IS Mentors and Peculiarities in the Development of the Hungarian Information Society

Résumé

The information society of Hungary has developed at a moderate but not very slow pace in the previous years. About one third of the Hungarian society was convinced by the important infrastructural developments, so this group can be considered conscious ’netizens’ meeting the European average concerning almost all of the indicators. According to the results of our researches the digital divide of the Hungarian society is deepening which has two main reasons: the very unfavorable settlement structure of the country and the uninterested attitude to PCs and the Internet and the lack of motives. Most of those excluded have no direct contacts with the feature tools (computers, Internet) or with persons using these tools in their everyday routines. Social investments, training and motivation programs breaking down the cultural and knowledge obstacles would be necessary. Through the introduction of this context our study presents the possible solutions. We highlight two fields – community Wi-Fi network through the example of a small settlement and the establishment of the profession of IS-mentors – both of which are parts of community informatics, the initiatives being built from the bottom up. We consider these outstandingly important because they mean the only way of repairing the defective social contacts through which innovations could be disseminated faster.