The second volume of IJIE (2/2004) is dedicated entirely to the publication of the proceedings of the International ICIE Symposium 2004 (icie.zkm.de/congress2004). The symposium was sponsored by VolkswagenStiftung and took place in October 4-6, 2004 on the premises of the Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe, Germany (www.zkm.de). It was attended by some 50 participants from Argentina, Austria, Cameroun, Canada, China, Croatia, Dominican Republic, France, Germany, Greece, India, Japan, Mexico, Russia, South Africa, Switzerland, UK and the US.

The International ICIE Symposium this year dealt with the ongoing debate on the impact of the Internet on the global as well as on the many local levels. This addresses the very heart of today's and tomorrow's political decision-making, particularly in a world that turns out to be more and more unified - and divided at the same time. The leading ethical question is how embodied human life is possible within local cultural traditions and the horizon of a global digital environment. The symposium discussed this topic with its normative and formative dimensions in three different perspectives, namely:

1. Internet for Social and Political Development: Community Building
2. Internet for Cultural Development: Restructuring the Media
3. Internet for Economic Development: Empowering the People

A selection of the contributions to the symposium will be published in the ICIE book series at Fink Verlag Munich in 2005. All other contributions are published in this volume of the IJIE in alphabetical order.

We hope you will appreciate this second issue of IJIE as a valuable input for your academic and professional work.

Yours sincerely,
Rafael Capurro (Editor in Chief),
Thomas Hausmanninger and Felix Weil