Title: EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Executive Summary

Workpackage 9 of the FIDIS project is concerned with spreading the findings and results of the project to relevant stakeholders, governments and the public.  It was considered that the founding of an academic journal dealing with issues relating to identity and the information society would form an important part of the dissemination strategy.  The journal would provide a natural outlet, not just for FIDIS research, but for all academic work in this field.

This paper sets out the justification for a FIDIS journal on identity in the information society and presents a vision of how the project will be undertaken.  The existing outlets for research on identity in the information society are reviewed and an analysis of relevant papers is conducted in order to examine the state of the art in this emerging field of study.  This study finds that identity research is currently fragmented along disciplinary lines, although there appear to be several pervasive themes which cross disciplinary boundaries.

The proposed journal seeks to overcome the present fragmentation of identity research by providing a multidisciplinary and multinational outlet, comprising different national research experiences with heterogeneous foci, and integrating expertise around a common set of themes.  The aim is to consolidate and foster multidisciplinary approaches, leading to more comprehensive and holistic research in this area.