The Information Society

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The Information Society

• SSICT 2006

2

• Information Society theories propose that
  information and the appropriation, flow, use and
  control of information and knowledge is becoming
  central to the organisation of society, the
  economy and our experience of everyday life

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The 'New Age' Theories and Information

• Information Society comes in many forms in the
  theoretical literature
• Information Economy, Knowledge Society, Post
  Industrial Society, Post-modern Society,
  Surveillance Society
• Links to theories of Risk Society, Globalisation
• Technophilic, or technophic, but often
  techno-deterministic.

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Myths

• Leyotard 2 Myths.
• Myth of Liberation
• Myth of the Unity of Knowledge
• Lyotard (1984). The postmodern condition a
  report on knowledge. Manchester University Press
• Liberation Utopias
• Economic the perfect market
• Social the perfect society
• Political perfect democracy
• Individual plastic identity End of time and
  space
• "Hyperhip Wet Dream" (Sobchack),
• "The New Jerusalem"

• James Carey (1989) technological sublime
  "futurist ethos "identifies electricity and
  electrical power, electronics and cybernetics,
  computers and information with a new birth of
  community, decentralization, ecological balance,
  and social harmony"
• Millenniumism
• "New Age". How do we know we are leaving the
  previous "AGE"?
• What is new and what is just more of the same?
  Are there new structures and modes of
  development, production and society?

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Economic Visions and Evidence

• Neo-Schumpterian school
• "creative destruction" as we enter the next
  "Kondratieff Wave" A new techno-economic paradigm
  constitutes the information age. e.g. Freeman
• New way of ordering industry
• Piore and Sabel 1994 - flexible specialisation.
  small firms can assess and respond to markets -
  end of mass production. Networks over hierarchies
  (Castells 1996)

• Information and service sector dominate economy
• Economic Cyberspace vision Ultimate free market
  .
• Dream of the economic Liberals. Constraints of
  Time and Space massively reduced.
• Information becomes the Key Strategic Resource
  (Goddard)
• Intellectual technologies
• the means of organising society according to a
  technical order (Bell)

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Economic issues

• Information Economics problem of 'free'
  reproduction
• The Global Networked Economy based on ICTs.
  Economies integrated by the flow of information.
  But creation of Fourth world, black holes of
  informational capitalism (Castells).

• New Capitalism Flows of information in the
  network in tension with new Self (Castells).
• How to measure the 'Information society'
• Machlup and Porat 1960s
• Productivity Paradox, uncertainty over figures
  and what to measure (Castells)

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Occupational

• Rise of information industry , and replacement of
  manufacturing jobs with service jobs.
• Service Jobs we do not actually create anything
  physical.
• But how do we really measure what is an
  'information job' Newspaper boy, Physicist and
  Stock Broker all information worker
•  

• Daniel Bell - End of blue collar work (1970s)
• or Export of blue collar work to developing
  countries

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OCCUPATIONAL 2

• The Knowledge Economy (Drucker, 1968)
• Knowledge becomes the key to economic power and
  success. Property no longer the basis of power.
• Key knowledge is theoretical (Bell)
• rationalisation of information and abstract
  knowledge.
• Knowledge Elites.
• A new social class controlling information and
  technology, knowing about everyone and
  everything, controlling meanings (Blade Runner)
  Elites communicate in powerful networks

• The Information Professional
• the problem of Experts is reinforced.
• What about the rest of the population?
• Dumbing down End of local processing and
  responsibility for information.
• Devaluation of local, personal Knowledge

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Societal Vision

• The New Community
• Reingold local no longer defined by geography.
  Communities of interest.
• Reaction against existing trends in society -
  search for a past age.
• Bell End of Blue Collar Work, and the Class
  structure
• The privatisation of society personal networks
  replace neighbourhood participation (Wellman)
• Digital divide and increased social exclusion

• New Politics
• End of conventional politics, crisis of liberal
  democracy
• New social movements, non geographically based
• ICT Tools of government in hands of masses
  (internet - Google - mobile phone etc)
• Resistance to dictatorships
• New powers of surveillance and of subversion
  Big Brother

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New Culture

• Information is everywhere, and everything carries
  a message.
• Signification increasingly important
• There may be more information, but is there
  really more signification?
• Rise of the Simulation (Baudrillard) and the
  collapse of meaning.

• 3 Modes of Information Poster (1990) 1) face to
  face symbolic correspondence 2) print
  representation of signs 3) electronic
  informational simulation
• No reference points in the Post-Modern Society
• But what is Information, how do we measure it,
  its production, use and effects?

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Information and the Commodification of Knowledge

• Everyday Day use FACTS
• Information and Cybernetic Theory. Shannon and
  Weaver/Weiner
• Bits, purely quantitative
• Everything is information (Rozak)
• Rhetorical/symbolic value
• Information becomes a byword for progress,
  inextricably linked to technology

• Quantity v. Quality
• Information is quality-less. When it is used by
  people it can be transformed to Knowledge
• Data - Information -Knowledge - Wisdom
• How is information turned into knowledge? What
  methods are seen as legitimate? How is this
  judged correct interpretation?
• Power and Use (Ibn Rushd/Averroes)

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Appropriation of Knowledge

• Appropriation from people
• When knowledge is exteriorised (Leyotard) then it
  can be information. Limits to expression of
  knowledge (Tacit knowledge)
• Appropriation from the world communities,
  nature
• Reduction of everything to the same sort of
  knowledge
• Problem of Classification
• How to interpret information in rational
  classification - gt give it status of knowledge.
  Falling through the gaps.
• Legitimate knowledge
• whose knowledge and in what form . e.g. DNA
  sequence

• Commodification of Information
• Once exteriorised Information can be owned,
  packaged and sold, controlled.
• Rise of Information Management
• Techniques and Professions to manage information
•  Personal 'Appropriation'
• Appropriation is also an individual activity
  Meaning giving and Semiotic interpretation. With
  access to multiple interpretations, and
  information sources, could the IS be an increased
  focus on 'meaning' over 'substance'?

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The Individual in a Media World

• Search for transparency in use of technology
• hides the effects of technology.(Sobchack)
• Hermeneutic experiences
• we struggle with technology and we become aware
  of its 'power'.
• symbolic interactionism -gt social construction
  (Weber, Mead, Blumer, Goffman, Garfinkel)
• Does media technology shape the way we see and
  present ourselves?
• Cyberspace and the transformation of identity
  (Turkle and many others)

• Media technology shapes the way we perceive the
  world
• McLuhan movement from print to radio, TV and
  now Electronic Interactive media has a direct
  effect on our psyche
• Ihde selectivity of instruments which
  'organise, select and focus the environment
  through various transformational
  structures'(1997)
• Poster 3 Modes of Information - change the way
  we understand the world (all integrated today)

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The connected individual and the networked
society

• The privatisation of society
• personal networks replace neighbourhood
  participation (Wellman)
• Empowering on a local level as well as global
  level
• Creates new possibilities for Social Movements
• New democracy, Popular Movements, Power of
  communication and knowledge previously in balance
  of state, now in hands of All
• Challenges our ability to live and think alone
• Makes us more aware and more social

• Constant connection though wired and wireless
  terminals
• Augmentation or replacement of local geographical
  presence with global tele-presence.
• Challenge to local and national political
  identity and participation
• - But makes us more aware
• rise of spontaneous single issue political
  organisations
• heightened awareness and access.

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Communication v Information

• Is Information society the correct idea, or the
  correct goal?
• Some would say the communication society is a
  better description of what will give us the
  preferred outcome.
• Why?
• Information Society
• Rationalisation
• Classification
• Ownership
• Control

• Lyon suggests these are basis of Surveillance
  society
• Three theoretical perspectives on understanding
  surveillance
• Capitialism, (Marx)
• Power (Foucault)
• Organisation (Weber)
• Where is hermanutic knowledge? Values, goals
  etc

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Information and Communication

• Information used to
• try to know existing world,
• impute relationships, and to
• predict future
• Communication used to
• Create relationships
• Plan and make the future

• Communication Society
• Communication used to know each other, an
  affective, local process.
• Feelings
• Relationships
• Knowledge, information and tacit information
  exchange
• However
• Are we overloaded with information and
  communication?

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Issues in the Information Society

• Privacy and Freedom
• Paradox ICTs make us more free and less
  freeSurveillance by Government and Corporation
  and fellow citizensAlways connected.
• Electronic Polity
• Electronic Democracy Formal participation and
  political movementsRepression and subversion
• Haves and Have Nots Access, Skills, relevance
• "Digital Citizens" v. The Excluded Digital
  UnderclassNew Global Divisions
• Control of the network
• Open standards, public control or proprietary
  systems and ownership
• Information Overload
• Too much to know, and no time do do anything
• Free market Society

• Organisation of Work
• The networked economy, Teleworking, Flexible
  Working, Portfolio workers, Virtual workplace
• Commodification and Intellectual Property Rights
• Ownership of information and the challenge of
  cost free reproduction
• Altered Consciousness/ Awareness
• Changing perceptions of the world, of self,
  relationships, authority etc
• Death of Distance The End of Time
• 24hr Global economy
• Error 3 When the Earth Crashes
• Information Age Disaster comes from the network
  of networks not outerspace