The Information Society

The Examination

The examination is intended to test students across the whole range of the module. There is no guarantee that any particular question or topic will be set.

A specimen paper is provided below which is intended to be indicative of the coverage of material and of the style of questions.

The value of extensive reading is shown in the examination by the use of interesting and different examples. Analysis of examples is extremely important to the examiners.

There are no fixed answers to questions, students are expected to provide their own framework and examples.

Regurgitation of lecture notes is unlikely to result in the awarding of more than pass marks.

Attempts by candidates to write their own questions will be viewed askance, unless the answers are genuinely brilliant.

Attempts by candidates to answer by word association will be heavily penalised; merely because a question contains, say, the word "revolution" is no excuse for a prepared tract on the industrial revolution.

Specimen examination paper

Candidate should not attempt more than three questions.

  1. Although many individuals seem reluctant to adopt new technologies, societies seem to have little reluctance and, perhaps, less choice. Discuss.
  2. Discuss how the use of advancing technologies is affecting the jobs market in the 1990s.
  3. Critically evaluate the reasons for wanting to work and to shop at home. How is this being influenced by IT?
  4. The aircraft eliminated the traditional rôle of the ambassador; recent technological advances could signal the end of the representative in democracy. Discuss the possibility of direct electronic democracy.
  5. Critically evaluate how changing technologies and changing markets are alteing our choice of television viewing. What are the social consequences of this?
  6. Using examples, discuss how science fiction can become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
  7. Using examples, analyse the causes of growth in the computer and communications industries; what drives its expansion and development?
  8. Is educational technology a threat to teachers?
  9. Does it help to categorise as revolutionary the changes brought about by the use of IT?
  10. Critically evaluate the use of technologies in the writing process.
  11. Information is power. Discuss.
  12. The Information Society does not exist in the Third World. Discuss how it might be developed.
Copyright © Ewan Sutherland, 1995.

Centre for Informatics, University of Wales, Lampeter.