Knowledge society

The knowledge society refers to the critical appropriation and selective information, starring citizens who know what they want and how to use the information, and therefore know what can and can't be done without it. For UNESCO, the pluralistic concept of knowledge societies goes beyond the information society and aims at social, cultural and economic support of sustainable development. The pillar of knowledge societies are access to information for all, freedom of expression, and linguistic diversity. The information society refers to the creasing technological capacity to store more and more information and to circulate it more and more quickly, and to more capable association of people with similar interests, who try to make effective use of the vast wealth of knowledge in their area of interest to further nourish the area; and in the process, contribute their new learning back to the knowledge pool. Characteristics of a knowledge society Knowledge forms major component of any activity, particularly economics Knowledge becomes major product and raw material. All human activities become dependent on huge volumes of knowledge and information. The idea is not new but what is new is that: With present age technologies, the knowledge societies need not be constrained by geographic proximity. New age technology offers many more possibilities for sharing, archiving and retrieving the knowledge assimilated. Knowledge has become the most important capital in the present age, and hence the success of any society lies in harnessing that capital. Why are knowledge societies increasingly relevant in the present age? Information/Knowledge is a vital component of the formation of any society that is formed around some shared concepts. One of the contributions of globalization and new ICT is creation of a global society with a shared knowledge of issues and possibilities. Material resources and their processing (referred to as E henceforth) have been the basis of economic growth. Music, art forms, path-breaking thought streams, mixing of cultural attributes of different societies bringing in new cultural attributes, etc. (referred to as C henceforth) result in cultural development and act as a catalyst in all of social development. Now many societies have so matured that almost all the activities involved in E and C rely very much on existing knowledge bases. This knowledge is available in written documents, written laws, unwritten laws, people's convictions, people's words in different languages, etc. In the same way as the unequal distribution of materials (wealth in generalized terms) caused unbalanced and inappropriate development of society to date, imbalances in knowledge distribution, knowledge availability, knowledge sharing, etc. hinder the economic/cultural/social development of human societies. The knowledge societies first realize the importance of knowledge and also the importance of proper knowledge distribution, sharing and building for social development.