Nico Stehr's idea of the knowledge society presents a vital alternative to orthodox beliefs about the organization of social, cultural, economic and political life. With the formation of a global market and institutions that seem to have entrenched inequalities, there is a need to examine how vested interests determine the use and application of information and communication technologies and intellectual property. Using examples from Australia and India, this article critiques the effect of vested interests and cultural effects in limiting the prospects of a global knowledge society before presenting some remedial advice to policymakers.
Alston, Richard (2003) ‘Message to the Global Electronic Games Industry: Do it Down Under!’ press release, Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts, Government of Australia, URL (consulted 15 May 2003): http://www.dcita.gov.au/
2.
Australian Bureau of Statistics (2004) International Trade in Goods and Services, Australia, no, 5368.0, 4 May. Canberra: Australian Bureau of Statistics .
3.
Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (2004) ‘Australia-United States Free Trade Agreement’, URL (consulted 26 April 2004): http://www.dfat.gov.au/trade/negotiations/us_fta/text/index.html
4.
Australian Film Commission (2002) ‘Foreign Film and Television Drama Production in Australia: a Research Report’, URL (consulted 13 December 2003): http://www.afc.gov.au/ftp/foreignprod.pdf
5.
Australian Library and Information Association (2003) ‘Australia–United States Bilateral Trade Negotiations’, URL (consulted 14 April 2004): http;//alia.org.au/advocacy/submissions/bilateral.trade.briefing.html
6.
Ayurveda Under Threat From Western Exploitation’ (2003) Expert, URL (consulted 17 February 2003): http://www.redif.com/money/2003/jan/08ayurveda.htm
7.
Bell, Daniel (1973) The Coming of Post-industrial Society: A Venture in Social Forecasting. New York: Basic Books .
8.
Bettig, Ronald (1996) Copyrighting Culture. Boulder, CO: Westview Press .
9.
Carr, Nicholas, G. (2004) Does IT Matter: Information Technology and the Corrosion of Competitive Advantage. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Business School Press .
10.
Casimir, John (2004) ‘Sorry, I Can’t Hear You’, in ‘Section: 48 Hours’, Sydney Morning Herald, 9 April, p. 3-3.
11.
Castells, Manuel (1998) End of Millennium, of the Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture, Vol. 3. Oxford: Blackwell .
12.
Castells, Manuel (2000) The Rise of the Network Society(2nd edn). Malden, MA: Blackwell .
13.
Castells, Manuel (2001) The Internet Galaxy: Reflections on the Internet, Business and Society. New York: Oxford University Press .
14.
Cummings, Carolyn (2002) ‘Bracing for an Orgy of Spending’, Sydney Morning Herald, 20 December, p. 21-21.
15.
Dhume, Sadanand (2002) ‘Has Upstart Hyderabad Found its True Calling?’, Far Eastern Economic Review, 22 August, p. 31-31.
16.
D’Orville, Hans (2000) ‘Towards The Global Knowledge and Information Society–The Challenges For Development Cooperation’, United Nations Development Program, URL (consulted 21 August 2002): http://www.undp.org/info21/public/pb-challenge.html
17.
Drahos, Peter with John Braithwaite (2002) Information Feudalism. Who Owns the Knowledge Economy. London: Earthscan .
18.
El Feki, Shereen (2002) ‘Observer’, Weekend Australian Financial Review, 14–15 December: 41–43.
19.
Finger, Michael J. and Philip Schuler (nd) Implementation of Uruguay Round Commitments: the Development Challenge. Washington, DC: World Bank .
20.
Forbes (2004) ‘Special Report: the World's Richest People’, URL (consulted 26 April 2004): http://www.forbes.com/maserati/billionaires2004/bill04land.html Accessed
21.
‘Fox Studios to Expand’ (2004) News.com,URL (consulted 27 April 2004): http://www.news.com.au
22.
Gates Foundation (2004) ‘Grants–Eligibility and Guidelines’, URL (consulted 24 April 2004): http://www.gatesfoundation.org/Grants/
23.
Heeks, Richard (1998) ‘The Uneven Profile of Indian Software Exports’, Development Infomatics Working ArticlesSeries, no. 3.Manchester: Institute for Development Policy and Management, University of Manchester (available at: http://www.man.ac.uk/idpm/idpm_dp.htm%23devinf_wp)
24.
Hesmondhalgh, David (2002) The Culture Industries. London: Sage .
25.
Hogg, Richard (2002) ‘ACS Reiterates $16 Billion IT Deficit’, press release, Australian Computer Society, Sydney, Australia.
26.
Hudson, Heather E. (2002) ‘Universal Access to the New Information Infrastructure’, in Leah A. Lievrouw and Sonia M. Livingstone (eds) The Handbook of New Media: Social Shaping and Consequences of ICTs, pp. 369–383. London: Sage .
27.
‘iDevelopment Not eDevelopment: ICTs and Micro-/Small Enterprise–An Interview with Richard Heeks’ (2002) Development Gateway, 30 May, URL (consulted 27 May 2005): http://topics.developmentgateway.org/ict/sdm/previewDocument.do/ăactiveDocumentId=254666.
28.
Kerr, Duncan (2001) Elect the Ambassador! Building Democracy in a Globalised World. Sydney: Pluto Press .
29.
Kim, Jung Min (2003) ‘Hurdles Ahead for Hand-Phone Makers’, Far Eastern Economic Review, 22 May, p. 30-30.
30.
Leadbeater, Charles (1999) Living on Thin Air: the New Economy. Harmondsworth: Viking .
31.
Lessig, Lawrence (2004) Free Culture: How Big Media Uses Technology and the Law to Lock Down Culture and Creativity. London: Penguin Press .
32.
Lundy, Kate (2002) ‘Serving the 21st-century Citizen, E-Government: the Federal Opposition's View’ , paper presented at the E-Government Summit, Royal Pines, Gold Coast, 7 November, URL (consulted 25 November 2002): http://www.katelundy.com.au/egovt.htm
33.
Machlup , Fritz , (1962) The Production and Distribution of Knowledge in the United States. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press .
34.
Mattelart, Armand (2003) The Information Society: An Introduction. London: Sage .
35.
Melody, William H. and Robin E. Mansell (1986) Information and Communication Technologies: Social Science Research and Training. London: ESRC .
36.
Melody, William H. (1987) ‘UK Research on Implications of Information and Communication Technologies’ , Telecommunications Policy11(1): 11–19 .
37.
Mosco, Vincent (1996) The Political Economy of Communication: Rethinking and Renewal. London: Sage .
38.
Mosco, Vincent (1999) ‘New York.Com: A Political Economy of the “Informational” City’ , Journal of Media Economics12(2): 103–116 .
39.
Mosco, Vincent and Janet Wasko (eds) (1988) The Political Economy of Information. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press .
40.
Negroponte, Nicholas (1995) Being Digital. New York: Knopf .
41.
Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) (2002) ‘The Relationship Between Regional Trade Agreements and the Multilateral Trading System: Intellectual Property Rights’, Working Party of the Trade Committee, Td/ Tc/Wp(2002)28/Final. Paris: Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development .
42.
Porat, Marc U. (1977) The Information Economy: Sources and Methods for Measuring the Primary Information Sector. Washington, DC: Department of Commerce, Office of Telecommunications .
43.
Reinecke, Ian and Julianne Schultz (1983) The Phone Book. The Future of Australia's Communications on the Line. Ringwood: Penguin Books .
44.
Rubin, Michael R. , Mary Taylor Huber with Elizabeth Lloyd Taylor (1986) The Knowledge Industry in the United States, 1960–1980. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press .
45.
Schiller, Dan (1999) Digital Capitalism: Networking the Global Market System. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press .
46.
Simputer Trust (2000) ‘What is a Simputer?’, URL (consulted 18 February 2003): http://www.simputer.org/simputer/about/
47.
Software Choice (2002) ‘Principles of Software Choice’, URL (consulted 28 November 2002): http://softwarechoice.org/about_principles_4.asp
Stehr, Nico (2002) Knowledge and Economic Conduct. The Social Foundations of the Modern Economy. Toronto: University of Toronto Press .
51.
Sussman, Gerald (1999) ‘The “Information Society”: Discourses, Fetishes and Discontents’ , Journal of International Communication6(1): 7–21 .
52.
Sussman, Gerald . and John. A. Lent (1998) Global Productions: Labor in the Making of the ‘Information Society’. New Jersey, NJ: The Hampton Press .
53.
‘The Basmati Task for the New Government’ (1998) Redif.com, URL (consulted 17 February 2003): http://www.redif.com.business/1998/mar/23rice.htm
54.
The Economist (2004a) ‘A Question of Justice?’, 13 March, p. 13-13.
55.
The Economist (2004b) ‘Corporate Storytelling’, 6 November, p.13-13.
56.
Toffler, Alvin (1980) The Third Wave. London: Collins .
57.
Tsang, Simon (2004) ‘Free for All: You Can Breathe New Life into That Old Dog of a PC–at No Cost’, ‘Section: Icon’, Sydney Morning Herald, 9 April, p. 4-4.
58.
United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) (2001a) ‘Executive Summary, Creating a Development Dynamic’, URL (consulted 21 August 2002): http://www.opt-init.org/framework/pages/es.html
59.
United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) (2001b) Creating a Development Dynamic, Final Report of the Digital Opportunity Initiative. New York: United Nations Development Programme with Accenture and Markle Foundation .
60.
United States Trade Representative (2002) ‘Protection of Intellectual Property Rights: the WTO TRIPS Agreement’, URL (consulted 25 November 2002): http://www.ustr.gov/html/why.html
61.
Venturelli, Shalini (2002) ‘From the Information Economy to the Creative Economy: Moving Culture to the Centre of International Public Policy’, Centre for Arts and Culture, URL (consulted 20 December 2002): http://www.culturalpolicy.org/pdf/venturelli.pdf
62.
Wagstaff, Jeremy (2002) ‘Make Mine a Treesap’, Far Eastern Economic Review, 23 August, p. 32-32.
63.
Webster, Frank (2002a) ‘The Information Society Revisited’, in Leah A. Lievrouw and Sonia M. Livingstone (eds) The Handbook of New Media: Social Shaping and Consequences of ICTs, pp. 22–33. London: Sage .
64.
Webster, Frank (2002b) Theories of the Information Society(2nd edn). London and New York: Routledge .
65.
World Bank (2001) World Development Indicators 2001. Washington, DC: World Bank .
66.
World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) (2002) ‘Annual Patent Statistics for 2000’, URL (consulted 4 December 2002): http://www.wipo.org/ipstats/en/
67.
World Trade Organization (WTO) (2002) ‘Intellectual Property Protection and Enforcement’, URL (consulted 20 Dec 2002): http://www.wto.org/english/thewto_e/whatis_e/tif_e/agrm6_e.htm
