Buzzwords and indicators about the networked society: metaphor, vacuity or fraud?

Abstract

Even though the notion of an information revolution is quite old, recent years have witnessed a proliferation of expressions and measures that tend to depict a radically "new" situation. This reflects in part genuine attempts at describing, explaining and popularizing phenomena that are themselves all but understood. Behind the scene, one may detect less commendable attempts at transforming ignorance into universal evidence or vested commercial interests into millenarian visions. Thus an urgent need of recovering the true sense of the words.