of developing and spreading the information ethics and formation of state-of-art principles of communicative ethics is underlined.Статья посвящена проблемам влияния глобального информационного общества на общественную мораль и вопросам регулирования такого влияния

Relationship Amongst Technology Use, Work Overload, and Psychological Detachment from Work

Permanent connection to the work world as a result of new technologies raises the possibility of workday extensions and excessive workloads. The present study addresses the relationship between technology and psychological detachment from work resulting from work overload. Participants were 313 professionals from the health sector who responded to three instruments used in similar studies. Through PLS-SEM, regression and dependence analyses were developed, and through the bootstrapping method, significance of factor loadings, path coefficients and variances were examined. Results of the study corroborate a negative effect of technology use on psychological detachment from work and a positive correlation between technology and work overload. Additionally, there is a significant indirect effect of technology on psychological detachment from work as a result of work overload. Findings extend the literature related to the stressor-detachment model, and support the idea that workers who are often connected to their jobs by technological tools are less likely to reach adequate psychological detachment levels. Implications for the academic community and practitioners are discusse

Communication and Information Management in the Nonprofit Arts Sector

A survey of a representative sampling of arts organizations finds that their internal and external communication includes a variety of traditional and technological methods, each varying in its preferred usage and perceived effectiveness. While this study was intended to establish a baseline of communication perceptions, behaviors, and impacts, the following conclusions may be reasonably drawn from the survey responses: Communication from arts administrators and organizations, and from others to them, is a major occupier of time. Email in particular dominates average weekly time expenditures.The field's perception of the value and impact of the increased information available to it, and the communication it sends and receives, indicates a struggle with that volume, with a large bloc believing the sheer volume is--or is becoming--unmanageable.While the increase in information being communicated and being received is perceived as having a positive impact on organization productivity, there is a bloc of respondents that believes it is negative on a personal level.Despite the struggle with managing communication of all types and the pervasive feeling among the respondents that there are significant negative impacts on their time and ability to do their jobs, most arts organizations do not have any formal plan to address these issues.Due to the limitations of this survey, it is unclear the extent to which arts organizations are aware of, and are dealing with, communication and information issues, including the challenges posed to staff personnel.Most arts organizations do not have the resources to engage a full-time communications officer.Administrators are challenged to relate the increased information to their specific needs.It may be a myth that executive summaries in reports are the preferred method of reviewing information by arts administrators.For many organizations, this respondent's observation encapsulates the challenge with communication and information management: "We have 20th century resources in a 21st century environment.

An information assistant system for the prevention of tunnel vision in crisis management

In the crisis management environment, tunnel vision is a set of bias in decision makers’ cognitive process which often leads to incorrect understanding of the real crisis situation, biased perception of information, and improper decisions. The tunnel vision phenomenon is a consequence of both the challenges in the task and the natural limitation in a human being’s cognitive process. An information assistant system is proposed with the purpose of preventing tunnel vision. The system serves as a platform for monitoring the on-going crisis event. All information goes through the system before arrives at the user. The system enhances the data quality, reduces the data quantity and presents the crisis information in a manner that prevents or repairs the user’s cognitive overload. While working with such a system, the users (crisis managers) are expected to be more likely to stay aware of the actual situation, stay open minded to possibilities, and make proper decisions

How PR faced the challenge of the “information superhighway”

Before the Internet, social media and search engine optimisation, there was the “information superhighway” and the “Megachip age” in the 1980s. Although PR practitioners were slower than other communicators to recognise the potential of Internet and social media, there was some discussion thirty years ago. Drawing on the archive of the International Public Relations Association (IPRA), this paper reviews 21 papers of contemporary discussion over a 15 year period from 1981 to 1996 and draws lessons about the stages of adoption of innovative technology by practitioners. The views of practitioners varied over time. In the initial period from 1981 to 1987 their attitudes ranged from advancing the potential for rapid international outreach (Plank, 1983; Hietpas, 1984) to gloom about deskilling (McPhail 1987) and the future irrelevance of public relations counselling (Pessalano, 1984). From 1989 to 1996, as PR 1.0 (use of email) came in practice, there was less comment but continued concern that the faster information flow was leading to communication “dis-information” (Linning 1995). Only in 1996 was the term “Internet” introduced and lauded as beneficial development (Wilson, 1996). Overall, public relations practitioners are portrayed as slow to understand the benefits of the rapid technical advances in communication and holding doggedly to models of mediated communication. They also failed to foresee that information would be available for more people through IT developments, rather than fewer. The very evident reticence displayed by the IPRA publications sample may indicate why the digital communications sector was able to form outside the purview of the public relations sector and became a competitor to it (Theaker, 2004; Earl & Waddington, 2012)

PR's early response to the "information superhighway": The IPRA narrative

Before the Internet, social media and search engine optimisation, there was the “information superhighway” and the “Megachip age” in the 1980s. This paper, drawing on the archive of the International Public Relations Association (IPRA), reviews early discussion and adoption of innovative technology by practitioners through the application of historical method. It finds they were slow to appreciate the benefits of technical advances in communication and held doggedly to print-based models of mediated communication. Practitioners and thought leaders did not foresee that information would be available to more people through ICT developments. Practice responses, developed by reference to Rogers’ Diffusion Theory, were in three categories (in descending order of frequency) of Ignorers, Cautious/Sense-makers and Modernists/Adopters

Computer conferencing: Choices and strategies

Computer conferencing permits meeting through the computer while sharing a common file. The primary advantages of computer conferencing are that participants may (1) meet simultaneously or nonsimultaneously, and (2) contribute across geographic distance and time zones. Due to these features, computer conferencing offers a viable meeting option for distributed business teams. Past research and practice is summarized denoting practical uses of computer conferencing as well as types of meeting activities ill suited to the medium. Additionally, effective team strategies are outlined which maximize the benefits of computer conferencing