If there is a slight difference between the results of the survey among Internet users and the results of elections, then will it be possible that society in Lithuania is information-oriented?

On the 4th of October in Vilnius public discussion on the subject “Lithuanian political parties in information society” organized by “InfoBalt” Association took place. In the discussion were involved: political parties, mass media, political overviewers and the representatives of IT and telecommunication companies. Round- table discussion was hold among the following representatives of the parties: rector in Vilius University Rolandas Pavilionis (Social Liberals), Renaldas Gutauskas (Lithuanian Center Union), Egidijus Vareikis (Modern Christian Democratic Party), Arimantas Raðkinis (Christian Democratic Party), Rita Dapkutë (Lithuanian Liberals Union), Kæstutis Masiulis and Romas Rukauskas (Motherland Union), Kazimiera Prunskienë (A.Brazauskas’ Social Democratic coalition) and others. Robertas Tamulevièius, president of the “InfoBalt” Association and the director of Association Vilma Misiukonienë participated in the discussion, too. A bit further from the round-table press representatives, representatives of IT companies and the members of the other parties, who are not participating in elections, were sitting. Aurelijus Katkevièius, presenter of the meeting had been trying to present the subject in different ways: “Are the information winds blowing in the right direction?”, “Didn’t we miss a train”, “What to do in order to make Internet one of the household goods?” and so on. After the opening remarks Vaidas Repeèka, having made a survey in www.politika.lt using the survey forms from www.voting.lt, commented the analysis of it. According to the data obtained, 50 % of the Internet users have high education, 20% are studying now, 70% (18-65 years) of the Internet users are earning money by themselves. Before this discussion such question was announced in the website: “ Which party to your mind has the best understanding of what the information society is?” Lithuanian Liberals Union has gathered the majority of votes- 125 (36,10%), Conservative Party was at the second place – 82 (24.3 %). In order to determine how much attention political parties pay to the questions concerning information society development, their pre-election texts were examined. According to the results of the examinations, Conservative party pays most attention to this question, Liberals are at the second position in this case, the New Union is at the third position, and coalition of A.Brazauskas is the last in this examination. Representatives of almost all the parties criticized this analysis because, according to majority, it is not necessary to use concrete phrases only while speaking about information society, on the contrary, more general concepts should be used. Egidijus Vareikis, representative of the Modern Christian Democrats, said that when the results of the survey among Internet users is very near to the results of elections, only then it is possible to say we have information society. I would be very interesting to know what the opinion of the statisticians is. Nobody tried to examine if the political orientation of those who are acquainted with the information technologies differs much from the orientation of those who have no computer education. The representative of every party had an opportunity to share his opinion and his offers concerning information society development and those who sat a bit further from the round-table could put them questions. Beginning of the discussion was a little bit passive but after Rita Dapkutë was given the word situation changed. Rita has put a question - whom we call information society; because more than a half of time politicians were speaking about information society using rather abstract phrases only. If the information society is that group of society which uses Internet, or it is all the society which is now not information-oriented but not enough , or maybe information society will only then be created when Internet is be available also for that group of people who are not rich. In discussion examples of the other countries were mentioned such a slogan of Estonians, for instance: “every citizen has the right for the Internet”. By all means whatever slogan remains a slogan if no appropriate actions are taken. R.Pavilionis, the rector in Vilnius University, spoke about the present situation in the schools. Now for 70 pupils there is only one computer available. Majority agrees that after computer equipment is given to society it will not become information-oriented; special conditions are needed. Now there is a shortage in those who could prepare society to the usage of information technologies. Majority has also agreed that computer education can’t be considered separately from the general education. General education is needed as a base. So at first the problem of the education of society is needed to be solved. It was discussed if the separate institution which would be responsible for information society development. Also about how Information Technologies firms could contribute to information society development; perhaps the government could arrange such conditions that it would be good for the firms to operate in this direction. The politicians were also asked about “drain-away” in Lithuania. R.Dapkutë, as the real representative of the liberals, claimed that if there is no appropriate environment for the person he is free to go to work anywhere he wants. Beside, there is nothing bad when people go to work abroad only for a period of time and return to Lithuania having gained experience. R. Raðkinis, representative of the Christian Democratic Party spoke for the work of “Lithuanian brain” in Lithuania, for the software production in Lithuania and its export in the other countries. General objectives of the state were also touched. According to the conservatives, the main state’s objective is to create competitive society. According to K.Prunskienë, representative of A.Brazauskas’ coalition, the most important objective of the state is to create constantly improving society having the sense of life. Thus, in order to develop information society, at first it is needed to find out what the concept of information society is, to compare society’s and government’s attitudes at information society; perhaps it is needed to establish separate administrational infrastructure, which would be responsible for the information society development, to invest in society’s training, to prepare concrete plan of activities, to define priorities, etc. It will be clear in future how the parties contribute to this; we should be glad that information society development is included in the objectives considered to be important for society.