Intercultural Information Ethics

Abstract

""Culture" have become a catchword in many circles today. Many years ago Huntington argued for a "clash of civilizations" where cultural and religious domains of the world are replacing ideological camps as the main factor in global conflicts (Huntington, 1996). [...] There are many criticisms of Huntington‘s view. One of them concerns the nature of the conflict itself. [...] Perhaps the clearest mark distinguishing the Crusades of old and the religious conflicts today is the effect of globalization and modernity which is saturated with technology. It is this factor that makes the conflicts today much more complicated and multifaceted than those in the past. Information technology saturates our lives today; it is used not only in battlefields but everywhere else in our lives—in our homes, our workplaces, our entertainment venues. Mobile phones are being merged with computers and both of them with the Inter-net. News and information travels around the world in huge quantity that boggles the imagination and all of this at the speed of light (even though some users naturally complain of the slowness of their individual connections). And when news and information travels around the world, it encounters differences among cultures and traditions.", p. 2