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'Information Society' is a term used to describe a society in which the creation, distribution, and manipulation of information has become the most significant social dynamic. The intangible concepts of 'knowledge' and ‘information’ are treated as commodities in their own right, and undergo social and commercial transactions (Rosenberg, 2004, p.642). The new set of information technologies must be considered as an essential part of the development of the information society (Castells quoted in Hartley, 2002, p.115). The U.S., Canada, Western-Europe and Japan are said to be such societies (Rosenberg, 2004, p.642).
Other concepts closely related to the information society are the post-industrial society, post-fordism, post-modern society, Telematic society, informational society and knowledge-society. There is little academic consensus about this construct, however most theorists acknowledge that it has technological, economic, occupational, spatial and cultural implications (Webster, 2002, p.8).
The information society promotes information as an enhancer of quality of life (Martin, 1988, p40). This social recognition of informational value and the cultural and economic promotion of such values is theorised to be the driving factor behind individual, national and commercial development (Martin, 1988, p.41).
This notion of a society based on unrestricted informational access and transactions has also resulted in social concerns, particularly issues surrounding the control of informational flow, access and content (Rosenberg, 2004, p.646).
The concept first appeared in social discourse during the early 1960s, with economist Fritz Machlup the first to distinguish information, knowledge and their related activities as being different from 'normal' industrial and social activities (May, 2002, p.5). Yoneji Masuda is regarded as one of the first persons discussing the arrival of the information society in the early 1980's (Webster, 2004, p.10). Masuda drew the picture of a society where "the production of information values and not material values will be the driving force behind the formation and development of society" (Masuda, 1990, p.3).
The information society started to develop in the early 1980's with development of the personal computers. The development of personal computers resulted in networks some 20 years later, like the Internet, the Web and so on (Rosenberg, 2004, p.589). The post-industrial society was characterised as service-based. Although these service-based economies are still present, it is said that society now has entered a new paradigm (Hartley, 2002, p. 114). This development has been characterised as the information revolution. The information revolution is best understood as "a matter of differential (and unequal) access to, and control over, information resources" (Robins and Webster, 1999, p.91). Everyone, after paying for the computer, software and internet provider, have access to an enormous amount of information (Rosenberg, 2004, p.590). Although this is given that they have the necessary skills and resources.
‘Knowledge Economy’ is a term to describe a society where knowledge or information is used for economic advantage (Florida, 2002, p.6). Intangible information becomes the main focus of transactions and may even be valued more highly than tangible physical resources. Products of the knowledge economy are sometimes analogized as ‘recipes’ (Leadbeater, 2005, p.127), meaning that these commodities deal in informational transfer rather than a final, static product. Examples of such knowledge-intensive products include computer software, telecommunications and virtual services.
The cornerstone of the knowledge economy is assigning values to nonexistent objects, intangible ideals and materially useless objects (Bilton and Leary, 2002, p.50). The knowledge economy finds its greatest value in abstract theories and ideals that are not tied to physical reality but are artificial constructs highly upheld within the society that they exist. This notion of the value of ideas over physical objects has also seen the advent of entire new industries, such as creative industries, and occupations (Florida, 2002, p.5).
Intellectual Property(IP) is crucial for new industries such as the creative industries (Rennie, 2005, p. 46). IP puts a monetary value on an intangible asset, such as authorship, music rights etc. This will encourage distribution of an idea and act as an incentive for the owner of the idea (Rennie, 2005, p. 46). There are three types of IP; copyright, trademark and patents. Critics, however, claim that IP laws restrict use of an idea by others and in that way will prevent the emergence of new ideas (Rennie, 2005, p. 46). Creative Commons and Free Software Movement are concepts which have developed as a result of this discussion.
The knowledge economy is driven by multiple factors that are changing the modes of business. Global networking and connectivity developments, particularly the internet, have enabled widespread distribution of information and services. This interconnectedness has seen the boundaries between institutions blur, and companies now have increased capacity to expand their business activities beyond their initial purpose (Rosenberg, 2004, p.642). The globalization of markets, products and networks is also an influence on the knowledge economy, particularly through the international domination of particular products.
The technological conception of the Information Society is based on the proliferation of information communication technologies and their impact on society (Webster, 2002, p.9). The rise of local, national and global computer-mediated information exchanges between private, corporate and government entities has seen the establishment of a globally networked technological infrastructure that is transforming both social and commercial communications (Webster, 2002, p.10). It is suggested that the high level of integration of these technologies into daily life has reconstituted social norms and their ubiquity has changed the way people view the world.
This discourse is not based on technological determinism (Webster, 2002, p.11; Rosenberg, 2004, p.642). Rather than technology as the primary social dynamic, it is conceptualised as development and convergence in response to consumer needs (Flew, 2002, p.34), and these progressions being quickly utilized and intrinsically assimilated into society. This opposing theory is known as the social construction of technology (SCOT) theory.
Attempts to quantify this conception have sought to measure the volume and penetration of particular technologies within a society, however such empirical measures have proven inaccurate and problematic (Webster, 2002, p.10).
The spatial conceptions of the information society focus on the geographic and temporal implications of a globally networked, knowledge-driven society. The organisation of time and space has been dramatically altered by the global proliferation of information communication networks and technologies, with distance, temporal rhythms and the time taken to actually communicate being profoundly reduced (Webster, 2002, p.17). It has been suggested that this new level of communication enabled by the networked society's connectivity heralds a major transformation of our social order (Mulgan, 1991, p.57) and has ushered in a post-industrialist society (Mattelart, 2003, p.43).
The concept of the network society concerns the flow of information across technological networks. It is these networks and their inherent interconnectedness that facilitate the network and information societies. The network society in part results from the idea of an international public sphere supported and enabled by global communication media (Schuler & Day, 2004 p. 229). Sociologists theorize that there has been a shift from economies, technologies and information contained by geographical boundaries to more globalized definitions of social identity and culture, characterized by networks of individuals rather than regions (Barney, 2004, p.19).
The network society is facilitated by the existence of interconnected systems with the ability to exchange data. This is further supported by sophisticated technology that enables communication and information management within a wide variety of contexts. The development of networks as the dominant form of human organisation has lead to increasing numbers of social entities being organized around the network form (Barney, 2004, p.27), such as political, economic and educational institutions.
The connectivity of the network society has lead to a degree of dissolution of centralized power and institutional hierarchies (Schuler & Day, 2004, p.229), as theoretically, everyone now has equal access to informational networks. This is not always the case in practice, and access may be restricted by an individual's access to and understanding of technology among other factors.
Gatekeeping is a term used to describe the process of filtering, enabling and limiting the access and availability of information. The emergence of an information society increases the availability and accessibility of information and has therefore created an opposing trend of controllers seeking to stem or limit this informational flow. A gatekeeper is the person or software who controls access and flow. (Hornby, 2003)
In new media technologies such as the internet, search engines are described as the digital gatekeepers (Hartley, 2002, p.95). The present form of these online gatekeepers limits power of and control over information. Although the availability of informational access has increased more then ever before, the number of online gatekeepers remains very small. Research conduct by Dr. Barzilai-Nahon shows that 75% of online information control is exerted by four major commercial search engines; Google, Yahoo, MSN and AOL(Hornby, 2003). The filtering conducted by these search engines causes large amounts of information to be continuously censored (Hornby, 2003).
Gatekeeping presents issues of social concern. As a human author is controlling the informational flow, there is always some level of inherent (even if unintentional) bias. Moreover, gatekeeping contains the potential to lead to an abuse of power by deciding what information to discard and what to let pass. (University of Twente, 2004)
Information and internet censorship can arguably be both useful to society (such as in censoring pornographic or violent websites)and misused (arguments focus on withheld governmental and commercial data).
Roszak claims that as the computer and information technology penetrates deeper into our daily lives it "holds the possibility of shaping our thought, or rather the very conception of thought itself..." (Roszak, 2004, p. 61). He points at the utopian aspirations for computer driven technology, and the need for human beings to control the development of technology and not the other way around (Roszak, 2004, p.61).
Security risk is pointed out as another weakness with the information society. Rosenberg among others stresses the security issue and explains it with the increasing dependency on technology in the society and the risks connected to storing information (Rosenberg, 2004, p.591). Risks like natural disasters and threats of terrorism are hard to manage (Rosenberg, 2004, p.646). "If the promise of the Information Society is increased wealth with less physical labor for many, then one of the costs is increased security for all and increased risk for some." (Rosenberg, 2004, p. 591)
There are many other different criticisms of the information society concept, however central to most arguments is the construct’s lack of clarity and specificity (May, 2002, p.155; Castells, 2000, p.414; Webster, 2002, p.5).
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Webster, F. (2002) Theories of The Information Society: 2nd Edition, London: Routeledge. ISBN 0415282012
Creative Commons
Fritz Machlup
Knowledge Economy
Richard Florida
UN World Summit on the Information Society
Daniel Cotter, Jessica Larsen, Kristin Huddleston, Ryuya Kina, Kristine Bjoernstad.
