Right to information: a step towards Information Society in India

Abstract or Introduction

In a broad sense the content (messages) of all meaningful communication is information. More narrowly (but still loosely), information refers to verifiable and thus reliable factual data about the ‘real world’. This includes opinions as well as reports about the facts of the world. Even more narrowly and precisely, information may be equated with communicated ‘data’ that do (or can) enable discriminations to be made in some domain of reality and thus ‘reduce uncertainty’ for the receiver (Mc Quail 2000:497). The flow and nature of information varies with the form of society. In a primitive society the information is shared equally with the members of the society by informal ways of communication. The flow of information is very smooth and the information is transmitted through interpersonal communication i.e. through the ‘word of mouth’. There are no specialized institutions and communicators in the process of communication. With the development of society, the nature of communication also undergoes through the process of change and gradually society becomes more differentiated and the specialized institutions perform different functions of society. The form of communication is also changed as it is now mediated through some sort of technology for the group of the people through some technical devices. The access of the people to these devices varies to different sections of the society and thus smoothness in the flow of information is disrupted to a great extent. In modern society, first developed in Europe and then spread over to the rest of the world in the form of nation states, the nature and flow of information is relatively smooth as the traditional and modern mass media are well integrated (Pye 1963). In transitional communication system, however, the flow of information is disrupted due to lack of integration among the traditional and modern media of mass communication. The unequal distribution of the information poses different kind of problems in this type of society. In modern society, modern mass media also change with the pace and level of development and gradually new forms and institutions of communication
emerge on the scenario.