I looked for trends in the following five articles, written over ten years (listed chronologically):

• Palmquist, Ruth A. "The Impact of information technology on the individual." ARIST 27 (1992): 3-42 [151 references]
• Doctor, Ronald D. "Social equity and information technologies: moving toward information democracy." ARIST 27 (1992): 43-96 [225 references]
• Froehlich, Thomas J. "Ethical Considerations of Information Professionals." ARIST 27 (1992): 291-324 [129 references]
• Braman, Sandra. "Policy for the net and the Internet." ARIST 30 (1995): 5-75 [658 references]
• Herring, Susan C. "Computer-mediated communication on the Internet." ARIST 36 (2002): 109-168 [240 references]

The main theme that keeps popping up over and over again is that of power and control. Palmquist describes us as in the midst of a "control revolution." Most of the issues covered in these articles can be boiled down to one of power -- what forms does it take; who has it; who should have it, etcetera. Power struggles are happening on every level from individual to global.

Decisions about technical standards have immense impact socially, politically and economically. Economic advantage goes to those whose standards are chosen, and the standards themselves dictate future technological development. Sometimes these standards are set by the market, other times by coalitions of government, international and corporate organizations. According to Doctor, "power derives from three interrelated resources: money, authority, and knowledge" and struggles over standards have high stakes for all three arenas.

The Internet is an international network. Attempts to set policy quickly become entangled in other matters of international politics. Nations who don't define their own information policy often end up with de facto policies set by their neighbors. Many worry that the Internet is being used to spread the cultural values and language of its dominant user group -- North American English speakers. The US, in particular, has been accused of using the Internet as a means of extending territoriality.

But that's not to say that America speaks with one voice, even where information policy is concerned. The Internet intersects several industries, and thus exists at the junction of several domains of law. Different government regulatory agencies are responsible for different media, and attempts to formulate consistent regulations are stalled by turf battles over who has jurisdiction.

Meanwhile, as the government argues with itself, private industry has stepped in. The Department of Defense has relinquished control of much of the infrastructure to corporations. Large companies have been centralizing control over the technology and content (using the First Amendment to challenge antitrust regulations preventing carriers from offering content), and according to Herring, ecommerce is now the dominant use of the web. Looking back across international waters, these capitalists welcome globalization, seeing them as new markets to conquer.

Changes in the nature of selling online access has further diminished the importance and power of individuals. Historically, access providers sold their services to individual users, and it was to their competitive advantage to get as many users as possible. This was particularly useful in selling companies on the notion of universal access, as it would expand their user base. But today providers find greater profit in selling to large organizations, such as corporations. When these are the providers' clients, the needs of individual users become negligible.

On the individual level, most authors talk about the balance of power between workers and employers. Are organizations using technology to monitor workers or to give them more autonomy? Will telecommuting give people more choice in their work environment or is it another potential source of exploitation? Will increased communication flatten and equalize organizational relationships or will it reinforce existing hierarchies?

Hierarchies are a recurring notion throughout the articles. They exist in the workplace, in terms of political responsiveness, and even among computer-mediated social groups. The absence of external cues do not ensure egalitarian communication. Status online is often associated with experience, and inexperienced users often receive less respectful treatment. In asynchronous group discussions (Usenet, listservs), a minority of users often dominate, possibly encouraged to post by their self-confidence and perceived entitlement. Synchronous discussions (chat, MUDs) are more balanced, but often have hierarchies built in, in the form of roles.

An important question that needs to be asked is whether the supply of power is limited. Is everyone fighting over the same finite pie, or is it possible to make the pie bigger? No firm answer is given in any of the articles, but there's certainly a perception that empowering one group inevitably disadvantages someone else. If so, it's in the interest of those in power to resist attempts to empower other groups. And that resistance has hindered attempts to breach not only the digital divide, but other societal inequities.

Unfortunately, the trends don't look good for the have-nots. Although certain advantages go to the early adopters (those with knowledge of the technology), for the most part those in power have the means to stay in power.

For example, some noteworthy small operators have circumvented big media to report on stories that were otherwise going uncovered. But as the Internet becomes a more lucrative market, these small players are being swallowed up or drowned out by the large commercial interests. While some use technology to circumvent controls on information, the gatekeepers reinforce their ownership and control through the use of more manipulative technologies.

A subtle thread running through the articles involves the empowerment of technology itself. It's almost to the point of personification, for example: "technology actually encourages..." But technology alone does no such thing. Although people may feel controlled by technology, this personification sounds more like an abdication of control.

Yes, technological change can cause cultural shifts. But that's not the only cause. Cultural shifts can also be caused by social, political and economic changes. And Doctor explains that technology has no meaning outside its social context -- social pressures shape technology; the technology itself is not deterministic.

Research in many areas has demonstrated that when push comes to shove, society trumps technology. For example, Herring noted that research on computer-based communications shows that users adapt the technology to suit their needs, overriding the "predispositions" of the technology. She too uses the term "technologically deterministic" and says research does not support such a view.

Attempts to resolve problems by merely adding technology, without making any other changes, almost always fail. Social influence is a consistent and strong predictor of whether someone uses technology -- moreso than anything inherent in the technology itself.

Thus, it is unrealistic to say that technology, in and of itself, does anything to people. It's more accurate to say that people design technology to do certain things, but what the technology does is still determined by people, somewhere up the line.

Related to power and control is the question of responsibility.

In her introduction, Palmquist says that information scientists "must bear some responsibility" to anticipate the impact of improved access to information on individuals. Is this holding information scientists to a higher standard than other professions? Other professions may try to forecast the results of their own actions, or may choose to study wider effects for competitive advantage. How many other professions take responsibility for predicting the future? If information science is in the minority here, that could make the task even more difficult.

Complicating the notion of responsibility is the vague definition of who is considered an information professional or information scientist. Many articles sidestep the issue altogether. The most concrete definition is given by Froehlich who splits the field into two groups: theoretician-researchers and practitioners, people acting as intermediaries or brokers between information consumers and "publicly available reference or source databases."

But this is still very nebulous, and doesn't entirely match examples used in the other articles. Unfortunately, without some consensus for a proscriptive definition of the field, coming up with an ethical code is (as Barnes said in Froehlich) "either unnecessary or unworkable." What's more, if the profession does bear responsibility, that responsibility falls on an even smaller number of individuals who choose to assume it.

While some optimistic projections saw technology itself somehow promoting equity, that hasn't been the case in practice. The evidence suggests that the digital divide is increasing -- along with other gaps between the haves and have-nots. That's a large burden for one profession to assume. As might be expected from the title of his piece, Doctor has the best suggestions for this, recommending a focus on the social and political domains, where Americans tend to be egalitarian, and not focusing as much on information equity as within the economic domain, where we tend to be more accepting of differences. Notions of universal access came out of monopolies, and while still necessary, they are no longer directly applicable to the current deregulated environment or to newer technologies.

In general, dramatic predictions of teledemocracy (1992) or e-democracy (2002) transforming the political process have not panned out. This, again, comes back to preservation of power. However, Braman writes, "At root the practice of democracy is embedded within community, and it is the building and nature of this community that will determine whether or not use of the net supports the practice of democracy." Fortunately, the early Internet pioneers who designed the systems and established the culture often held strong libertarian philosophies placing a high value on free speech. Thus, one can find a diversity of viewpoints online.

But this raises further issues about the kinds of information available. The quality of information can be difficult for consumers to evaluate. Information overload has become a recent concern, but problems with erroneous, biased or improper information have always been with us.

Instead of dealing with these issues through education, concerns about misinformation or inappropriate information, particularly where children are concerned, lead to calls for censorship, both through technical and legal means. [Palmquist quotes Meyrowitz that shielding children is traditional. That may be so, but there have been many traditions in world history and the 1950s and Victorian eras were hardly typical.]

Another problematic kind of information is what's being gathered about individuals. I've already mentioned concerns about increased surveillance in the workplace, and there are other privacy risks from industry and government databases, as well as through ill-considered personal disclosures.

[There's one other common theme that I wish I had room in this paper to discuss. That's the fascinating dichotomy between increasing isolation and expanding social networks (often long-distance ones) and the related questions of space usage and the disputed importance of geographical location. These issues crop up in all five articles. Unfortunately, they don't seem quite relevant to the scope of this paper, however I wanted to mention that these issues do exist.]

In conclusion, there are a lot of big players in the communication and information fields right now, playing for very high-stakes. They're making power grabs, and not out of altruistic motives.

So, what does it mean to be an information professional in the information age?

Well, if Francis Bacon is right, and "Knowledge is power" (and many do consider it to be a source of power), then this is a useful field to be entering at this time. However, as Ben Parker said, "With great power comes great responsibility."

If we do not intend to use this power merely to further our own ends (and I don't see much megalomania among librarians I have known) then we have to consider where it can be best used.