Dr. Motamednejad on the fringes of the Information Society Seminar

There has been a lot of talk about the establishment of an Information Society. With new e-this and e-that springing up everywhere, evolving into an e-society based on information and communication seems inevitable. Some academics and officials in Iran seem to have gotten the IM (instant message in internet lingo) and held the Second Interregional Seminar on Central & Western Asian Countries and Information Society on 2-3 September 2003. This seminar is the third of a series that has been underway since 2000 with the next important seminar in this regard being a summit at the level of heads of state set to be held in Geneva November 2003. This is why Iran International Magazine was eager to have a Q & A with the Seminar’s Secretary, Dr. Kazem Motamednejad, who is also a professor of Communications at the Allameh Tabatabaiee University and a member of the Communications Committee in Iran’s National UNESCO Commission.

This seminar is a sequel to the seminars that have started since 2000. During that year, UNESCO paid special attention to information society. Before that, many countries had worked on the subject. We decided to carry out a similar study in Iran as well. For this reason, we held the first interregional seminar on Central & Western Asian Countries and Information Society in September 2001.

When the Institute for Communication Research was inaugurated in 1995, we were planning to establish ties with Central Asian countries to cooperate in the field of communications. From that time we were thinking about the establishment of a Communication Research and Studies Center. We proposed it to UNESCO and declared our readiness to establish such a center in the Allameh Tabatabaiee University of Iran. We asked for their support. A delegation from UNESCO came here to study our proposal and then went to Central Asian countries. The issue was politicized and was not agreed to.

We held talks with deputy head of communications department of UNESCO in 1996 and declared that we were ready to carry out a research project on press development. Then we conducted a research on multiplicity of the press in Iran compared with other countries after the end of the war and sent the report to UNESCO. However, since the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance was not ready to cooperate, the project was aborted.

I was invited to an international congress on professional information ethics in 1998. UNESCO had asked 30 people for papers. About 300 papers were sent; 30 of which were selected. My paper was among the selected ones. It focused on the method used for protecting people’s private lives in mass media of the Central Asian countries. I made the acquaintance of UNESCO’s deputy for communication affairs, which led to holding subsequent seminars in Iran.

The future world would be the world of communications. We must attune our country to these conditions.

In November 2002 we held a seminar on Iran themed, "A Scientific Conference on Iran and Information Society in 2011." Therefore, the seminar held this month is the third seminar, but the second seminar in the region.

This seminar can be assessed from two viewpoints. One is communication cooperation between Iran and regional countries with the other one being coordination for holding a summit conference on communication society which will be held in Geneva, in November 2003.

Unfortunately, we do not have remarkable facilities for our transition to an information society. This issue was totally overlooked until two or three years ago. Following the establishment of High Information Council and after Mr. Jahangard was appointed as secretary of the council, the situation has improved. Introduction of Takfa project (applied development of information technology and communications) and its implementation greatly contributed in this regard. However, since we were late to begin, we lag behind many countries in this field.

We must change technical infrastructures. As you know, regular and mobile phone lines have been developing during the past years and fiber-optic networks have been connecting cities and countries. This will help stabilize communications. You cannot rely on waves forever, and fiber-optic networks are always there without disruption. Apart from infrastructures we must pay attention to application issues and work on software problems. We must provide many powerful computers.

Since the number of university graduates has increased, the need for the Internet and electronic communications has increase as well. If we could provide the necessary economic and political conditions and required freedoms, we would progress more rapidly.

Since industrial and Western counties are way ahead of us, we must move faster. We must allocate enough budgets to this purpose and make plans. The future world would be the world of communications. We must attune our country to these conditions. Research can greatly help in this regard. We must value research and base our policies on research results.