Cultural barriers to the international transfer of information

摘要

The recent debates on such issues as the transborder data flow or the new information order have brought to light the cultural implications of information activities. This is fortunate since information science used to consider them only as aspects of language barrier.Information has recently been qualified as a humankind's heritage. Sharing it requires not only the international flow of information, but also its unimpeded creation and use. Considering that humankind is not limited to the inhabitants of Europe and North America, this paper discusses the various ways in which objective and subjective cultural traits affect the generation, presentation, transfer and use of information in different societies.It emphasizes that all presently available information products and services are culture dependent, and primarily dependent upon the “northern” culture, what drastically limits their international value, but for “occidentalized” elite groups.