Integrating Technological and Societal Aspects of ICT in Foresight Exercises

Technikfolgenabschätzung – Theorie und Praxis Nr. 2, 12. Jg., Juni 2003 Seite 67 sation of knowledge and the linking to policymaking should take place as well as the cultural diffusion of foresight. In the near future, a call for ideas will follow, also events that should address geo-political challenges, e.g. the European model of society, and a guide to foresight exercises in FP6. Instead of strict rules of doing foresight, which should secure quality and reputation, he preferred the “learning by doing” approach and the accumulation of experiences. Here, the key issue is the evaluation of foresight impacts to legitimate foresight exercises. In particular, the learning impacts in decisionmaking should be elaborated and demonstrated. At the end of the conference, the revised “Ioannina Manifesto” was presented and agreed upon by the participants (see conference website quoted at the beginning of this article). It mainly describes the will to cooperate in foresight and its different types.


Introduction
In January 1994 one of the first European Digital Cities went online in Amsterdam. The initiators, a mix of progressive commentators and computer "nerds", aimed at providing all Amsterdam citizens access to the infrastructure of Internet, and via Internet to public information and public debate. The experiment was a great success: within a week, the new "city" had already 3,500 residents and 2,000 visitors a day. Modems were sold out in Amsterdam, and the infrastructure to enable access had to be doubled. In their proposals for the Digital City, the initiators had emphasised that they wanted to include especially the traditional non-users of ICT: women, elderly people and even the homeless. Terminals were installed in buildings for the elderly and in public places like pubs, the city hall and on the street. Amsterdam Digital City really started with an idealistic view of opening the new communication channels for everyone, and gave them access to political information and power.
After a few months, the success of the experiment made the City Council and the national government decide to continue their support. Despite the policy of accessibility the users did however not represent the Amsterdam population in terms of age, gender, income, social status etc. A survey showed that most of the residents of the Digital City were young, highly educated men. For this group, the Digi tal City created new opportunities to meet others, to discuss policy and other issues and to access public information. For all the others, Internet was just as far away and inaccessible as before with the Digital City (Rommes 2002).
The example of the Digital City is not a case on its own, but exemplifies a broader pattern in the co-evolutionary development of ICT, ICT applications and society as well as in the politics of new ICT applications. In Foresight these kinds of dynamics are hardly made visible.

Social Dimensions of ICT
Academic studies on ICT and society show that there is a range of issues which make clear that the Information Society like any society will have winners and losers, beneficial consequences of ICT and harmful applications. A review of these academic studies shows that there are no simple and straightforward effects of ICT on society. Mostly effects are multiple and contradictory. New positive developments are accompanied by neutral and negative effects (cf. Spears, Postmes et al. 2000). Complemented by other studies (among others: Mansell, Schenk et al. 1998;Mansell and Wehn 1998;Garson 2000;Sharpe 2000;Wyatt, Henwood et al. 2000;Rommes 2002), and information we obtained from experts on ICT and Society we arrived at a list of ten issues. (cf. Box 1) In S&T policy, probably the most frequently mentioned new opportunities ICT creates are in the field of learning, work, e-business and services. For education, however, literature reports many failures especially if the new technologies are implemented in traditional educational situations. To be successful design activities are required which include the vital aspects of the communicative aspects of ICT such as collaborative learning. Likewise, whilst the use of ICT within offices is by now seen as evident, the impacts for boundaries between office and home, between work life and private life, urge for organisation specific solutions to cope with negative consequences. In the field of e-business the new commercial practices give added value to existing markets, replace markets or open up new markets, but the viability of such new relations is still uncertain.
Within the literature on ICT and society Spears et al. found four typical biases (Spears, Postmes et al. 2000): 1. On the one hand an over-generalisation of the benefits of ICT takes place, presenting the Information Society as an utopia in which most of the current societal, economic, environmental issues are solved. 2. On the other side, harmful aspects of ICT might be over-emphasised as well, presenting the new activities as anti-social and an indication of the end of society. The result is a distopian society where individuals are suppressed by or through the ICT.
Next, two simplifications are often made dealing with the relationships between the ICT technology and social developments.
3. Some studies display an overly technological determinism, which implies that future developments within society are completely dependent on and determined by the technological possibilities of new ICT. 4. In the other simplification society fully determines technological developments. Needs and strategies of society and social actors will make up the new Information Society.

Integration of Technological and Societal Aspects in the Austrian Delphi
Delphi studies are one of the most prominent methods for technology foresight studies. For quite a long time these Delphi studies focussed on technological developments. The most profound step towards integrating social and technological aspects in a Delphi foresight was made by the Austrian foresight study. From the very beginning it tried to integrate social and technological dimensions through organising the Technology Delphi according to specific societal sectors and needs, and to complement it with a Social Delphi (ITA 1998a, b, c;ITK 1998a, b;Rust 1998). Objectives of the Society/Culture Delphi were to map social, cultural, economic and political trends within Austrian society; to assess the societal and political significance of each of the trends; to assess impacts of societal trends on research and development as well as in terms of priorities for politics; to identify conflict potentials of societal trends and finally, to assess the desirability of trends as perceived by Delphi experts. Crucial for the integration of social dimensions, however is the integrated analysis, in which is examined how several developments in technology and in society reinforce each other, are contradictory or may create second order effects. The analysis shows for ICT, that Austria will hardly play any role in development of new hard-and software, and that the importance of ICT lies in the application. The main applications (in terms of economic, political importance and socio-technical likelihood) are those around issues like teleshopping, telelearning and teleworking, with the important implication that the distinction between private and public will be blurred. Items and conclusions emphasise opportunities of ICT, rather than possible threats, risks and possible negative impacts. The specific questionnaire technique related to Delphi, which requires that items need to be formulated into clear statements, makes it difficult to analyse socio-cultural dynamics in-depth. In that vein the Austrian Delphi shows at the same time the possibilities to go beyond the Technology Delphis, but also the inherent limitations of the Delphi technique.
One can think of two ways to overcome this problem. One is by moving away from the large scale Delphi techniques and having a number of heterogeneous foresight activities that may complement each other by shifting foci. The Netherlands provides an example. The other is to have scenarios where the worlds behind the expectations packed in Delphi statements are made accessible through stories and data.

Integration of Technological and Societal Aspects in Dutch ICT Foresight
Foresight in the Netherlands is characterised by a patchwork of foresight activities in different policy contexts and organised by different ministries, agencies and other organisations (Van der Meulen 1996). As a consequence most foresight activities are rather focussed, either in terms of the technological or scientific scope of the foresight activity or in terms of the policy contexts. We looked at three foresight activities to see whether integration was accomplished in such focused foresight. The first foresight activity we looked at, the Technology Radar, commissioned by the Ministry of Economic Affairs, started as a strong industry oriented foresight activity, but follow-up activities in a. o. ICT and multimedia were organised to address implementation issues (RAND Europe and Coopers & Lybrand Technology Consultants 1996 a-e).
The foresight study relied heavily on input from experts from industry and universities. In its first phase, 40 strategic technologies for the Netherlands were identified, and assessed for their economic value and their competitive advantage. Subsequently, for fifteen of these an analysis was made of the existing knowledge infrastructure. Because of some dissatisfaction with the final results and the impact of the study, the Ministry added a third phase to the foresight process in which workshops were organised with the main stakeholders for several of the strategic technologies. The workshops aimed at bringing together key actors within the specific technology field and to define appropriate policy actions. Social issues of ICT were used solely to determine the importance of a technology. This information came from international reports and was presented to indicate the relevance of technology for development or social need, but references to Dutch societal developments were missing. In the workshop, discussion ignored social issues and focussed on technological ones.
A second foresight exercise we looked at was done by a panel from industry and university, set up by the Advisory Council for Science and Technology Policy, which in its foresight activities wanted to look explicitly at the development of societal demands for research. The aim of the foresight exercise was to formulate a vision for the role of ICT in the Dutch economy and identify research priorities for the next 10 years (Verkenningscommissie Kennis voor de Netwerkeconomie 2001). However, the commission did not fulfil these aims. Instead it concluded, with previous foresight studies as a background, that it was inappropriate to set priorities considering the strong dynamics in ICT. It recommended that attitudes in the knowledge infrastructure had to be changed from mainstream R&D towards what they called a "yearning for an endless sea". The report mentions the importance of ICT for our current and future society, but, though it looked at other foresight reports including the Nederlands Digitaal study we discuss below, it does not attempt to foresee social and technological developments, let alone in an integrated way.

Integration of Technological and Societal Aspects in Scenario Based Studies
In contrast to Delphi studies which de facto provide forecasts about the scientific and technological developments (although their interpretations are often more modest), scenario techniques consider the future as uncertain. Scenario techniques try to overcome the uncertainty by mapping different possible developments which can offer strategic help in decision making.
There is a wide range of scenariotechniques, which differ in the extent to which they consider developments as uncertain and the normative level of the scenarios. Despite these differences, scenario techniques have some similar phases which are necessary to focus the content, assure the quality and logic of the plots. In terms of integration of technological and socio-economic dimensions of future developments, scenarios provide through their story telling ample opportunities for realising this integration. Critical issues however, are to what extent socio-economic dimensions are an integral part of the scenario, or are used only to make up the stories, and whether the integration can be continued in defining the strategic implications. In the Dutch scenario study Nederland Digitaal the first issue was realised, but unfortunately it did not have an impact on other foresight activities and RTD policy areas.

Nederland Digitaal
Nederland Digitaal is a scenario study of KPMG for the Dutch Government, and part of a series of studies on spatial planning and economic policy (KPMG 2000). In a series of White Papers the Dutch government had published at the end of the nineties on spatial planning, environment, infrastructure, some references had been made to ICT, but none of them included a serious analysis of the consequences of ICT. The scenario study Nederland Digitaal presents consequences of ICT for society and specifically for the economic infrastructures, environment and mobility.
The scenario study was conducted by a team of KPMG, assisted by some internal experts and advised by an advisory committee of the main ministries involved.
The scenario study started with the development of two ICT scenarios based on two kinds of driving and inhibiting forces: technological functionalities and acceptance of actual possibilities. The two scenarios reflected an "ICT high" and an "ICT low" society respectively. In these scenarios, the digital revolution is characterised as the availability of more and more free information, the growth of mobile and wireless applications, and the standardisation of hardware and software.
Subsequently, these two scenarios were combined with four existing scenario studies on the economy, infrastructure and mobility, spatial planning and the environment, which had been published in the years before. From the combination of the scenarios a list of three driving forces, eight inhibiting factors and four ICT specific factors could be obtained. Combination of and relations between these factors resulted in three scenarios (cf. Table 1).
"Dynamic Digital" depicts a strong individualistic and internationally oriented, market driven society. Strong competition at a global level induces new innovations and challenges actors to exploit the economic ICT possibilities as much as possible. Environmental concerns are secondary to economic ones. ICT has penetrated all segments of society, including private life, industry and government.
"Conscious Digital" is a scenario of a society in which societal and environmental values are important and ICT is not used just for economic purposes but also to realise specific societal objectives. Driving force is the potential of ICT to support personal choices and societal decisions to enhance quality of life. ICT is also used to calculate and attribute ecological costs of processes, products and transport.
In "Hesitant Digital" the Netherlands is following other countries and only if advantages are certain. Industry, government and individuals are hesitant to implement ICT applications and only interested if they are cost effective. In the background there is stagnation of European integration and of economic and technological developments.
For each of the scenarios the study provides a general overview of how society will look if the specific combination of driving and inhibiting factors occurs, and the consequences for spatial development in the Netherlands, mobility and the environment.
Foresight experiences on ICT in the Netherlands are strongly shaped by their political contexts, and as far as there is any impact, it remains within these contexts. Moreover, exercises rely strongly on experts, and few other actors are involved. We were specially interested to see whether from a system perspective social issues would be better addressed than in the large national exercises and if so whether there is any cross-fertilization between the exercises.
The scenario study indicates that the patchwork organisation of foresight also produces more interesting patches, in which indeed social issues are better addressed. However the other two exercises have not profited from these experiences. They display the weaknesses of heavy reliance on experts in foresight. Although such experts may be needed to ensure the quality of the scientific and technological content of a foresight, and because of their experience in the sector, their expertise seems to be too narrow to integrate social dimensions of ICT.  2000).
The basic result of the study was a SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats), which was based on material gathered in a broad documentary and consultation process. Part of this process were separate activities on technological developments and the creation of a vision document, which contained short scenarios on the use of ICT in the future in different contexts.
The visions were created by the group itself in a three phase process. In the first brainstorming phase, the group identified underlying issues for ICT, which were structured in seven overlapping themes: work, learning, leisure, health, transport, public administration, and use of the Internet. In the second phase, the group collected possible ways technology developments in ICT might have significant effects on how people live, work, behave etc. in these areas. Subsequently, these relationships between technology, its benefits (!) and the related issues were transformed into 14 visions.
In the overall foresight process these visions are reflected in the final document through some of the issues, as well as the related technological issues.
Given the technological focus of the policy context, the study has a broader view on ICT and includes in its analytical phase also socio-economic issues, but unfortunately the scenarios do not go beyond the benefits of ICT.

Micro-Optics Scenario Study
The third study reviewed was a scenario study which was done as part of a university research program on micro-optics in 1998 (Deuten, Rip et al. 1998). Its impact on national policies has been negligible, but it is included in this review because of its explicit attempt to develop "sociotechnical scenarios". The technological factors are not seen to be an independent TINA (There Is No Alternative), as in many other ICT studies, but to be uncertain as well. The research program on micro-optics had the ambition to develop materials and devices which could be used for transmission and processing of signals, and thus information at much higher speeds than current electronic equipment. Within the specific research program, the scenario study was used to inform researchers on micro-optics about possible developments and applications as well as societal effects of micro-optics to improve strategic choices in the research program.
Six scenarios were developed by combination of three possible developments of micro-optics and two possible broader societal configurations. Based on insight in technological developments, and especially the role of standardisation, market developments and competitive forces between technologies, three possible future positions of micro-optics were distinguished: 1. Micro-optics as a niche technology, applied in specific domains where fast transport and processing of complex information is a requirement, but with little diffusion outside the niches.

Micro-optics as a new technological domain
in combination with micro-electronics. Diffusion is developing through development of new applications and new professional and consumer products. 3. Micro-optics dominates micro-electronics and replaces micro-electronics in almost all ICT products because of its performances in terms of prices and reliability.
The two basic scenarios for societal developments are a I. Group Society in which community is a central value and social interactions are relatively stable; II. Network Society in which individuals are mobile and move easily between different networks.
Combination of these two main uncertainties gives six scenarios. For each of these scenarios the organisational structure of ICT industry was elaborated, the communication infrastructure as well as applications in the domains of health, education and retail (cf. Table 2). Although the study did not go beyond its specific academic contexts, it showed that it is possible to integrate technological and societal dimensions by making use of the insights in socio-technical dynamics. The scenarios aimed to identify future technologies and subsequently research lines for realising the development of ICT into AmI, and to identify the economic, political, social impli-cations of AmI. Discussion of the scenarios by an expert group led to a number of conclusions: 1. The realisation of AmI is not only a technological ambition, but also a social and political one and thus AmI can only be successful if it's part of the economic, social and political development of Europe. 2. AmI can act as a new paradigm for ICT and open the door to major new business and industrial opportunities. 3. Socio-political gains and the economic potential require significant and long term underpinning research of a focused nature.
The four scenarios were built around two main driving forces in the development of AmI. The first is on the objectives and goals behind specific applications and distinguishes the aim for economic and social efficiency from societal/humanistic objectives. The second focuses on the social orientation of the users and ranges from individual oriented users to community oriented ones. For each of the four combinations scenarios were developed. (cf . Table 3) The scenarios include a story about user experiences (e.g. Carmen's working day), as well as elaborating the socio-political issues, the business environment and a technology roadmap for realising the scenario. The scenarios were developed in an interactive workshop of 35 participants and after completion tested and discussed in a second workshop with the same participants. The technological roadmap was also matched with studies on critical technologies and on the technological competitive position of Europe.

Conclusions
Based on the perspective on the future development of ICT, three types of foresight exercises can be discerned: 1. Technology driven foresight studies, which focus on the development of the technology or consider technological development as the only driving force. These studies also tend to focus on the benefits of ICT. 2. Demand driven foresight studies, that focus on how ICT can be applied in sectors as solutions to problems. The red thread in these studies is that ICT improves such sectors, and thus there is little to no attention to harmful effects. 3. The third type of foresight exercises consider technological and social developments as equally important.
Foresight can integrate social and technological dimension: it is not a problem of foresight methodologies per se, but of policy focus and drawing appropriate boundaries. Integration of social and technological developments is less a matter of a specific methodology or including the right stakeholder than giving attention to both sides of the development of the ICT process. For each of the dominant foresight methods, panels, Delphi and scenarios, we have seen examples of good integration of social aspects in the foresight process. Scenario studies have proven to be an especially powerful tool to analyse mid-term future developments. Clearly there is a wide range of scenario studies in terms of scope and ambitions, but in each of the examples we saw that they can be used to integrate social aspects of ICT into foresight. In the two later studies (ICM panel in the UK, the Micro-optics scenario) the integration is really accomplished, balancing the social and technological dynamics and factors in a symmetrical way. In the last (on Ambient Intelligence) the scenarios are even translated in a technology roadmap which can be used for programmatic purposes.