These were the slides that accompanied a workshop/talk I gave for City, University of London's Library and Information Science Masters students, as part of their 'After Hours' series. The session looked at some of the ethical choices we face in the information society, and my particular journey towards a more critical lens on that society.

1. plotting paths through digital minefields
#CityLIS after hours seminar
@dompates, senior educational technologist
mon oct 7th, 2019

2. activity 1: how do you feel about the future?

3. with a partner, try to think of an area of
the human experience that remains
completely untouched by digital
technologies…
activity 2: paired discussion

4. contents
presentation:
on the information society and digitised educational environments
activity 3 closing
activity

5. on the information society…

6. on the information society…

7. …a society where the creation, distribution, use,
integration and manipulation of information is a
significant economic, political, and cultural
activity. its main drivers are digital information
and communication technologies…
wikipedia, oct 7th 2019
on the information society…

8. on the information society…
1936
1962
1945
allimagescourtesyofwikipedia
…the next medium,
whatever it is—it may be the
extension of
consciousness—will include
television as its content, not
as its environment, and will
transform television into an
art form.
a computer as a research
and communication
instrument could enhance
retrieval, obsolesce mass
library organization, retrieve
the individual's encyclopedic
function and flip into a
private line to speedily
tailored data of a saleable
kind.

9. manuel castells: the information age
• the rise of the network society (1996)
• the power of identity (1997)
• end of millennium (1998)
on the information society…
By Jorge Gonzales - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0,
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=57197678

10. ...describes the shift from an industrial
society to an informational society, which
started in the 1970s. this network society is
structured around networks instead of
individual actors, and works through a
constant flow of information through
technology...argues that the 'network' is the
defining feature that marks our current
epoch.
on the information society…
By Jorge Gonzales - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0,
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=57197678
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Information_Age:_Economy,_Society_and_Culture

11. ...maintains that the information age can
"unleash the power of the mind", which would
dramatically increase the productivity of
individuals and lead to greater leisure,
allowing individuals to achieve "greater
spiritual depth and more environmental
consciousness". such change would be
positive, he argues, in that it would cause
resource consumption to decrease.
on the information society…
By Jorge Gonzales - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0,
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=57197678
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manuel_Castells

12. on the information society…
agricultural industrial digital
industry
4.0

13. on the information society…
1989 1994 1995 1998 1999 2000 2001 2003 2006 2007 2010 2011 2013 2016 2018
Tim Berners-
Lee invents
World Wide
Web
Saw
Timothy
Leary speak
on
‘cyberspace’
at USF
Google
formed
Sent first
email
Bought
first PC
Napster
launch
Dotcom
bubble
First
mobile
phone
First social
network
(‘Friends
Reunited’)
SQL
Slammer
Worm;
coining of
‘Net
Neutrality’
Started
own
blog
First
iPhone
Started
own
YouTube
channel
Started
on
Twitter
Arab
Spring
Launch of
Wikileaks
Started
MA in
Digital
Media
Edward
Snowden
revelations
Finished MA;
wrote
dissertation
on Internet
openness
Yahoo! hacks
(1bn accounts);
Brexit/Trump
(Cambridge
Analytica)
China’s
social
credit
system

14. on the information society…

15. three major areas of study within
ethics:
• meta-ethics concerning the theoretical
meaning and reference of moral propositions,
and how their truth values (if any) can be
determined
• normative ethics concerning the practical
means of determining a moral course of
action
• applied ethics concerning what a person is
obligated (or permitted) to do in a specific
situation or a particular domain of action
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethics
on the information society…
‘Socrates’ by Marie-Lan Nguyen (via Wikimedia, CC-
BY)

16. on digitised educational environments…
learning analytics

17. on digitised educational environments…
intelligent campus

18. on digitised educational environments…
holographic projection

19. on digitised educational environments…
artificial intelligence
(mozfest, oct 26, 27)

20. activity 3
1. group discussion
2. (if time) find your own ethical conundrum and write a
scenario to share with the room
http://bit.ly/DP-DigitalEthics