- Manuel Castells 1985 -

Our societies are changing. One essential element of these changes has been advancement in information and communication technologies. A variety of new concepts such as "new economy", "digital communities" and "virtual portals" have emerged in our daily language. However, after the burst of the .com bubble in 2000s sceptical voices have questioned the effect of this change. A demand for systematic and reliable scientific knowledge of the information society is increasing particularly in current global economic slowdown. The Information Society Observatory (ISO) tries to respond to these challenges.

The ISO is a research unit launched by the Information Society Institute in June 2002 with financial support received from the City of Tampere. The main objective is to promote and conduct systematic social research related to the information society and information technologies with solid theoretical foundations. We are studying the development of the information society with regional impetus on local, national and international scales. Our goal is to understand the information society and contemporary societal developments from the viewpoints of past, present and future. The unit aims to create policy relevant academic research with solid theoretical foundations.

The observatory has a layered structure divided into three main components: education, research and network.

Network: We have created an interdisciplinary national network of researchers representing several institutions from various geographical locations. The ISO will be linked to international research networks. Main forms of co-operation are knowledge exchange, creation of joint funding applications and meetings in scientific seminars.

Research: The ISO conducts and co-ordinates several research projects. Currently we are preparing a core project "Prospects and Challenges of the Finnish Information Society in a Changing International Environment", which is to be carried out by advanced researchers from different disciplines of social sciences such as economic geography, politics, sociology and information studies. A multidisciplinary approach will be favoured in all projects running under the ISO.

Education: The observatory will begin masters thesis seminar series in co-operation with departments from the faculties of social, information and administrative sciences. The seminar participants are advanced undergraduate students preparing their thesis dealing with issues relevant to the information society.

In addition to traditional means of knowledge dissemination, such as printed publications, new forms of communication including web-portal and e-broadcasting are used. The Information Society Observatory will also participate actively both national and international scientific meetings and forums. Moreover, we aim to promote international knowledge regarding Finnish information society studies.

 Contact Information

Tommi Inkinen

Project director

tel. +358 (0)3 215 8072

tommi.inkinen@uta.fi

users.utu.fi/toalin

Information Society Observatory

c/o Information Society Institute

FIN-33014 University of Tampere

Finland

tel. +358 3 215 8072

fax. +358 3 215 7932

www.uta.fi/laitokset/ISI/english