The knowledge society is a society whose economy depends upon the knowledge of their citizens and the success of this society is dependent on the innovation and creativity of the citizens.
It is a society in which the generation, diffusion, and exploitation of knowledge play a major role in the creation of a nation’s wealth.
It is a society where the production, diffusion, and utilization of the knowledge are significant economic, cultural, political and social activities. In these societies, knowledge is recognized as the driver of social, cultural and economic growth.
It is a society that enables people to develop without limits. It opens opportunities for all kinds of knowledge to be mass-produced and mass-utilized throughout society as a whole.
It is the one that creates and shares knowledge for the prosperity and well-being of a nation. In these societies, inequality is defined in terms of exclusion from knowledge and omission of knowledge.
A knowledge society promotes human rights and offers equal, inclusive and universal access to all knowledge creation. The UNESCO World Report establishes four principles that are essential for the development of an equitable knowledge society:
- Cultural diversity
- Equal access to education
- Universal access to information
- Freedom of expression
Characteristics of Knowledge Society
Following are the main characteristics of a knowledge society:
- Members of a knowledge society have attained a higher average standard of education in comparison to other societies and a growing propagation of its labor forces are employed as knowledge workers.
- Its industry produces products with integrated artificial intelligence such as voice-recognition software and technology which is used increasingly in smart cars.
- The price of most products is determined by the knowledge needed for their development and sale rather than by the raw material and physical labour that is needed to produce them.
- Its organisations have transformed into intelligent organisations by applying creativity and innovation in a continuous manner.
- There is increased organised knowledge in the form of digitalised expertise, stored in data banks, expert systems, organisational plan, and other media.
- There are multiple centers of expertise and a poly-centric production of knowledge utilisation.
- A large portion of the population of a knowledge society attains higher education.
- A vast majority of the population have access to information and communication technology and the internet.
- A large portion of the labour forces is knowledge workers, who need a higher degree of education and experience to perform their job well.
- Both individuals and the state invest heavily in education and research and development.
- Members of knowledge society are more creative and innovative in comparison to other societies.
- Organisations in a knowledge society are forced to innovate continually.
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