Friday, 22 July 2022

Point Plans

 

Just as pro and con presentations can be very important in presenting data as indicated by the Precision Universal Debating Project...Point Plans can also be vital in giving a clear and brief understanding of some branch of knowledge. Indeed "all"  forms of data could be presented in this manner giving vital amount of details in the quickest and shortest manner possible and be backed up with references and could be independently checked and double checked..and even checked again ideally on on a 24/7 basis. Such precision may to some be tiresome but it is an also an attempt to get people to think more objectively and sensibly as possible. Here are some examples of point plans below from a google search. See link


Point Plan Examples 




Information Revolution

 From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to navigationJump to search

The term information revolution describes current economic, social and technological trends beyond the Industrial Revolution.

Many competing terms have been proposed that focus on different aspects of this societal development. The British polymath crystallographer J. D. Bernal introduced the term "scientific and technical revolution" in his 1939 book The Social Function of Science to describe the new role that science and technology are coming to play within society. He asserted that science is becoming a "productive force", using the Marxist Theory of Productive Forces.[1] After some controversy, the term was taken up by authors and institutions of the then-Soviet Bloc. Their aim was to show that socialism was a safe home for the scientific and technical ("technological" for some authors) revolution, referred to by the acronym STR. The book Civilization at the Crossroads, edited by the Czech philosopher Radovan Richta (1969), became a standard reference for this topic.[2]

Daniel Bell (1980) challenged this theory and advocated post-industrial society, which would lead to a service economy rather than socialism.[3] Many other authors presented their views, including Zbigniew Brzezinski (1976) with his "Technetronic Society".[4]

Information in social and economic activities[edit]

The main feature of the information revolution is the growing economic, social and technological role of information.[5] Information-related activities did not come up with the Information Revolution. They existed, in one form or the other, in all human societies, and eventually developed into institutions, such as the Platonic AcademyAristotle's Peripatetic school in the Lyceum, the Musaeum and the Library of Alexandria, or the schools of Babylonian astronomy. The Agricultural Revolution and the Industrial Revolution came up when new informational inputs were produced by individual innovators, or by scientific and technical institutions. During the Information Revolution all these activities are experiencing continuous growth, while other information-oriented activities are emerging.

Information is the central theme of several new sciences, which emerged in the 1940s, including Shannon's (1949) Information Theory[6] and Wiener's (1948) Cybernetics. Wiener stated: "information is information not matter or energy". This aphorism suggests that information should be considered along with matter and energy as the third constituent part of the Universe; information is carried by matter or by energy.[7] By the 1990s some writers believed that changes implied by the Information revolution will lead to not only a fiscal crisis for governments but also the disintegration of all "large structures".[8]

The theory of information revolution[edit]

The term information revolution may relate to, or contrast with, such widely used terms as Industrial Revolution and Agricultural Revolution. Note, however, that you may prefer mentalist to materialist paradigm. The following fundamental aspects of the theory of information revolution can be given:[9][10]

  1. The object of economic activities can be conceptualized according to the fundamental distinction between matter, energy, and information. These apply both to the object of each economic activity, as well as within each economic activity or enterprise. For instance, an industry may process matter (e.g. iron) using energy and information (production and process technologies, management, etc.).
  2. Information is a factor of production (along with capitallaborland (economics)), as well as a product sold in the market, that is, a commodity. As such, it acquires use value and exchange value, and therefore a price.
  3. All products have use value, exchange value, and informational value. The latter can be measured by the information content of the product, in terms of innovation, design, etc.
  4. Industries develop information-generating activities, the so-called Research and Development (R&D) functions.
  5. Enterprises, and society at large, develop the information control and processing functions, in the form of management structures; these are also called "white-collar workers", "bureaucracy", "managerial functions", etc.
  6. Labor can be classified according to the object of labor, into information labor and non-information labor.
  7. Information activities constitute a large, new economic sector, the information sector along with the traditional primary sectorsecondary sector, and tertiary sector, according to the three-sector hypothesis. These should be restated because they are based on the ambiguous definitions made by Colin Clark (1940), who included in the tertiary sector all activities that have not been included in the primary (agriculture, forestry, etc.) and secondary (manufacturing) sectors.[11] The quaternary sector and the quinary sector of the economy attempt to classify these new activities, but their definitions are not based on a clear conceptual scheme, although the latter is considered by some as equivalent with the information sector. [2]
  8. From a strategic point of view, sectors can be defined as information sector, means of productionmeans of consumption, thus extending the classical Ricardo-Marx model of the Capitalist mode of production (see Influences on Karl Marx). Marx stressed in many occasions the role of the "intellectual element" in production, but failed to find a place for it into his model.[12][13]
  9. Innovations are the result of the production of new information, as new products, new methods of production, patents, etc. Diffusion of innovations manifests saturation effects (related term: market saturation), following certain cyclical patterns and creating "economic waves", also referred to as "business cycles". There are various types of waves, such as Kondratiev wave (54 years), Kuznets swing (18 years), Juglar cycle (9 years) and Kitchin (about 4 years, see also Joseph Schumpeter) distinguished by their nature, duration, and, thus, economic impact.
  10. Diffusion of innovations causes structural-sectoral shifts in the economy, which can be smooth or can create crisis and renewal, a process which Joseph Schumpeter called vividly "creative destruction".

From a different perspective, Irving E. Fang (1997) identified six 'Information Revolutions': writing, printing, mass media, entertainment, the 'tool shed' (which we call 'home' now), and the information highway. In this work the term 'information revolution' is used in a narrow sense, to describe trends in communication media.[14]

Measuring and modeling the information revolution[edit]

Porat (1976) measured the information sector in the US using the input-output analysisOECD has included statistics on the information sector in the economic reports of its member countries.[15] Veneris (1984, 1990) explored the theoretical, economic and regional aspects of the informational revolution and developed a systems dynamics simulation computer model.[9][10]

These works can be seen as following the path originated with the work of Fritz Machlup who in his (1962) book "The Production and Distribution of Knowledge in the United States", claimed that the "knowledge industry represented 29% of the US gross national product", which he saw as evidence that the Information Age had begun. He defines knowledge as a commodity and attempts to measure the magnitude of the production and distribution of this commodity within a modern economy. Machlup divided information use into three classes: instrumental, intellectual, and pastime knowledge. He identified also five types of knowledge: practical knowledge; intellectual knowledge, that is, general culture and the satisfying of intellectual curiosity; pastime knowledge, that is, knowledge satisfying non-intellectual curiosity or the desire for light entertainment and emotional stimulation; spiritual or religious knowledge; unwanted knowledge, accidentally acquired and aimlessly retained.[16]

More recent estimates have reached the following results:[17]

  • the world's technological capacity to receive information through one-way broadcast networks grew at a sustained compound annual growth rate of 7% between 1986 and 2007;
  • the world's technological capacity to store information grew at a sustained compound annual growth rate of 25% between 1986 and 2007;
  • the world's effective capacity to exchange information through two-way telecommunication networks grew at a sustained compound annual growth rate of 30% during the same two decades;
  • the world's technological capacity to compute information with the help of humanly guided general-purpose computers grew at a sustained compound annual growth rate of 61% during the same period.[18]

See also[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ Bernal, J. D. (1939), The Social Function of Science, George Routledge & Sons Ltd., London.
  2. ^ Richta, R., Ed. (1969) Civilization at the Crossroads, ME Sharp, NY
  3. ^ Bell, Daniel (1980), Sociological Journeys: Essays 1960–1980, Heinmann, London ISBN 0435820699
  4. ^ Brzezinski, Z. (1976), Between the Two Ages: America in the Technetronic Era, Penguin ISBN 0313234981
  5. ^ Krishnapuram, Raghu (September 2013). "Global trends in information technology and their implication". 2013 1st International Conference on Emerging Trends and Applications in Computer Science. IEEE: v. doi:10.1109/icetacs.2013.6691382ISBN 978-1-4673-5250-5.
  6. ^ Shannon, C. E. and W. Weaver (1949) The Mathematical Theory of Communication, Urbana, Ill., University of Illinois Press.
  7. ^ Wiener, Norbert (1948) Cybernetics, MIT Press, CA, \\\, p. 155
  8. ^ William Rees-MoggJames Dale Davidson (1997). The Sovereign IndividualSimon & Schuster. p. 7ISBN 978-0684832722.
  9. Jump up to:a b Veneris, Y. (1984), The Informational Revolution, Cybernetics and Urban Modeling, PhD Thesis, submitted to the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, UK (British Library microfilm no. : D55307/85). [1].
  10. Jump up to:a b Veneris, Y. (1990). "Modeling the transition from the Industrial to the Informational Revolution"Environment and Planning A22 (3): 399–416. doi:10.1068/a220399S2CID 144963523.
  11. ^ Clark, C. (1940), Conditions of Economic Progress, McMillan and Co, London.
  12. ^ Ricardo, D. (1978) The Principles of Political Economy and Taxation, Dent, London. (first published in 1817) ISBN 0486434613.
  13. ^ Marx, K. (1977) Capital, Progress Publishers, Moscow.
  14. ^ Fang, Irving E. (1997) A History of Mass Communication: Six Information RevolutionsArchived 2012-04-17 at the Wayback Machine, Focal Press ISBN 0240802543
  15. ^ Porat, M.-U. (1976) The Information Economy, PhD Thesis, Univ. of Stanford. This thesis measured the role of the Information Sector in the US Economy.
  16. ^ Machlup, F. (1962) The Production and Distribution of Knowledge in the United States, Princeton UP.
  17. ^ Hilbert, M.; Lopez, P. (2011). "The World's Technological Capacity to Store, Communicate, and Compute Information". Science332 (6025): 60–5. Bibcode:2011Sci...332...60Hdoi:10.1126/science.1200970PMID 21310967S2CID 206531385.
  18. ^ "video animation on The World’s Technological Capacity to Store, Communicate, and Compute Information from 1986 to 2010 Archived 2012-01-18 at the Wayback Machine

Bibliography[edit]

  • Mills, C. W. (1951),"White Collar: The American Middle Classes", Oxford University Press.
  • Grinin, L. (2007), Periodization of History: A theoretic-mathematical analysis. In: History & Mathematics. Moscow: KomKniga/URSS. P.10-38.

External links[edit]

Information Society II

 This is a more updated version of an existing Wikipedia article on  the Information Society. Hence, the numerals II or two..

Jump to navigationJump to search

An information society is a society where the usage, creationdistribution, manipulation and integration of information is a significant activity.[1] Its main drivers are information and communication technologies, which have resulted in rapid information growth in variety and is somehow changing all aspects of social organization, including educationeconomy,[2] healthgovernment,[3] warfare, and levels of democracy.[4] The people who are able to partake in this form of society are sometimes called either computer users or even digital citizens, defined by K. Mossberger as “Those who use the Internet regularly and effectively”. This is one of many dozen internet terms that have been identified to suggest that humans are entering a new and different phase of society.[5]

Some of the markers of this steady change may be technological, economic, occupational, spatial, cultural, or a combination of all of these.[6] Information society is seen as a successor to industrial society. Closely related concepts are the post-industrial society (post-fordism), post-modern society, computer society and knowledge society, telematic society, society of the spectacle (postmodernism), Information Revolution and Information Agenetwork society (Manuel Castells) or even liquid modernity.

Definition[edit]

There is currently no universally accepted concept of what exactly can be defined as an information society and what shall not be included in the term. Most theoreticians agree that a transformation can be seen as started somewhere between the 1970s, the early 1990s transformations of the Socialist East and the 2000s period that formed most of today's net principles and currently as is changing the way societies work fundamentally. Information technology goes beyond the internet, as the principles of internet design and usage influence other areas, and there are discussions about how big the influence of specific media or specific modes of production really is. Frank Webster notes five major types of information that can be used to define information society: technological, economic, occupational, spatial and cultural.[6] According to Webster, the character of information has transformed the way that we live today. How we conduct ourselves centers around theoretical knowledge and information.[7]

Kasiwulaya and Gomo (Makerere University) allude[where?][dubious ] that information societies are those that have intensified their use of IT for economic, social, cultural and political transformation. In 2005, governments reaffirmed their dedication to the foundations of the Information Society in the Tunis Commitment and outlined the basis for implementation and follow-up in the Tunis Agenda for the Information Society. In particular, the Tunis Agenda addresses the issues of financing of ICTs for development and Internet governance that could not be resolved in the first phase.

Some people, such as Antonio Negri, characterize the information society as one in which people do immaterial labour.[8] By this, they appear to refer to the production of knowledge or cultural artifacts. One problem with this model is that it ignores the material and essentially industrial basis of the society. However it does point to a problem for workers, namely how many creative people does this society need to function? For example, it may be that you only need a few star performers, rather than a plethora of non-celebrities, as the work of those performers can be easily distributed, forcing all secondary players to the bottom of the market. It is now common for publishers to promote only their best selling authors and to try to avoid the rest—even if they still sell steadily. Films are becoming more and more judged, in terms of distribution, by their first weekend's performance, in many cases cutting out opportunity for word-of-mouth development.

Michael Buckland characterizes information in society in his book Information and Society. Buckland expresses the idea that information can be interpreted differently from person to person based on that individual's experiences.[9]

Considering that metaphors and technologies of information move forward in a reciprocal relationship, we can describe some societies (especially the Japanese society) as an information society because we think of it as such.[10] [11]

The word information may be interpreted in many different ways. According to Buckland in Information and Society, most of the meanings fall into three categories of human knowledge: information as knowledge, information as a process, and information as a thing.[12]

The growth of computer information in society[edit]

Internet users per 100 inhabitants
Source: International Telecommunication Union.[13][14]
The amount of data stored globally has increased greatly since the 1980s, and by 2007, 94% of it was stored digitally. Source

The growth of the amount of technologically mediated information has been quantified in different ways, including society's technological capacity to store information, to communicate information, and to compute information.[15] It is estimated that, the world's technological capacity to store information grew from 2.6 (optimally compressed) exabytes in 1986, which is the informational equivalent to less than one 730-MB CD-ROM per person in 1986 (539 MB per person), to 295 (optimally compressed) exabytes in 2007.[16] This is the informational equivalent of 60 CD-ROM per person in 2007[17] and represents a sustained annual growth rate of some 25%. The world's combined technological capacity to receive information through one-way broadcast networks was the informational equivalent of 174 newspapers per person per day in 2007.[16]

The world's combined effective capacity to exchange information through two-way telecommunication networks was 281 petabytes of (optimally compressed) information in 1986, 471 petabytes in 1993, 2.2 (optimally compressed) exabytes in 2000, and 65 (optimally compressed) exabytes in 2007, which is the informational equivalent of 6 newspapers per person per day in 2007.[17] The world's technological capacity to compute information with humanly guided general-purpose computers grew from 3.0 × 10^8 MIPS in 1986, to 6.4 x 10^12 MIPS in 2007, experiencing the fastest growth rate of over 60% per year during the last two decades.[16]

James R. Beniger describes the necessity of information in modern society in the following way: “The need for sharply increased control that resulted from the industrialization of material processes through application of inanimate sources of energy probably accounts for the rapid development of automatic feedback technology in the early industrial period (1740-1830)” (p. 174) “Even with enhanced feedback control, industry could not have developed without the enhanced means to process matter and energy, not only as inputs of the raw materials of production but also as outputs distributed to final consumption.”(p. 175)[5]

Development of the information society model[edit]

Colin Clark's sector model of an economy undergoing technological change. In later stages, the Quaternary sector of the economy grows.

One of the first people to develop the concept of the information society was the economist Fritz Machlup. In 1933, Fritz Machlup began studying the effect of patents on research. His work culminated in the study The production and distribution of knowledge in the United States in 1962. This book was widely regarded[18] and was eventually translated into Russian and Japanese. The Japanese have also studied the information society (or jōhōka shakai情報化社会).

The issue of technologies and their role in contemporary society have been discussed in the scientific literature using a range of labels and concepts. This section introduces some of them. Ideas of a knowledge or information economypost-industrial societypostmodern society, network society, the information revolution, informational capitalism, network capitalism, and the like, have been debated over the last several decades.

Fritz Machlup (1962) introduced the concept of the knowledge industry. He began studying the effects of patents on research before distinguishing five sectors of the knowledge sector: education, research and development, mass media, information technologies, information services. Based on this categorization he calculated that in 1959 29% per cent of the GNP in the USA had been produced in knowledge industries.[19][20][citation needed]

Economic transition[edit]

Peter Drucker has argued that there is a transition from an economy based on material goods to one based on knowledge.[21] Marc Porat distinguishes a primary (information goods and services that are directly used in the production, distribution or processing of information) and a secondary sector (information services produced for internal consumption by government and non-information firms) of the information economy.[22]

Porat uses the total value added by the primary and secondary information sector to the GNP as an indicator for the information economy. The OECD has employed Porat's definition for calculating the share of the information economy in the total economy (e.g. OECD 1981, 1986). Based on such indicators, the information society has been defined as a society where more than half of the GNP is produced and more than half of the employees are active in the information economy.[23]

For Daniel Bell the number of employees producing services and information is an indicator for the informational character of a society. "A post-industrial society is based on services. (…) What counts is not raw muscle power, or energy, but information. (…) A post industrial society is one in which the majority of those employed are not involved in the production of tangible goods".[24]

Alain Touraine already spoke in 1971 of the post-industrial society. "The passage to postindustrial society takes place when investment results in the production of symbolic goods that modify values, needs, representations, far more than in the production of material goods or even of 'services'. Industrial society had transformed the means of production: post-industrial society changes the ends of production, that is, culture. (…) The decisive point here is that in postindustrial society all of the economic system is the object of intervention of society upon itself. That is why we can call it the programmed society, because this phrase captures its capacity to create models of management, production, organization, distribution, and consumption, so that such a society appears, at all its functional levels, as the product of an action exercised by the society itself, and not as the outcome of natural laws or cultural specificities" (Touraine 1988: 104). In the programmed society also the area of cultural reproduction including aspects such as information, consumption, health, research, education would be industrialized. That modern society is increasing its capacity to act upon itself means for Touraine that society is reinvesting ever larger parts of production and so produces and transforms itself. This makes Touraine's concept substantially different from that of Daniel Bell who focused on the capacity to process and generate information for efficient society functioning.

Jean-François Lyotard[25] has argued that "knowledge has become the principle [sic] force of production over the last few decades". Knowledge would be transformed into a commodity. Lyotard says that postindustrial society makes knowledge accessible to the layman because knowledge and information technologies would diffuse into society and break up Grand Narratives of centralized structures and groups. Lyotard denotes these changing circumstances as postmodern condition or postmodern society.

Similarly to Bell, Peter Otto and Philipp Sonntag (1985) say that an information society is a society where the majority of employees work in information jobs, i.e. they have to deal more with information, signals, symbols, and images than with energy and matter. Radovan Richta (1977) argues that society has been transformed into a scientific civilization based on services, education, and creative activities. This transformation would be the result of a scientific-technological transformation based on technological progress and the increasing importance of computer technology. Science and technology would become immediate forces of production (Aristovnik 2014: 55).

Nico Stehr (1994, 2002a, b) says that in the knowledge society a majority of jobs involves working with knowledge. "Contemporary society may be described as a knowledge society based on the extensive penetration of all its spheres of life and institutions by scientific and technological knowledge" (Stehr 2002b: 18). For Stehr, knowledge is a capacity for social action. Science would become an immediate productive force, knowledge would no longer be primarily embodied in machines, but already appropriated nature that represents knowledge would be rearranged according to certain designs and programs (Ibid.: 41-46). For Stehr, the economy of a knowledge society is largely driven not by material inputs, but by symbolic or knowledge-based inputs (Ibid.: 67), there would be a large number of professions that involve working with knowledge, and a declining number of jobs that demand low cognitive skills as well as in manufacturing (Stehr 2002a).

Also Alvin Toffler argues that knowledge is the central resource in the economy of the information society: "In a Third Wave economy, the central resource – a single word broadly encompassing data, information, images, symbols, culture, ideology, and values – is actionable knowledge" (Dyson/Gilder/Keyworth/Toffler 1994).

At the end of the twentieth century, the concept of the network society gained importance in information society theory. For Manuel Castells, network logic is besides information, pervasiveness, flexibility, and convergence a central feature of the information technology paradigm (2000a: 69ff). "One of the key features of informational society is the networking logic of its basic structure, which explains the use of the concept of 'network society'" (Castells 2000: 21). "As an historical trend, dominant functions and processes in the Information Age are increasingly organized around networks. Networks constitute the new social morphology of our societies, and the diffusion of networking logic substantially modifies the operation and outcomes in processes of production, experience, power, and culture" (Castells 2000: 500). For Castells the network society is the result of informationalism, a new technological paradigm.

Jan Van Dijk (2006) defines the network society as a "social formation with an infrastructure of social and media networks enabling its prime mode of organization at all levels (individual, group/organizational and societal). Increasingly, these networks link all units or parts of this formation (individuals, groups and organizations)" (Van Dijk 2006: 20). For Van Dijk networks have become the nervous system of society, whereas Castells links the concept of the network society to capitalist transformation, Van Dijk sees it as the logical result of the increasing widening and thickening of networks in nature and society. Darin Barney uses the term for characterizing societies that exhibit two fundamental characteristics: "The first is the presence in those societies of sophisticated – almost exclusively digital – technologies of networked communication and information management/distribution, technologies which form the basic infrastructure mediating an increasing array of social, political and economic practices. (…) The second, arguably more intriguing, characteristic of network societies is the reproduction and institutionalization throughout (and between) those societies of networks as the basic form of human organization and relationship across a wide range of social, political and economic configurations and associations".[26]

Critiques[edit]

The major critique of concepts such as information society, postmodern society, knowledge society, network society, postindustrial society, etc. that has mainly been voiced by critical scholars is that they create the impression that we have entered a completely new type of society. "If there is just more information then it is hard to understand why anyone should suggest that we have before us something radically new" (Webster 2002a: 259). Critics such as Frank Webster argue that these approaches stress discontinuity, as if contemporary society had nothing in common with society as it was 100 or 150 years ago. Such assumptions would have ideological character because they would fit with the view that we can do nothing about change and have to adapt to existing political realities (kasiwulaya 2002b: 267).

These critics argue that contemporary society first of all is still a capitalist society oriented towards accumulating economic, political, and cultural capital. They acknowledge that information society theories stress some important new qualities of society (notably globalization and informatization), but charge that they fail to show that these are attributes of overall capitalist structures. Critics such as Webster insist on the continuities that characterise change. In this way Webster distinguishes between different epochs of capitalism: laissez-faire capitalism of the 19th century, corporate capitalism in the 20th century, and informational capitalism for the 21st century (kasiwulaya 2006).

For describing contemporary society based on a new dialectic of continuity and discontinuity, other critical scholars have suggested several terms like:

  • transnational network capitalism, transnational informational capitalism (Christian Fuchs 2008, 2007): "Computer networks are the technological foundation that has allowed the emergence of global network capitalism, that is, regimes of accumulation, regulation, and discipline that are helping to increasingly base the accumulation of economic, political, and cultural capital on transnational network organizations that make use of cyberspace and other new technologies for global coordination and communication. [...] The need to find new strategies for executing corporate and political domination has resulted in a restructuration of capitalism that is characterized by the emergence of transnational, networked spaces in the economic, political, and cultural system and has been mediated by cyberspace as a tool of global coordination and communication. Economic, political, and cultural space have been restructured; they have become more fluid and dynamic, have enlarged their borders to a transnational scale, and handle the inclusion and exclusion of nodes in flexible ways. These networks are complex due to the high number of nodes (individuals, enterprises, teams, political actors, etc.) that can be involved and the high speed at which a high number of resources is produced and transported within them. But global network capitalism is based on structural inequalities; it is made up of segmented spaces in which central hubs (transnational corporations, certain political actors, regions, countries, Western lifestyles, and worldviews) centralize the production, control, and flows of economic, political, and cultural capital (property, power, definition capacities). This segmentation is an expression of the overall competitive character of contemporary society." (Fuchs 2008: 110+119).
  • digital capitalism (Schiller 2000, cf. also Peter Glotz):[27] "networks are directly generalizing the social and cultural range of the capitalist economy as never before" (Schiller 2000: xiv)
  • virtual capitalism: the "combination of marketing and the new information technology will enable certain firms to obtain higher profit margins and larger market shares, and will thereby promote greater concentration and centralization of capital" (Dawson/John Bellamy Foster 1998: 63sq),
  • high-tech capitalism[28] or informatic capitalism (Fitzpatrick 2002) – to focus on the computer as a guiding technology that has transformed the productive forces of capitalism and has enabled a globalized economy.

Other scholars prefer to speak of information capitalism (Morris-Suzuki 1997) or informational capitalism (Manuel Castells 2000, Christian Fuchs 2005, Schmiede 2006a, b). Manuel Castells sees informationalism as a new technological paradigm (he speaks of a mode of development) characterized by "information generation, processing, and transmission" that have become "the fundamental sources of productivity and power" (Castells 2000: 21). The "most decisive historical factor accelerating, channelling and shaping the information technology paradigm, and inducing its associated social forms, was/is the process of capitalist restructuring undertaken since the 1980s, so that the new techno-economic system can be adequately characterized as informational capitalism" (Castells 2000: 18). Castells has added to theories of the information society the idea that in contemporary society dominant functions and processes are increasingly organized around networks that constitute the new social morphology of society (Castells 2000: 500). Nicholas Garnham[29] is critical of Castells and argues that the latter's account is technologically determinist because Castells points out that his approach is based on a dialectic of technology and society in which technology embodies society and society uses technology (Castells 2000: 5sqq). But Castells also makes clear that the rise of a new "mode of development" is shaped by capitalist production, i.e. by society, which implies that technology isn't the only driving force of society.

Antonio Negri and Michael Hardt argue that contemporary society is an Empire that is characterized by a singular global logic of capitalist domination that is based on immaterial labour. With the concept of immaterial labour Negri and Hardt introduce ideas of information society discourse into their Marxist account of contemporary capitalism. Immaterial labour would be labour "that creates immaterial products, such as knowledge, information, communication, a relationship, or an emotional response" (Hardt/Negri 2005: 108; cf. also 2000: 280-303), or services, cultural products, knowledge (Hardt/Negri 2000: 290). There would be two forms: intellectual labour that produces ideas, symbols, codes, texts, linguistic figures, images, etc.; and affective labour that produces and manipulates affects such as a feeling of ease, well-being, satisfaction, excitement, passion, joy, sadness, etc. (Ibid.).

Overall, neo-Marxist accounts of the information society have in common that they stress that knowledge, information technologies, and computer networks have played a role in the restructuration and globalization of capitalism and the emergence of a flexible regime of accumulation (David Harvey 1989). They warn that new technologies are embedded into societal antagonisms that cause structural unemployment, rising poverty, social exclusion, the deregulation of the welfare state and of labour rights, the lowering of wages, welfare, etc.

Concepts such as knowledge society, information society, network society, informational capitalism, postindustrial society, transnational network capitalism, postmodern society, etc. show that there is a vivid discussion in contemporary sociology on the character of contemporary society and the role that technologies, information, communication, and co-operation play in it.[citation needed] Information society theory discusses the role of information and information technology in society, the question which key concepts shall be used for characterizing contemporary society, and how to define such concepts. It has become a specific branch of contemporary sociology.

Second and third nature[edit]

Information society is the means of sending and receiving information from one place to another.[30] As technology has advanced so too has the way people have adapted in sharing information with each other.

"Second nature" refers a group of experiences that get made over by culture.[31] They then get remade into something else that can then take on a new meaning. As a society we transform this process so it becomes something natural to us, i.e. second nature. So, by following a particular pattern created by culture we are able to recognise how we use and move information in different ways. From sharing information via different time zones (such as talking online) to information ending up in a different location (sending a letter overseas) this has all become a habitual process that we as a society take for granted.[32]

However, through the process of sharing information vectors have enabled us to spread information even further. Through the use of these vectors information is able to move and then separate from the initial things that enabled them to move.[33] From here, something called "third nature" has developed. An extension of second nature, third nature is in control of second nature. It expands on what second nature is limited by. It has the ability to mould information in new and different ways. So, third nature is able to ‘speed up, proliferate, divide, mutate, and beam in on us from else where.[34] It aims to create a balance between the boundaries of space and time (see second nature). This can be seen through the telegraph, it was the first successful technology that could send and receive information faster than a human being could move an object.[35] As a result different vectors of people have the ability to not only shape culture but create new possibilities that will ultimately shape society.

Therefore, through the use of second nature and third nature society is able to use and explore new vectors of possibility where information can be moulded to create new forms of interaction.[36]

Sociological uses[edit]

Estonia, a small Baltic country in northern Europe, is one of the most advanced digital societies.[37]

In sociologyinformational society refers to a post-modern type of society. Theoreticians like Ulrich BeckAnthony Giddens and Manuel Castells argue that since the 1970s a transformation from industrial society to informational society has happened on a global scale.[38]

As steam power was the technology standing behind industrial society, so information technology is seen as the catalyst for the changes in work organisation, societal structure and politics occurring in the late 20th century.

In the book Future ShockAlvin Toffler used the phrase super-industrial society to describe this type of society. Other writers and thinkers have used terms like "post-industrial society" and "post-modern industrial society" with a similar meaning.

Related terms[edit]

A number of terms in current use emphasize related but different aspects of the emerging global economic order. The Information Society intends to be the most encompassing in that an economy is a subset of a society. The Information Age is somewhat limiting, in that it refers to a 30-year period between the widespread use of computers and the knowledge economy, rather than an emerging economic order. The knowledge era is about the nature of the content, not the socioeconomic processes by which it will be traded. The computer revolution, and knowledge revolution refer to specific revolutionary transitions, rather than the end state towards which we are evolving. The Information Revolution relates with the well known terms agricultural revolution and industrial revolution.

  • The information economy and the knowledge economy emphasize the content or intellectual property that is being traded through an information market or knowledge market, respectively. Electronic commerce and electronic business emphasize the nature of transactions and running a business, respectively, using the Internet and World-Wide Web. The digital economy focuses on trading bits in cyberspace rather than atoms in physical space. The network economy stresses that businesses will work collectively in webs or as part of business ecosystems rather than as stand-alone units. Social networking refers to the process of collaboration on massive, global scales. The internet economy focuses on the nature of markets that are enabled by the Internet.
  • Knowledge services and knowledge value put content into an economic context. Knowledge services integrates Knowledge management, within a Knowledge organization, that trades in a Knowledge market. In order for individuals to receive more knowledge, surveillance is used. This relates to the use of Drones as a tool in order to gather knowledge on other individuals. Although seemingly synonymous, each term conveys more than nuances or slightly different views of the same thing. Each term represents one attribute of the likely nature of economic activity in the emerging post-industrial society. Alternatively, the new economic order will incorporate all of the above plus other attributes that have not yet fully emerged.
  • In connection with the development of the information society, information pollution appeared, which in turn evolved information ecology – associated with information hygiene.[39]

Intellectual property considerations[edit]

One of the central paradoxes of the information society is that it makes information easily reproducible, leading to a variety of freedom/control problems relating to intellectual property. Essentially, business and capital, whose place becomes that of producing and selling information and knowledge, seems to require control over this new resource so that it can effectively be managed and sold as the basis of the information economy. However, such control can prove to be both technically and socially problematic. Technically because copy protection is often easily circumvented and socially rejected because the users and citizens of the information society can prove to be unwilling to accept such absolute commodification of the facts and information that compose their environment.

Responses to this concern range from the Digital Millennium Copyright Act in the United States (and similar legislation elsewhere) which make copy protection (see DRM) circumvention illegal, to the free softwareopen source and copyleft movements, which seek to encourage and disseminate the "freedom" of various information products (traditionally both as in "gratis" or free of cost, and liberty, as in freedom to use, explore and share).

Caveat: Information society is often used by politicians meaning something like "we all do internet now"; the sociological term information society (or informational society) has some deeper implications about change of societal structure. Because we lack political control of intellectual property, we are lacking in a concrete map of issues, an analysis of costs and benefits, and functioning political groups that are unified by common interests representing different opinions of this diverse situation that are prominent in the information society.[40]

See also[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ Soll, Jacob, 1968- (2009). The information master : Jean-Baptiste Colbert's secret state intelligence system. University of Michigan Press. ISBN 978-0-472-02526-8OCLC 643805520.
  2. ^ Hilbert, M. (2015). Digital Technology and Social Change [Open Online Course at the University of California] freely available at: https://youtube.com/watch?v=xR4sQ3f6tW8&list=PLtjBSCvWCU3rNm46D3R85efM0hrzjuAIg
  3. ^ Hilbert, M. (2015). Digital Technology and Social Change [Open Online Course at the University of California] https://youtube.com/watch?v=KKGedDCKa68&list=PLtjBSCvWCU3rNm46D3R85efM0hrzjuAIg freely available at: https://canvas.instructure.com/courses/949415
  4. ^ Hilbert, M. (2015). Digital Technology and Social Change [Open Online Course at the University of California] freely available at  :https://canvas.instructure.com/courses/949415
  5. Jump up to:a b Beniger, James R. (1986). The Control Revolution: Technological and Economic Origins of the Information Society. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
  6. Jump up to:a b Webster, Frank (2002). Theories of the Information Society. Cambridge: Routledge.
  7. ^ Webster, F. (2006). Chapter 2: What is an information society? In Theories of the Information Society, 3rd ed. (pp. 15-31). New York: Routledge.
  8. ^ "Magic Lantern Empire: Reflections on Colonialism and Society", Magic Lantern Empire, Cornell University Press, pp. 148–160, 2017-12-31, doi:10.7591/9780801468230-009ISBN 978-0-8014-6823-0
  9. ^ Buckland, Michael (March 3, 2017). Information in Society. MIT Press.
  10. ^ James Boyle, 1996, 6[vague]
  11. ^ Kasiwulaya and Walter, Makerere University. Makerere University Press.[vague]
  12. ^ Buckland, Michael (2017). Information and Society. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. p. 22.
  13. ^ "Individuals using the Internet 2005 to 2014", Key ICT indicators for developed and developing countries and the world (totals and penetration rates), International Telecommunication Union (ITU). Retrieved 25 May 2015.
  14. ^ "Internet users per 100 inhabitants 1997 to 2007", ICT Data and Statistics (IDS), International Telecommunication Union (ITU). Retrieved 25 May 2015.
  15. ^ Hilbert, M.; Lopez, P. (2011-02-10). "The World's Technological Capacity to Store, Communicate, and Compute Information". Science332 (6025): 60–65. Bibcode:2011Sci...332...60Hdoi:10.1126/science.1200970ISSN 0036-8075PMID 21310967S2CID 206531385.
  16. Jump up to:a b c "The World’s Technological Capacity to Store, Communicate, and Compute Information", Martin Hilbert and Priscila López (2011), Science, 332(6025), 60-65; free access to the article through here: martinhilbert.net/WorldInfoCapacity.html
  17. Jump up to:a b "video animation on The World’s Technological Capacity to Store, Communicate, and Compute Information from 1986 to 2010
  18. ^ Susan Crawford: "The Origin and Development of a Concept: The Information Society". Bull Med Libr Assoc. 71(4) October 1983: 380–385.
  19. ^ Rooney, Jim (2014). Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Intellectual Capital, Knowledge Management and Organizational Learning. UK: Academic Conferences and Publishing International Limited. p. 261. ISBN 978-1-910309-71-1.
  20. ^ Machlup, Fritz (1962). The Production and Distribution of Knowledge in the United States. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
  21. ^ Peter Drucker (1969) The Age of Discontinuity. London: Heinemann
  22. ^ Marc Porat (1977) The Information Economy. Washington, DC: US Department of Commerce
  23. ^ Karl Deutsch (1983) Soziale und politische Aspekte der Informationsgesellschaft. In: Philipp Sonntag (Ed.) (1983) Die Zukunft der Informationsgesellschaft. Frankfurt/Main: Haag & Herchen. pp. 68-88
  24. ^ Daniel Bell (1976) The Coming of Post-Industrial Society. New York: Basic Books, 127, 348
  25. ^ Jean-François Lyotard (1984) The Postmodern Condition. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 5
  26. ^ Darin Barney (2003) The Network Society. Cambridge: Polity, 25sq
  27. ^ Peter Glotz (1999) Die beschleunigte Gesellschaft. Kulturkämpfe im digitalen Kapitalismus. München: Kindler.
  28. ^ Wolfgang Fritz Haug (2003) High-Tech-Kapitalismus. Hamburg: Argument.
  29. ^ Nicholas Garnham (2004) Information Society Theory as Ideology. In: Frank Webster (Ed.) (2004) The Information Society Reader. London: Routledge.
  30. ^ Wark 1997, p. 22.
  31. ^ Wark 1997, p. 23.
  32. ^ Wark 1997, p. 21.
  33. ^ Wark 1997, p. 24.
  34. ^ Wark 1997, p. 25.
  35. ^ Wark 1997, p. 26.
  36. ^ Wark 1997, p. 28.
  37. ^ "Welcome to E-stonia, the world's most digitally advanced society"Wired. Retrieved 15 July 2020.
  38. ^ Grinin, L. 2007. Periodization of History: A theoretic-mathematical analysis. In: History & Mathematics. Moscow: KomKniga/URSS. P.10-38. ISBN 978-5-484-01001-1.
  39. ^ Eryomin A.L. Information ecology - a viewpoint// International Journal of Environmental Studies. - 1998. - Vol. 54. - pp. 241-253.
  40. ^ Boyle, James. “A Politics of Intellectual Property: Environmentalism for the Net?” Duke Law Journal, vol. 47, no. 1, 1997, pp. 87–116. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/1372861.

Works cited[edit]

  • Wark, McKenzie (1997). The Virtual Republic. Allen & Unwin, St Leonards.

Further reading[edit]

  • Alan Mckenna (2011) A Human Right to Participate in the Information Society. New York: Hampton Press. ISBN 978-1-61289-046-3.
  • Lev Manovich (2009) How to Represent Information Society?, Miltos Manetas, Paintings from Contemporary Life, Johan & Levi Editore, Milan . Online: [1]
  • Manuel Castells (2000) The Rise of the Network Society. The Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture. Volume 1. Malden: Blackwell. Second Edition.
  • Michael Dawson/John Bellamy Foster (1998) Virtual Capitalism. In: Robert W. McChesney/Ellen Meiksins Wood/John Bellamy Foster (Eds.) (1998) Capitalism and the Information Age. New York: Monthly Review Press. pp. 51–67.
  • Aleksander Aristovnik (2014) Development of the information society and its impact on the education sector in the EU : efficiency at the regional (NUTS 2) level. In: Turkish online journal of educational technology. Vol. 13. No. 2. pp. 54–60.
  • Alistair Duff (2000) Information Society Studies. London: Routledge.
  • Esther Dyson/George Gilder/George Keyworth/Alvin Toffler (1994) Cyberspace and the American Dream: A Magna Carta for the Knowledge Age. In: Future Insight 1.2. The Progress & Freedom Foundation.
  • Tony Fitzpatrick (2002) Critical Theory, Information Society and Surveillance Technologies. In: Information, Communication and Society. Vol. 5. No. 3. pp. 357–378.
  • Vilém Flusser (2013) Post-History, Univocal Publishing, Minneapolis ISBN 9781937561093 [2]
  • Christian Fuchs (2008) Internet and Society: Social Theory in the Information Age. New York: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-96132-7.
  • Christian Fuchs (2007) Transnational Space and the ’Network Society’. In: 21st Century Society. Vol. 2. No. 1. pp. 49–78.
  • Christian Fuchs (2005) Emanzipation! Technik und Politik bei Herbert Marcuse. Aachen: Shaker.
  • Christian Fuchs (2004) The Antagonistic Self-Organization of Modern Society. In: Studies in Political Economy, No. 73 (2004), pp. 183– 209.
  • Michael Hardt/Antonio Negri (2005) Multitude. War and Democracy in the Age of the Empire. New York: Hamish Hamilton.
  • Michael Hardt/Antonio Negri Empire. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
  • David Harvey (1989) The Condition of Postmodernity. London: Blackwell.
  • Fritz Machlup (1962) The Production and Distribution of Knowledge in the United States. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
  • OECD (1986) Trends in The Information Economy. Paris: OECD.
  • OECD (1981) Information Activities, Electronics and Telecommunications Technologies: Impact on Employment, Growth and Trade. Paris: OECD.
  • Pasquinelli, M. (2014) Italian Operaismo and the Information Machine, Theory, Culture & Society, first published on February 2, 2014.
  • Pastore G. (2009) Verso la società della conoscenza, Le Lettere, Firenze.
  • Peter Otto/Philipp Sonntag (1985) Wege in die Informationsgesellschaft. München. dtv.
  • Pinterič, Uroš (2015): Spregledane pasti informacijske družbe. Fakulteta za organizacijske študije v Novem mestu ISBN 978-961-6974-07-3
  • Radovan Richta (1977) The Scientific and Technological Revolution and the Prospects of Social Development. In: Ralf Dahrendorf (Ed.) (1977) Scientific-Technological Revolution. Social Aspects. London: Sage. pp. 25–72.
  • Dan Schiller (2000) Digital Capitalism. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
  • Rudi Schmiede (2006a) Knowledge, Work and Subject in Informational Capitalism. In: Berleur, Jacques/Nurminen, Markku I./Impagliazzo, John (Eds.) (2006) Social Informatics: An Information Society for All? New York: Springer. pp. 333–354.
  • Rudi Schmiede (2006b) Wissen und Arbeit im “Informational Capitalism”. In: Baukrowitz, Andrea et al. (Eds.) (2006) Informatisierung der Arbeit – Gesellschaft im Umbruch. Berlin: Edition Sigma. pp. 455–488.
  • Seely Brown, John; Duguid, Paul (2000). The Social Life of Information. Harvard Business School Press.
  • Nico Stehr (1994) Arbeit, Eigentum und Wissen. Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp.
  • Nico Stehr (2002a) A World Made of Knowledge. Lecture at the Conference “New Knowledge and New Consciousness in the Era of the Knowledge Society", Budapest, January 31, 2002. Online: [3]
  • Nico Stehr (2002b) Knowledge & Economic Conduct. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
  • Alain Touraine (1988) Return of the Actor. Minneapolis. University of Minnesota Press.
  • Jan Van Dijk (2006) The Network Society. London: Sage. Second Edition.
  • Yannis Veneris (1984) The Informational Revolution, Cybernetics and Urban Modelling, PhD Thesis, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, UK.
  • Yannis Veneris (1990) Modeling the transition from the Industrial to the Informational Revolution, Environment and Planning A 22(3):399-416. [4]
  • Frank Webster (2002a) The Information Society Revisited. In: Lievrouw, Leah A./Livingstone, Sonia (Eds.) (2002) Handbook of New Media. London: Sage. pp. 255–266.
  • Frank Webster (2002b) Theories of the Information Society. London: Routledge.
  • Frank Webster (2006) Theories of the Information Society. 3rd edition. London: Routledge
  • Gelbstein, E. (2006) Crossing the Executive Digital Divide. ISBN 99932-53-17-0

External links[edit]

Welcome to Precision Universal Debate

  IMPORTANT Though the title of this p2p entry is the Universal Debating Project (at present) it has now been re-named the Precision Univers...