Legal e-Learning in Network Society.
Abdul Paliwala · Journal of information, law and technology · 2007
Abstract By now the idea that we live in a changed universe of information and changed relations of production as a consequence of the information technology revolution is part of the discourse of the sociology of information. There are a variety of approaches ranging from Daniel Bell's Post-Industrial to Castell's Society. The underlying idea of Castell's Network Society or Network Informational Society is that networks replace hierarchised and circumscribed relationships (Castells 2000). The nature of work is transformed by the interactive networks as opposed to hierarchised production processes involved in production and exchange. Networks and thus processes of production and exchange have a tendency to extend spatially and be globalised. Benkler (2002, 2003, 2004) has suggested that there have been two information revolutions. The first led to an industrial information economy and the second to a network information economy. The industrial information economy was dominated by the industrial production of information (financial services, accounting, software, science) and cultural (films, music) production, and the manipulation of symbols (ie brands eg. nike). The new, the networked information economy is based on a communications environment built on cheap processors interconnected in a pervasively networked environment--typified by the internet. Keywords: Information technology, Information society, Networked society, Internet, information revolution, industrial information economy, legal, e-laeraning 1. Introduction Legal e-learning already has a short but distinguished history (Paliwala, 2001; See bibliography by Goldman, 2001). That history coincides with dramatic changes in the nature of information technology and the content it produces from being a. largely standalone to one whose essence has become communication and collaboration and being ubiquitously available from an increasing variety of devices ranging from a PC to a cell phone or an iPod (Educause 2006); b. a range of divergent media technologies to convergent media technologies; c. originally relatively free of intellectual property rights in software to a state of growing commodification of both software and content through the extension of intellectual property rights. This has led to a resurgence of resistance against the enclosure of global commons through free and open source software and free and open content movements. By now the idea that we live in a changed universe of information and changed relations of production as a consequence of the information technology revolution is part of the discourse of the sociology of information. There are a variety of approaches ranging from Daniel Bell's Post-Industrial to Castell's Society. The underlying idea of Castell's Network Society or Network Informational Society is that networks replace hierarchised and circumscribed relationships (Castells 2000). The nature of work is transformed by the interactive networks as opposed to hierarchised production processes involved in production and exchange. Networks and thus processes of production and exchange have a tendency to extend spatially and be globalised. Benkler (2002, 2003, 2004) has suggested that there have been two information revolutions. The first led to an industrial information economy and the second to a network information economy. The industrial information economy was dominated by the industrial production of information (financial services, accounting, software, science) and cultural (films, music) production, and the manipulation of symbols (ie brands eg. nike). The new, the networked information economy is based on a communications environment built on cheap processors interconnected in a pervasively networked environment--typified by the internet. The first shift, to the industrial information economy, promoted the dominance of the mega-corporation, and with the assistance of media advertising and IP laws created passive workers who had no control over what they produced or consumed. …