Change of Paradigm in Knowledge Management Framework for the Collaborative Production and Exchange of Knowledge

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Change of Paradigm in Knowledge Management -
Framework for the Collaborative Production and Exchange
of Knowledge1
Rainer Kuhlen
Professor for Information Science in the Department of Computer and Information
Science at the University of Konstanz, Germany
rainer.kuhlen@uni-konstanz.de
Contents
Abstract .......................................................................................................................................1
1 A paradigm shift ................................................................................................................. 2
2 Knowledge warehouses vs. knowledge networks .......................................................... 6
3 New World Information and Communication Order – revisited – the political
dimension of communicative knowledge management.......................................................11
4 Sky-writing, sky-communicating – the role of the media in the communication
paradigm...................................................................................................................................16
5 Who owns knowledge in science? .................................................................................16
6 The role of libraries in the communication paradigm ...................................................18
7 Conclusion.........................................................................................................................19
Abstract
We propose a paradigm shift in the understanding of knowledge management. This puts
knowledge management in the broader context of communication. Knowledge management is
1 This paper was presented in the Plenary Session, Sunday 03 August 2003, of the World Library and
Information Congress: 69th IFLA General Conference and Council, Berlin 2003. Will be published in: Knowledge
Management • An asset for libraries and librarians. Collected papers from LIS professionals / Edited by Hans-
Christoph Hobohm. München: K • G • Saur, 2003 (IFLA Publications)
Dieses Dokument wird unter folgender Creative-Commons-Lizenz
veröffentlicht: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/de/

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generally understood as a means of having better control over the production and usage of
explicit and implicit knowledge in organizations of any kind, preferably commercial businesses,
but also public administrations. The paradigm shift in the understanding of knowledge
management (towards communications) has come about because knowledge and information
are no longer considered as being simply there. Information is not just the result of a particular
distribution or retrieval process, using and applying existing knowledge to new problems, but is
also the result of communication processes. This can be called the network or communication
approach to knowledge management. Knowledge and information in all areas and in all
applications are increasingly produced, distributed and used collaboratively. We cover the
following topics:
(a) The paradigm shift is quite obvious with respect to knowledge management from an
organizational perspective. (b) The paradigm shift towards communicative knowledge
management has also consequence from a political perspective and (c) will have
consequences for the media. (d) The communicative paradigm of knowledge management is
also increasingly relevant as a means of organizing learning processes as collaborative
cooperative, knowledge sharing processes. (e) It is obvious that the paradigm shift towards
communication processes also dramatically changes the way how the production and the
exchange of knowledge is and will be organized in scientific environment. (f) The
communicative approach has and will continue to have a strong influence on our
understanding of the concept of authorship and, consequently, of ownership of intellectual
property. (g) Finally, knowledge management in the communicative paradigm - at least with
respect to the topic of generating and disseminating knowledge in the communicative, self-
organizing paradigm - will have major consequences for librarians´ work and the structure and
mandate of information transfer institutions.
1 A paradigm shift
This talk will be a surprise to most of you. You probably expect a talk about knowledge
management – and the object of the talk is indeed knowledge management - , but what I
will mainly doing is talking about communications and the right to communicate. In the
process of my talk you will hopefully agree that communications is in the center of
knowledge management.
Ø The right to communicate seems the most obvious thing in the world, in particular in a
world where information and communication technologies are the driving force in all
domains of modern society.
Ø The right to communicate seems a basic right, a natural right, so fundamental that the
founders of the Universal Declaration of Humans Rights and most other Covenants,
Conventions, Charters etc. did not feel compelled to mention it explicitly or to enshrine it
in the canon of universal rights and values.
Ø The right to communicate can even be considered a distinctive characteristic of the
human race.
But amazingly enough the right to communicate is one of the most controversial topics of
international debate in the last 50 years. How can it be that a fundamental, universal and
obvious right can be the object of controversial interpretations, can be the focus of such

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heterogeneous, opposing interests, with the consequence, for example, that the USA
government felt obliged to terminate its membership in the UNESCO some 25 years ago
as a consequence of the debate about the New World Information and Communication
Order (NWICO). Communications, this was the message of the early NWICO debate and
is a major theme in the current preparatory process for the World Summit on the
Information Society, is a highly controversial and political topic.
The subtitle of my talk is “Framework for the Collaborative Production and Exchange of
Knowledge”. This can be related to what I am going to call a paradigm shift in the
understanding of knowledge management. And this puts knowledge management in the
broader context of communication.
Knowledge management is generally understood as a means of having better control
over the production and usage of explicit and implicit knowledge in organizations of any
kind, preferably commercial businesses, but also public administrations. To put the
objectives of traditional knowledge management in a nutshell: to know what an
organization in principle knows and to make that knowledge available to the right people
at the right time.
The paradigm shift in the understanding of knowledge management (towards
communications) has come about because knowledge and information are no longer
considered as being simply there. The classic view is that knowledge is produced by
single authors, is published and stored in information containers (traditionally in printed
books, journals, reports, today more and more in electronic forms such as data banks,
knowledge-based-systems, non-linear hypertexts, and web sites), that knowledge is
distributed to users or is interactively retrieved by end-users. This is the static view of
knowledge management. We will call that the knowledge warehouse approach.
The dynamic or communicative view on knowledge management does not take
knowledge and information as fixed, but emphasizes the ongoing growth and renewal of
knowledge and information in a continual process of exchange and communication.
Information is thus not just the result of a particular distribution or retrieval process, using
and applying existing knowledge to new problems – although this, of course will still be a
major impetus for innovation -, but is also the result of communication processes. This
can be called the network or communication approach to knowledge management.

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This shift from the distribution and retrieval of existing knowledge to the interactive and
collaborative production of new knowledge in the communication paradigm of knowledge
management has been made possible by what I call the telemediatization of all areas of
intellectual life.
“Telemediatization” is a cover term for the potentials of telecommunication (electronic
communication via networks), informatics (electronic information processing) and multi-
/hypermedia (non-linear multi-modal knowledge representation and usage).
Telemediatization is not simply a neutral, application-independent change in technology
but causes changes in all areas of life, in particular with respect to our intellectual life, not
deterministically, but nevertheless with far-reaching consequences. This is why the
communication paradigm of knowledge management must be put in the broader context
of a genuine revolution in our understanding of and our behaviour towards knowledge and
information.
Knowledge and information in all areas and in all applications are increasingly produced,
distributed and used collaboratively. Collaboration – this does not mean – as in German
or in French - work with the enemy (these are collaborateurs!) but just the opposite:
cooperating and sharing resources with others in an open, friendly, often non-competitive,
but supportive way – collaboration is in general organized in networks, not in hierarchies.
Networks - as we know from organization and system theory - allow greater creativity
and innovative power because they reduce barriers and constraints inherent in
hierarchies. But networks need coordination. Coordination is another word for
management. Knowledge production, enrichment, dissemination, and usage in the
network need to be managed. The communication paradigm is therefore a great
challenge for knowledge management, and not only in commercial and administrative
organizations but in all environments where knowledge and information are at stake.
We mention only a few aspects of this enlarged understanding of knowledge
management as a paradigm shift from a static, hierarchical to a dynamic, networked view
of knowledge and information.
Ø The paradigm shift is quite obvious with respect to knowledge management from an
organizational perspective. This is probably what most of you expected when reading
the title of my paper. Consequently we will elaborate on the potentials of technical,
computer-supported communication for the generation of knowledge in organizations

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and will concentrate on the value-added effects of electronic communication forums
(fora).
Ø The paradigm shift towards communicative knowledge management has also
consequence from a political perspective. Therefore we will elaborate in some detail
the conflict about the New World Information and Communication Order (NWICO),
which was in general a debate about the/a right to communicate. This is, of course, not
intended to be a retrospective on the old NWICO controversy, with its dramatic
consequences not only for the UNESCO. Instead NWICO revisited is of high relevance
today, in particular with respect to the World Summit for the Information Society (WSIS)
which will take place in its first part in mid-December of this year in Geneva (the
second part will be held in Tunisia in 2005). Amazingly enough, one can experience 25
years later the same debate about dominance or repression of communications.
Ø At the end, we only very briefly will mention some of the consequences of this paradigm
shift for the media. This is mainly a shift from the traditional distributional paradigm first
to the interactive and second to the communicative paradigm.
Ø The communicative paradigm of knowledge management, and in this paradigm
electronic communication forums are also increasingly relevant as a means of
organizing learning processes as collaborative cooperative, knowledge sharing
processes.
Ø And it is obvious that the paradigm shift towards communication processes also
dramatically changes the way how the production and the exchange of knowledge is
and will be organized in scientific environment. This will have and already has
consequences for the way the whole publication chain from authors to readers is
organized.
Ø And this has and will continue to have a strong influence on our understanding of the
concept of authorship and, consequently, of ownership of intellectual property. Maybe
we do not need such a concept of intellectual property in electronic environment any
more which seems to be no longer an incentive or a guarantee for knowledge
generation, but an obstacle to free and inclusive communication.
Ø Finally, I have been told that the talks of the plenary speakers do not necessarily need
to refer explicitly to library topics. But it is obvious that knowledge management in the
commu nicative paradigm - at least with respect to the topics of (collaborative learning
and communication competence at universities and of generating and disseminating
knowledge in the communicative, self-organizing paradigm - will have major
consequences for librarians and library organization.
Knowledge management in the communication paradigm (and this means organizing
and coordinating the processes of knowledge and information) will be one of the major
objectives and tasks of modern libraries in the 21st century. We do not have time and
space to discuss the last topics in greater detail but concentrate in the following on the
paradigm shift of knowledge management from an organizational perspective and on the
relation between knowledge management and the right to communicate form a political
perspective.

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2 Knowledge warehouses vs. knowledge networks
Knowledge management from a business perspective is to be seen as a reaction to the
information or knowledge society concepts from the 70ies when Daniel Bell, Fritz
Machlup, Peter Drucker, Marc U. Porat, Yoneji Masuda carried out their macro-economic
studies and discovered that the cross national product depends highly on the production,
distribution and usage of information and knowledge products and service.
It was in particular Porat with his distinction between the first information sector – this is
mainly what we call the information markets where information goods are exchanged
either with a commercial, proprietary or with a sharing, non-commercial interest - and the
second information sector – this refers to all kinds of information processing within
organizations – who raised awareness for the importance of knowledge and information
as a major resource and factor for success in organizations of any kind.
If knowledge and information are major success factors, then it makes sense that they
need to be organized according to management principles. This was the beginning of
information management, mainly the coordination of internal and external information
resources – hardware-, software- and brainware-based ones.
Information management and knowledge management are often used as synonymous
concepts. We do not wish to go into the never-ending terminological debate about the
difference between knowledge and information. But the argument makes sense that the
carrier of knowledge management began when organizations discovered the value of
their employees as the main means of success rather than relying predominantly on
information machinery and internal and external information systems.
What people know is what an organization needs to know, information from machines
and technical systems is only of additional value when people accept it, embed it into
their already existing knowledge structure and when they, as people, use it.
Knowledge, an internal cognitive structure of human beings, cannot be managed, but the
processes that support the creation and exchange of knowledge can be the subject of
management, in particular those processes where many knowledge actors are involved.
Without claiming to provide a comprehensive overview of existing knowledge
management theories: in general there have been two major approaches of knowledge

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management so far. One goes back to the famous book of Ikujuor Nonaka and Hirotaka
Takeuchi: The Knowledge-Creating Company: How Japanese Companies Create the
Dynamics of Innovation (published 1995).
Information Engineering -Department of Computer and Information Science at the University of Constance
Change of Paradigm in Knowledge Management –IFLA 2003 -Berlin
socialization externalization
internalization combination
Tacit
knowledge
Explicit
knowledge
tacit
knowledge
explicit
knowledge
to
to
Tacit (implicit) –formalized (explicit) knowledge
Transformation of tacit
knowledge into explicit
knowledge, mainly through
representation, codification,
standardization
Generation of new explicit
knowledge through
categorization, synthesis,
combination, integration into
existing knowledge
structures
Interpersonal exchange of
tacit knowledge through
observation, cooperation,
common experience
Transformation of
explicit knowledge into
tacit knowledge, mainly
through learning,
simulation, reorganization
And the other approach is often associated, at least in Germany, with the work of Gilbert
Probst and colleagues like Kai Romhardt, who introduced knowledge bricks or
knowledge elements to describe the different components of knowledge2.
2 http://www.cck.uni-kl.de/wmk/papers/public/Bausteine/bausteine.pdf - translated by the author

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Information Engineering -Department of Computer and Information Science at the University of Constance
Change of Paradigm in Knowledge Management –IFLA 2003 -Berlin
Objectives of
knowledge Evaluation
of knowledge
Identification
of knowledge Storage of
knowldege
Development
of knowledge
Distribution/
sharing
of knowledge
Acquisition
of knowledge Use
of knowledge
Feedback
: http://www.cck.uni-kl.de/wmk/papers/public/Bausteine/bausteine.pdf
Elements of knowledge management (Probst et al. 1999
Karl Wiig, one of the most influential scholars on knowledge management, has reduced
this complex view of knowledge structures to five stages in his “Institutional Knowledge
Evolution Cycle” :
Ø Knowledge Development. Knowledge is developed through learning, innovation,
creativity, and importation from outside;
Ø Knowledge Acquisition. Knowledge is captured and retained for use and further
treatment;
Ø Knowledge Refinement. Knowledge is organized, transformed, or included in written
material, knowledge bases, and so on to make it available and useful;
Ø Knowledge Distribution and Deployment. Knowledge is distributed to Points-of-Action
(PoAs) through education, training programs, automated knowledge-based systems,
expert networks,
Ø Knowledge Leveraging. Knowledge is applied or otherwise leveraged. By using
(applying) knowledge, it becomes the basis for further learning and innovation.
These two models follow more or less what I have called the knowledge warehouse
paradigm. Knowledge warehouses, today semantically controlled via organization-wide
data dictionaries or ontologies,
Ø collect existing knowledge,

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Ø transform tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge by representing and structuring it,
Ø store knowledge in data - or rather knowledge - bases,
Ø make knowledge available by providing access through traditional retrieval/query
languages (according to the matching paradigm) and through more sophisticated data
mining techniques and
Ø finally, make knowledge user-friendly and adaptable to heterogeneous user profiles by
presenting the results in flexible sophisticated forms of visualization.
One of the problems with the knowledge management approach is that knowledge is
retrieved out of context. Knowledge is normally produced under specific circumstances –
as a result of specific experiments, as a generalization of empirical data, with specific
applications or specific objectives in mind.
These contexts, the circumstances of production, the contingency factors of actual use –
in general, the pragmatic factors associated with knowledge, the communication
environment, cannot be maintained, at least not adequately, when knowledge is
represented in an information-processing machine.
Computers are syntax machines, at an advanced stage they are semantic machines. But
pragmatics, the ability to identify the validity and the relevance of knowledge (in machine
reality data), is still the privilege, the knowledge competence of human being. Computers
do not have what philosophers call “Urteilskraft” (the power of judgement).
Furthermore, the complexity of knowledge-dependent situations has increased
dramatically in the last hundred years. Most problems to be solved, most decisions to be
taken demand the competence and the cooperation of many people. This is true in
business, in science, in software production, in government and administration, in art
(what a complex process, for instance, the production of a single piece of music, or the
performance of an opera).
The knowledge that is needed in critical or innovative situations is usually already lying
around, stored in electronic repositories or known by human experts. What is needed is
to bring together the resources and the experts who can relate the existing pieces of
knowledge to new contexts and to new problems. This is the communicative challenge.
With the advent of communication technologies available on a large scale one can
observe a shift form the more static view of the production, dissemination and usage of
knowledge and information to a more dynamic collaborative view of these processes, in
particular with respect to the generation and the exchange of knowledge. We have

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labelled this new approach the network, the communication or the collaborative or maybe
even the hyper-knowledge paradigm. We prefer in the following the term “communicative
paradigm of knowledge management”.
Knowledge management in the communicative paradigm also uses existing information
resources and methods of recalling, but, in addition, emphasizes the value-adding effects
of bringing people together with different backgrounds and with different levels of
expertise. The result of communication processes – this is the main assumption of the
communication paradigm – is different from the sum (joined set) of the single pieces of
knowledge which are brought together in these exchange processes.
The main instruments of knowledge management in the communication paradigm are
electronic asynchronous communication forums (fora) and virtual communities or
communities of practice. Communication forums, in general asynchronously organized
are the most influential and the most widespread means of computer-supported
communication and are increasingly important tools both for internal knowledge
generation and usage. Communication forums are also at the core of virtual communities
which nowadays have become instruments of marketing, because they make it possible
to gain knowledge about customers´ by letting them communicate in electronic forums as
important parts of virtual communities.
Virtual communities in the early days of the Internet were not related to commercial
marketing interests, but were established as a means of developing social relations in
electronic environments.
Electronic communication forums, mainly used as a means for organizing communities of
practice – job-related informal groups in organizations whose members are in general
intrinsically motivated to exchange knowledge and produce new knowledge cooperatively
- are in general goal-oriented – whereas chats normally serve entertainment interests.
Electronic communication forums can be characterized (among other things) by the
following value-added features:
1. Electronic communication forums allow the exchange of information between people
who in real life would normally never be in contact with one another.
2. Electronic communication forums bring together people with different (personal,
professional, intellectual) backgrounds.

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3. Electronic communication forums build continuous knowledge bases which are open to
all members of the forum. Knowledge bases are normally enriched by links/references
to external resources.
4. In electronic communication forums only what has been said counts. Reputation is not
defined by one’s position in an organizational hierarchy, but is a function of the
contributions made by the forum’s participants. It is therefore not stable but open to
change.
The success of electronic communication for knowledge management depends highly on
effective coordination mechanisms (the moderators of forums are extremely important)
and on incentives for the members to participate actively in the exchange of knowledge,
namely to share one’s own knowledge with others.
3 New World Information and Communication Order – revisited –
the political dimension of communicative knowledge management
It is hard to believe, but one of the strongest and most passionate controversies and even
altercations is again, today, the debate about the right to communicate. Communication
is a political and economic topic of power and global dominance. This puts the topic of
knowledge management topic in a political perspective.
Is there a human right to communicate? This is not as simple a question as it might look
and consequently there is no simple answer to this question.
We do no intend to expand our talk into a general debate on the status of human rights.
There is the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in
Geneva which is officially responsible for the interpretation of human rights and which has
the mandate to bring to court violations of human rights brought forward by states,
organizations or individuals and which has also the mandate to start the complicated
process of establishing a new right.
Anyone and everyone can claim a right to whatever. But this, of course, does not have
any legal or moral consequences. Human rights with a universal scope of acceptance is
the domain of the UN, and the UN system with its High Commissioner has developed a
well-established procedure for the proposal and the introduction of new rights.
But the legal status of the/a right to communicate was not the main concern of the debate
about the NWICO in the days of the cold war in the 70s and early 80s although people
then and people now in the context of WSIS tried and are still trying to stop the debate on

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a right to communicate by simply referring to existing globally agreed on declarations
where a specific right to communicate does not exist.
For these people, in particular from press/media organizations such as the World Press
Freedom Committee, the formulation in article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights (UDHR) is sufficient as a basis for free communication and need not be altered or
replaced by new information and communication rights:
“Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes
freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart
information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers."
It is still difficult to decide what the real underlying interests in the old NWICO debate
were:
Ø The struggle of developing countries in the South to protect their national cultural
identity, which is threatened by the predominance of Western cultural, information and
media products?
Ø The protest against the ongoing process of commercialization of knowledge and
information, the protest against the exploitation of indigenous knowledge and culture,
which is the heritage of their national public sphere (what we today call the public
commons)?
Ø The defence – from the Western perspective - of freedom of expression, a concern
that the free press is threatened by governments which use their monopoly status in
communication technology as a lever for corruption and patronage? State controlled
media in those days (and still in many states today) were often little more than a
propaganda arm of the ruling elite in its effort to protect privileges and prevent
democratic upsurge.
Ø Or merely a fight for economic dominance in the global markets for information,
communication and the media, which developed in the 70s in the form of online
information markets, of globally operating information technology corporations,
international telecommunication and commercial media organizations, all of them
dominated by the countries of the West and the North, strongly under the leadership of
US-based organizations?
The process of growing commercialisation in the media and its increasing control by
powerful elites was criticized by the so-called McBride Report, named after the Nobel
(and Lenin!) Peace Prize winner, Sean McBride who, in 1980, assembled a group of
experts who issued this report. The McBride report made the ambivalence or
multivalence of communication very clear:
“Communication can be an instrument of power, a revolutionary weapon, a
commercial product, or a means of education; it can serve the ends of either liberation
or of oppression, of either the growth of the individual personality or of drilling human
beings into uniformity. Each society must choose the best way to approach the task

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facing all of us and to fund the means to overcome the material, social and political
constraints that impede progress”3.
The report insisted that
“communication is a basic individual right, as well as a collective one required by all
commu nities and nations” (ibid. 236) … “Since communication is interwoven with every
aspect of life, it is clearly of the utmost importance that the existing “communication
gap” be rapidly narrowed and eventually eliminated” (ibid. 237).
There were other formulations in the report which were of grave concern to Western
countries with their tradition of freedom of the press:
“preference should be given to non-.commercial forms of mass communication.
Promotion of such types of communication should be integrated with the traditions,
culture, development objectives and socio-political system of each country”
(a.a.O.243). In particular the concept of “freedom and responsibility” was then and is
still today highly controversial.
The NWICO debate was actually the first global debate about the management of
knowledge and information, the first attempt to establish alternative communication
models, as an alternative to the dominance of Western information and media markets.
The world in those days failed to find a compromise, a balance between public and
private interests when the USA rejected all claims from developing countries, supported
by the UNESCO and by the Soviet bloc in its attempt to weaken the American
dominance, to establish a right to communicate. The USA interpreted the right to
communicate as a hostile attitude on the basic structures and values of open societies, in
particular as an attack on free market principles and free media.
It is amazing to see how little progress has been made in the last thirty years with respect
to communication rights. Under the main heading “human rights” the formulations of the
McBride report could easily be used by some civil society groups at the beginning of this
century in the context of WSIS in their attempt to establish a right to communicate as part
of a fair, balanced, inclusive and sustainable information society:
“Communication needs in an democratic society should be met by the extension of
specific rights such as the right to be informed, the right to inform, the right to privacy,
the right to participate in public communication – all elements of a new concept, the
right to communicate. In developing what might be called a new era of social rights, we
suggest all the implications of the right to communicate be further explored” (ibid. 249).
3 Communication and society. A documentary history of a New World Information and Communication Order
seen as an Evolving and Continuous Process 19975-1986. UNESCO, p. 235

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Today freedom of the press advocates are again concerned “that [the] governmental
world summit [WSIS] could adopt content rules for cyberspace that would restrict Internet
news, and possibly set precedents for limiting traditional news media.” They criticize the
fact that some NGO groups are urging the summit to revisit controversial ideas, such as a
“right to communicate” and “the contribution of communication to the democratisation of
society,” both for media people code-word elements of the (for them) now-discredited
“new world information and communication order.”
And the same media organization also criticize the UNESCO’s last General Conference
proposal for a recommendation on universal access to cyberspace, which was originally
intended as the main UNESCO submission for WSIS.
This recommendation was deferred but may come up again at the next General
Conference
“It would call on governments to implement measures that encourage...ethical
behaviour and respect for community standards and values” in Internet content,
presumably including the news. These are - for the media people - code words for
controls.”4
The World Summit for the Information Society has already reopened the debate about a
universal right to communicate and the old conflicts are here again. On the part of civil
society organizations it is suggested that the concept of communication rights can be
used as a generic term and reference point to already existing rights which are enshrined
in international declarations and conventions.
Rights do not fall from heaven and cannot be derived from metaphysics, religion or by
reference to nature. All of these rights have been developed under specific
circumstances and while these circumstances may change, mainly due to technological,
media and societal paradigm shifts, they need to be constructively interpreted and
enforced, taking into account the potentials and opportunities of contemporary
information and communication technologies and services today.
4 Quotations from the website of the World Press Freedom Committee:
http://www.wpfc.org/index.jsp?page=Internet%20Press%20Freedom

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The claim for communication rights cannot and will not replace existing rights but will
focus public attention on a dramatic change in the way to seek, produce and exchange
knowledge – and this is relevant for knowledge management. We mention only two:
Ø Knowledge production and exchange is no longer primarily an individual process, but is
more and more a participative and collaborative process. To be able to take part in
these collaborative processes can be considered a right of everyone, regardless
whether this is already guaranteed by laws or official government bodies. It is a right
that has developed in open communicative networks.
Ø Knowledge production and exchange is no longer dependent on primarily hierarchically
structured and controlled institutions but is open for everyone. Everyone has the
opportunity to participative actively and unrestrictedly in processes of producing and
exchanging knowledge. What counts in open communicative networks is not status or
position in hierarchies but competence and the willingness to share knowledge.
Communication rights do not challenge press freedom but make possible new platforms
for real community-based and people-centered communication devices such as
communication forums and other forms of electronic communication.
Ø Societies with open communication structures for everyone can challenge media
concentration and media monopolies.
Ø Communication rights can enable access to information by those who often face
exclusion from knowledge and information (people in developing countries, disabled
people, young people, women)
Ø Communication rights if guaranteed for everyone can contribute to censorship-free
societies and are the best means for building democratic and transparent government
structures
Ø Communication rights and collaborative knowledge production are the basis for
scientific development, new ideas and for economic innovation and growth.
So much for the political dimension of knowledge management as a right to
communicate. This debate will continue to be at the center of the WSIS process till the
end of the year. It is hard to tell which comprise will ultimately be achieved at the end of
the year when a final Declaration and a final Plan of Action are agreed upon. The
controversy may even continue till the end of the second phase of WSIS, in Tunesia in
2005.
We conclude our talk with some brief remarks about the role of the media, about e-
learning, and about publishing in scientific environment taking into account the shift of
knowledge management towards the communicative paradigm.

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4 Sky-writing, sky-communicating – the role of the media in the
communication paradigm
In the media field there is clearly to be seen, as a consequence of the ongoing
telemediatization, a shift from the traditional distribution paradigm, first to the interactive
paradigm and then to the communication paradigm. In the interactive paradigm people
decide themselves which pieces of information they would like to recall and to pay
attention to. In the communication paradigm they are the producers of information
themselves and exchange their knowledge and their “news” with other people directly
without interference or intermediation of professional media people.
This already has and will have increasing effect on the ways how public opinion is built,
namely how the process of agenda setting is organized (which topics are subject to
political debate and finally to decisions).
We only can pose some question about the role of the media in electronic environment.
Ø Is the opinion-building role of the traditional media, one of the major guarantors of
democratic societies, still valid in an environment where everyone (at least in principle
and so far only in the happy-few countries of the North) has the possibility of sky-writing
and sky-communicating?
Ø Is there still a need for the media in the distribution paradigm when the Internet can be
used as a means of making one’s own knowledge available to others and of contacting
other people to a degree unthinkable in the traditional media communication
environment?
Ø Do we still accept the claim of professional journalists to be the knowledge managers
of our daily life when we can manage it by ourselves?
5 Who owns knowledge in science?
The paradigm shift in knowledge management has and will continue to have a strong
influence on our understanding of the concept of authorship and, consequently, of
ownership of intellectual property; and this paradigm shift towards communication and
autonomy in science will have and already has consequences for the way the whole
publication chain from authors to readers is organized.
Ø is there still a need for a commercially exploitable right to intellectual property
considered by many, in particular in the information/publishing industry, as the
necessary incentive for the production of knowledge?

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Ø and do we still need the intermediary role of commercial publishers who, in the
currently enforced copyright paradigm are used to being the true and real owners of
intellectual property rather than the authors themselves?
The communicative paradigm of knowledge management does not only refer to the
production of new knowledge, but also to the publication and distribution of knowledge.
Publication and distribution of knowledge in electronic environment can be and should be
in the hands of the producers of knowledge or of the institutions in which they work or
which represent their professional interests.
Organizational models which underlie initiatives such as the Public Library of Science,
Sparc, Open Archive, Copyleft both for software and for texts are based on
communicative concepts such as knowledge/file sharing, free and open access,
knowledge as a public good, a commons rather than a commodity.
The traditional publication and distribution model – publishing companies collect
manuscripts (shorter ones for articles in journals, longer manuscripts for books – both
printed on paper) and keep the rights (the copyrights) for the publication of these
intellectual products on a contractual basis protected by copyright laws – is based on
completely different concepts.
These models consider knowledge a private intellectual good, access needs to
restricted, products are proprietary commodities. In general, public knowledge is
transferred into privately owned information goods. This is a transfer process which we
have taken for a long time as granted. The commodification of knowledge is considered
a natural law. In reality this is an artificial transfer process in which commercial
companies such as publishers, today content providers, restrict free and open access to
the public open sphere of knowledge.
Knowledge, at least in scientific environments is in general publicly financed and the
production of new knowledge is considered the duty of those people (the authors) who
get their salary from public resources. Knowledge should thus not be a private property of
their producers.
The production and publication of knowledge is part of the contract between
scientists/researchers and the public. Scientists are of course the authors of their ideas
and findings and they must be referenced as authors but their products should not be
considered private property. They should therefore not give away (mostly for free,

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sometime authors have even to pay to get their work published) their work to other
people who transform these intellectual products into commercial goods which can be
sold and licensed on information markets.
It is only due to media restrictions that authors or the institutions in which they work are
not able to organize the publication of knowledge and the distribution of knowledge
products themselves. This will change in the communicative paradigm of knowledge
management.
6 The role of libraries in the communication paradigm
Libraries – we refer in the following only to scientific libraries, but the communication
paradigm is also valid for other library types, in particular for public libraries – are
traditionally part of the infrastructure for knowledge and information, together with
computer and multimedia centres.
The process of telemediatization also in universities makes is unavoidable that these
three infrastructure units for information, communication and multimedia need to find new
forms of cooperation which eventually will lead to a new coordinated knowledge and
information infrastructure. We see five main components of such an infrastructure.
Ø Knowledge management
Ø Management of information and communication technology
Ø Multimedia-Management
Ø Communication Management
Ø Marketing/Rights-Management
Knowledge management has undoubtedly always been in the core of library activities
and duties. This is obvious, what else can be the work of librarians if not the management
of the knowledge work of others, which is represented in traditional and electronic
knowledge containers.
Communication management will be a future task for libraries or of a university
infrastructure for information, communication and multimedia, respectively.
5 Richard Stallman: The Free Universal Encyclopedia and Learning Resource
[http://www.gnu.org/encyclopedia/free-encyclopedia.html]

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Communication management will be one of the new tasks of libraries when it is true –
what is evident to us – that the efficiency of communication structures crucially influence
the efficiency of knowledge production and usage in general.
Information and communication experts from the new information and communication
infrastructure (whether they still call themselves librarians or communicators or knowledge
managers)
Ø to monitor and coordinate the free flow of information,
Ø to be the moderators in communication fora,
Ø to provide people in fora with additional information from internal and external
information resources,
Ø to secure the rights of producers/authors of knowledge piece (this is part of the rights
management, mentioned earlier)
Ø to bind them together to new knowledge products, classify them and make them
available for future knowledge workers, and they
Ø to organize local and remote networks of scientific virtual communities.
7 Conclusion
If there is a main message in my talk, then this one: communication, broadly enhanced by
modern technology, is the basis for most if not for all processes in modern society.
Communication is closely related to knowledge management if one sees the main
challenge for knowledge management in the coordination of all processes of
collaborative generation, enrichment, dissemination and usage of knowledge and
information. Communication in electronic environment needs coordination and
management. Communication and knowledge management have many facets and can
be seen from many perspectives, we have concentrated essentially on the organizational
and political consequences of this paradigm shift.
But it is obvious that the changes in the media, in learning environments, in the way how
production and publishing processes in science are organized – to mention only these
topics again – will have greatest impact of societies in general. And the communicative
paradigm shift will change the profile of librarians. It will longer mainly provide information
but rather be a part of communication processes. It is the duty of governments to
guarantee the right to communicate to everyone. Information or knowledge societies only

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deserve these labels when they are in reality inclusive and sustainable communication
societies.