DIGITALIZATION

1.- Introduction

The most outstanding fact of the era of Digitalization is the frantic growth of the Technological industry. The application of all kinds of digital artifacts in everyday life enables an even quicker globalized sharing of information. There are no more barriers, no more obstacles to save in order to get wherever we want. It is not even in the hands of the leaders of the world, despite their attempts to regularize a society of information that has connected millions of people in the world.
“With faster and more far-reaching communication, important social and political developments occurred at the margins of technology and ideology, each interacting and expanding the potential outcomes of the other.” [1] The consequences of this unprecedented case are of different grounds. It affects and involves every aspect of our lives, but there are some more influenced ones than others. Nowadays, the way we deal with quotidian tasks at work or in a classroom, or how we spend our free time chatting with friends in the chat sessions, shows us a different society from previous years. As any invention it can be lead to mistreatment, being this a perfect excuse for governments to create laws allowing them to penetrate in the private life of the internet users worldwide.
The situation of a country such a Spain in this matter is not as optimistic as it is desired. The government seems not to be aware of the relevance of digitalization in society, not only in the way they try to regulate that system, but also in the way they promote it to form a new literate generation in communicational fields which will be unable to survive in a future complete-integrated digitalized society without that knowledge.

2.- Digitization or Digitalization?

This dichotomy may be due to the vertiginous growth of our living language, extremely influenced by the vertiginous appearance of new artifacts on technological grounds. Even though these two words seem to be similar, they allude to different realities. Digitization is a process “by which electrical signal in the analogical domain are converted to the digital domain.” [2] This word does not cover the whole global-encompassing uniqueness of the digital world. So, the term Digitalization would be more accurate when dealing with the socio-cultural trend originated as a consequence of digitization.
Before the arrival of digitization, everything was analog. This implies that the real world was translated into electronic impulses. Analogical signals can be augmented, transmitted, stored, retrieved and reconverted back. However, this process involves a considerable loss of quality. When converting analogical signals into digitalized ones, the first goal was the preservation of quality. The process of digitization consists of “sampling the analog signal rapidly as time progresses and converting each sampled value into a number, and representing the number in binary form.” [3] Thus a simple analog signal becomes a mass of binary numbers. The mass of numbers can then be accurately converted back to the original analog signal. That new digital signal can be augmented, stored, retrieved but without losing its original value. The quality is exactly the same as when it was stored. In other words, digitization is a process by which we “turn voices, sounds, movies, television signals, music, colors…into computer bits and then transfer them…around the world.” [4]

3.- Digital Revolution

The first use of widespread digitization was with the use of telephone communication and music reproduction. One basic problem is that to make sounds digitized needs more space for storage and so it makes the process more expensive. Pictures and video contain so many analogical signals that it was really costly to convert them. With the arrival of fast and cheap computers this principle was changed, leading us into the era of digitalization.
With the barriers of storing, manipulating and transmitting digitized data falling apart, the rush to digitization of everything has steamed ahead. Books, pictures, movies, literary works, music and almost everything imaginable that can be digitized have been digitized. Once digitized the result is data. Data is data—irrespective of source. Hence the same machines that can store and transmit voice can do pictures and video. This brings us to the new meaning of an old word “convergence”. [5]
In the past, for example, each entertainment medium had to be played on a specific device. Video was played on a television by using a video player, music was played on a tape deck or compact disc player, radio was played on an AM/FM tuner, and video games were played through a console of some sort. Similarly, different communication media used their own technologies. Voice conversation was carried on using a telephone, video communication briefly used high-end video phones, facsimile copies used fax machines, and e-mail used a computer.
Convergence is the merging of all types of information into a common digital form. “Convergence of all electrical impulses into digital is the underlying enabler of the digitalization phenomenon.” [6] A computer and an Internet connection is all that today’s consumer needs in order to send email, to receive pictures, to make phone calls, to do videoconferencing, to listen to music, to read books, to search libraries and to view movies.
We tend to think about convergence in terms of technology alone, but convergence in information and communications technology (ICT) does not solely involve technological innovation, “it also has a real impact on everyday lives that can potentially create further imbalances in terms of the digital divide, especially in the developing world.” [7] As an evolving concept, convergence encompasses a combination of opportunities and challenges, not only for the ICT industry, but also for regulators, policy makers and society at large.
The Internet is perhaps the most widespread example of technological convergence. Virtually all entertainment technologies – from radio to television to video to books to games – can be viewed and played online, often with greater functionality than they have in their primary technology. Communications technologies, as well, can be used, with the Internet replacing fax machines, telephones, video phones, and the postal service. “An international information society is under construction which will digitally link all homes via the Internet –the network of networks.” [8]

4.- Societal Consequences of Digitalization

In dealing with the societal consequences of digitalization, the first step would be to give a definition of the term “society”. Typically, a society involves people with a shared geography within national boundaries. Then they will be classified according to their economical status, ethnic background, age…etc. Here we will deal with “digital” societies whose common point is the way they approach telecommunication and computational resources, all of which are born out of the digital revolution. [9]
One of the most clear aspects of the digital society is that “empowers the individual.” [10] There has been a raise of acceptance and affordability of those technological products that empower the individual. The arrival of this new technology is the bigger forecaster of societal change. But all this new technologies are based on older elemental technologies, which means that all technologies are interdependent. One example of this is the World Wide Web, that would have not evolved without the aid of the appearance of cheap personal computer and color monitors, for example.
The most significant example to evaluate the digitalization era is the world-spread use of the Internet. However this varies according to the different societies around the world. We can distinguish four types of societies: Pre-Internet, Internet-emergent, Internet-integrated and Communications-saturated. [11] Each of them will have suffered different impacts in their structure regarding to the internet usage. It is Relevant to point out that eventually all societies will be Internet-integrated although they can be developed in different ways. Also relevant to mention that there are not Communication-saturated societies still, that is, societies described as “Internet- ubiquitous”. [12]
Since the information age lead us to the enhancing of the individual, we must point out that each individual would relate to technologies and participate in society in different ways, for example according to their generation. Let us deal with some of the areas which have been affected by the digital society.

4.1.- schedules

If we combine the individual consumer technologies together with the penetration of the internet, a person’s relation with his environment can change considerably. Now, thanks to the infinite internet possibilities, individuals are able to arrange their everyday differently. Now, it is not necessary to go out home to a book shop to buy a book because you can order it in a eBook shop. To emphasize how we can manage our working time, as in comparison to the prior personal technological revolution, a worker now is expected to be localizable 24 hours a day and, depending on the importance of his work, he may be required to check his voice mail even on vacation. Also, familiar ties can be strengthened with the aid of the new personal technologies such as the email, connecting far away relatives despite having incompatible timetables.

4.2.- Work

The National Association of Home Based Businesses (NAHBB) of the United States estimated that in the year 2000 over 55 million people would work from home. [13] It is important to distinguish between the “tele-commuter” [14] and the home-based entrepreneur. Being the former an employee working partially from home in business hours and the latter, somebody who literary operates an independent business from home. Both will enjoy the advantages of expending more time at home, but it would be the independent entrepreneur who will take the most reward. He will not have to retire on mandatory basis, and will have the benefit of a grater flexible schedule. All these factors are changing the original nature of work; it is even foreseen a return towards rural areas thanks to the easy access of services trough personal technologies.
Nowadays it is impossible to think about the workplace without computers. The use of email, and the growing use of mobile laptops are considered essential for the correct fulfillment of the employee’s duty. So, the ability to use this technologies at work are a prerequisite to be hired, even in employments which are considered at entry level. That is why goes without saying that investment in re-training is something essential to the future of the digital society and self-sufficiency of individuals.

4.3.- Education

Another area which is highly affected by digitalization is education. The introduction of the personal computer and the internet have had a tremendous success and plays out in the study results of the National School Boards Foundation: “…parents believe the internet is a powerful tool for learning …the Internet can be an equally powerful tool for schools (…) .” [15] In the last years, the use of video in the class was considered an original methodological aid to the teacher. Recently, new forms of Web-based learning are becoming increasingly effective. One successful new incorporation is the use of the Web with the involvement of human tutors, permitting the student to contact their tutor any time anywhere. (www.digitalthink.com)

4.4.- Entertainment

One of the areas which has changed more radically thanks to digitalization is entertainment. Although it affects people of every age, the teenager sector is the larger consumer for excellence. The widespread popularity of video games and its accessibility on a full range of devices –hand-helds, video games units, or personal computers- , studies shows that homes with this technologies have decreased television viewing.[16] The personal computer offer other leisure possibilities such as email, chat sessions, visiting Web sites and downloading trendy music. According to the National School Boards Foundation, people who are frequent internet consumers, spend more time reading and, like video game users, less time watching TV.

5.- The Impact of Digitalization in Spain

The influence of the digital era in the Spanish society goes above any other period in the field of information. Its impact is based in the formation of a post capitalist society making influence in the population in a different way from Mcdonaldization. Even though there is a tendency towards consumerism, its repercussions goes beyond that. That is why is necessary a government involvement in the attention of the citizenry, its rights and obligations, backed on the development of powerful communication tools.
There is no doubt that the number of internet users in Spain is growing. According to Nielsen Netratings, the number of Spanish homes with Internet access has raised a 9% during the second quarterly of 2004 with respect to the same period of the previous year. [17] The figures of the total number of internet users in Spain is around 9.3 millions. However, this percentage is inferior in comparison to the number of Hispanic Internet users in the United States –around 14 millions.
There are several areas in which it is appreciable the force of digitalization. Among the main ones we find, work, education and leisure. All of them having as fundamental reason of change the omnipresent presence of the Internet.

5.1.- Work

One of the fields in which new technologies have deeply impacted is in the workplace. The implantation of personal computers in private enterprises and in state organs has changed the rate of work and efficiency. However, the use of the internet in the work place has arisen a misuse of this major breakthrough. A research made by the consultancy Domeus reflects that a 74% of the Spanish workers with email availability in their working place use it for private correspondence.[18] Traditionally, employees used to abuse technically at work by means of telephone calls. Nowadays, with the increase of other technologies, specially, the internet, they waste some of their working hours in searching information in Web sites and writing private emails. As a consequence of this, enterprises dismisses the employees who are wasting abusively their working time with new technologies, trade unions denounce and jurists do not agree about which procedures to follow in this new phenomenon in the labor environment.

5.2.- Education

Another area which has been highly influenced in the Spanish Society is education. The Spanish university has played a very active role in the boost of significant projects in the Internet. Thanks to that advanced vision we can see a very high degree of development of the information society in all Spanish university Campus. [19] Thanks to that, the Spanish university has the Miguel de Cervantes Virtual Library and Universia (a project to introduce the new technologies and the Internet to all university students), without forgetting the extraordinary development in the own universities of powerful tools on behalf of researchers, teachers and students.
Despite all these advancements, the application of the new technologies in Spanish education is still at the bottom of Europe. Even though there is a clear widespread of the new technologies in the universities, there is not such application in basic schools and high schools. One of the reasons for this failure is due to traditional teachers who are not still adapted or are skeptical to use the Internet or other technologies as a modernist educational resource in the classroom.
The Spanish Ministry of Education (MEC) has several future plans in relation to the Internet. Among the main ones we find: internet connection in all educational centers, eLearning, Digital Video in the classrooms, virtual libraries, Webs for all centers, etc together with the participation in other European projects, such as: European Telematic Net for education, formation of the teaching staff through euro-rdsi, and “Web for schools”, whose objective is to promote the usage of the Internet as a normal classroom resource. [20]

5.3.- Entertainment

The average time Spanish people dedicate to leisure time during the weekend is 21 hours and 39 minutes, according to a research by Grupo Facilisimo.com. [21]Of that amount of time, 60% is dedicated to passive activities such as watching TV, reading, listening to music, and surfing the Internet.

5.4.- Privacy

In any email, designed as a mere correspondence method between universities, its data is not circulating protected. That is why emerges the necessity of cryptography. It is simply a way to guarantee in the Internet the Constitutional right to the inviolability of the correspondence. This may lead certain governments to panic and to a willingness to create regulations, because terrorist could communicate with each other freely. That is why Spain is following the restrictions of the Treaty of Wassenaar- by which there are applied restrictions to the importation and exportation of cryptography. These restrictions ignore completely the Internet spirit as a global community of sharing information in which all members receive and emit information.
Germany and United Kingdom are thinking to impose in cryptography the technique knew as “key scrow”. This technique is based on a centralized system. Everybody who wants to use cryptography has to register and give a copy of his key to the authorities. Spain could apply that technique in a future as it is left open the option to it in the article 52 of the General Law of Telecommunications. [22]

In general the Spanish Public Administration should take a much more active role favoring the Internet. The Spanish leaders do not consider this theme priority. This may justify why 63% of the Spanish population do not use the Internet, placing the country in the caboose of the European digitalization process. [23]

6.- Conclusion

In a world of continuous technological changes, a new evolved attitude is expected from societies. Even though the introduction of digital artifacts in our lives have created a more passive character in us, that does not mean that we have to remain inactive in relation to adapting the new society that will receive that artifacts. It should be promoted by the leaders of the world the acceptance and widespread use of this technological advantages to allow the entrance of a more profitable world for everyone and everywhere.
Digitalization is just the peak of an iceberg of extraordinary unlimited resources that will provide power to their users. There will be no borders anymore; no space, no slowness, no distances. And it is the duty of everybody to give a good usage of that potent tool.














7.- References, Sources

Friedman, T. The Lexus and the Olive Tree. And the Walls came tumbling Down. New York, 1999.
Palmer, Allen. Following the Historical Paths of Global Communication. 2002
Thussu, Daya Kishan. International Communication: Continuity and Change. Approaches to Theorizing International Communication. London: Arnold, 2000.
http://cactus.eas.asu.edu/partha/Columns/12-24-digital.htm
http://www.bridges.org/commentaries/109
http://www.cap-info.de/triangle/download/digworld.PDF
http://www.euroresidentes.com/blogs/internet/2004/10/crecimiento-de-internet-en-espaa.htm
http://www.redaragon.com/economia/informe_internet/
http://tecnologia.universia.es/experto/internet_espana.htm
http://www.uclm.es/profesorado/ricardo/WEBNNTT/Bloque%202/Internet%202.htm
http://www.amigus.org/web/archives/003902.php
http://biblioweb.sindominio.net/telematica/privac.html









[1] Palmer, Allen. Following the Historical Paths of Global Communication. Pg 9. 2002
[2] http://cactus.eas.asu.edu/partha/Columns/12-24-digital.htm; 28/12/2006
[3] http://cactus.eas.asu.edu/partha/Columns/12-24-digital.htm; 28/12/2006
[4] Friedman, T. The Lexus and the Olive Tree. And the Walls came tumbling Down. Pg 48. New York, 1999.
[5] http://cactus.eas.asu.edu/partha/Columns/12-24-digital.htm; 28/12/2006
[6] http://cactus.eas.asu.edu/partha/Columns/12-24-digital.htm; 28/12/2006
[7] http://www.bridges.org/commentaries/109; 29/12/2006
[8] Thussu, Daya Kishan. International Communication: Continuity and Change. Approaches to Theorizing International Communication. Pg 73 London: Arnold, 2000.
[9] www.cap-info.de/triangle/download/digworld.PDF; 03/01/2007
[10] www.cap-info.de/triangle/download/digworld.PDF; 03/01/2007
[11] www.cap-info.de/triangle/download/digworld.PDF; 03/01/2007
[12] www.cap-info.de/triangle/download/digworld.PDF; 03/01/2007
[13] www.cap-info.de/triangle/download/digworld.PDF; 03/01/2007
[14] www.cap-info.de/triangle/download/digworld.PDF; 03/01/2007
[15] www.cap-info.de/triangle/download/digworld.PDF; 04/01/2007
[16] www.cap-info.de/triangle/download/digworld.PDF; 04/01/2007
[17] http://www.euroresidentes.com/blogs/internet/2004/10/crecimiento-de-internet-en-espaa.htm;05/01/2007
[18] http://www.redaragon.com/economia/informe_internet/ ; 08/01/07
[19] http://tecnologia.universia.es/experto/internet_espana.htm ; 08/01/07
[20] http://www.uclm.es/profesorado/ricardo/WEBNNTT/Bloque%202/Internet%202.htm; 08/01/2007
[21] http://www.amigus.org/web/archives/003902.php; 08/01/2007
[22] http://biblioweb.sindominio.net/telematica/privac.html; 08/01/2007
[23] http://tecnologia.universia.es/experto/internet_espana.htm; 08/01/2007