Theories of the Information Society

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Theories of the Information SocietyNetwork
Society Media and Globalisation CourseMEVIT
3220/422011 October 2007Carol Azungi Dralega

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This lecture...

• The second and third in the series of five
  theoretical approaches
• Structuration Theory
• Information Society
• Network Society
• Global Flow of Communication
• Time-Space Disjuncture

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The Information Society

• There are many definitions of the IS,
• some of them are
• a society in which the creation, distribution,
• diffusion, use and manipulation of information
  is a significant economic, political and cultural
  activity
• Societies that have become dependent upon complex
  electronic information networks and which
  allocate a major portion of their resources to
  information and communication activities
  (Melody, 1990 26-7)
• Information Society means social and economic
  structure, where productive usage of a resource
  such as information, as well as
  knowledge-intensive production performs a
  prominent roleand where individuals, such as
  consumers, workers, use information extensively
  (OECD, 1994)

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Closely related concepts...

• Post-industrial society
• Post-fordism
• Post-modern society
• Knowledge society
• Network society

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Theoretical Foundations

• Genealogy of the information society concept is
  usually traced to a term post-industrial
  society- a term first used by sociologist Daniel
  Bell (1973). Refer to Frank Webster, Chapter 3 on
  elaboration of the post-industrial society.
• Another source of the information society concept
  is attributed to debates on the information
  economy developed by American economists Fritz
  Machlup (1962) and Marc Porat (1977).

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Theoretical Foundations

• The terms information economy, information
  society, new economy and Networked economy-
  all build on some of Bells ideas on the
  post-industrial society.
• Characteristics of the post-industrial society
• Rise of the service sector
• Decline of agricultural-based economy
• Predominance of information-based work
• Knowledge now key factor in the economy,
  outstripping physical plant / manufacturing

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Bell on Information Society...

• In the pre-industrial society life is a game
  against nature where one works with raw muscle
  power (Bell 1973 126)

In the industrial era where machines predominates
in a technical and rationalized existance, life
is a game against fabricated nature (126). In
contrast to both, life in the post-industrial
society based on services, is a game between
persons (127) what counts is not raw muscle power
or energy but information (127)
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Websters Five Types of Theories

• Most of the work in information society is
  futuristic and technologically deterministic and
  informed by few theoretical insights.
• However, Frank Webster (2000) has build a useful
  typology to understand IS theories
• Technological
• Economic
• Occupational
• Spatial
• Cultural

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Websters Five Types of Theories

• Technological vision of the IS
• Puts emphasis on ICTs and their transformative
  powers.
• Technological innovation new possibilities in
  transmission and storage of information.
• Society has moved from the Industrial
  Revolution and now entered an Information Age.
  Computer technology is to the information age
  what mechanisation was to the industrial
  revolution (John Naisbitt quoted in Frank
  Webster).

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Websters Five Types of Theories

• Economic vision of the IS
• Concerned with economics of information (Fritz
  Machlup). Assesses the size and growth of the
  information industries.
• Puts emphasis on the importance of knowledge to
  the economy.
• Technological innovation central for increasing
  productivity and thus for growth of economics and
  competition between economies (inspired by Joseph
  Schumpeters thinking).

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Websters Five Types of Theories

• Occupational vision of the IS
• Focuses on occupational change- argues that the
  predominance of occupation is found in
  information work service workers now in the
  majority
• Emergence of white collar society and decline
  of blue collar workers (influenced by Daniel
  Bell)
• Many OECD and EU documents on the IS focus on
  this aspect of the IS.

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Websters Five Types of Theories

• Spatial vision of the IS
• Puts emphasis on the information networks which
  connect locations and have great impact on the
  organisation of time and space.
• Information Networks are linking together
  locations within and between offices, towns,
  regions, nations, continents and the entire
  world, seen in increase in transborder data,
  telecom facilities, ISDN, movements of money
  across nations, internet (Castells, 1996)
• Concepts of information superhighway and wired
  society are found in these arguments.

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Websters Five Types of Theories

• Cultural vision of the IS
• Contemporary culture is manifestly more heavily
  information laden than any of its predecessors-
  we are existing in a media saturated environment.
• Growth of institutions dedicated to investing
  everyday life with symbolic significance - e.g.
  global advertising, publishing empires, film
  industry, fashion industry etc
• Interactivity of new technologies provides many
  channels to consume cultural products, thus
  increasing our dependence on information for
  everyday interaction.

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Critical Perspectives

• A crop of critical writers (mainly leftist)
  criticise the dominant view of the information
  society (e.g. Webster, Robins, Garnham, Preston,
  Melody, Mansell, Freeman). Some of the views are
• Theories too technologically deterministic-
  assumptions that technologies shape society more
  than society shapes technology (for instance see
  role of politics and military in determining
  technology).
• All too often theories of the IS are seen as
  universally valid. However, assumptions about the
  information society in the West are not necessary
  relevant for the developing countries. Global
  Divide (the three strands)

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Implications for Policy

• The Developed world
• RD driving force in innovation
• Life long learning
• Flexible employment
• Huge investment in broadband (ICT) and transport
  infrastructure
• Constant policy reorientation due to fast changes
  in technology

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Implications for Policy

• The Developing world
• Lack of infrastructure makes it hard for
  developing countries to fully become information
  societies. Still Africa cannot remain behind.
• Dominant discourse on IS (privatisation,
  liberalisation, open trade) problematic for the
  developing world. Discourse offers narrow
  vision of development focusing on economic growth
  and GDP.
• Digital divide still a grim reality for many
  countries in the South

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Food for Thought

• Does the IS constitute a radical break from the
  industrial society, just as industrialisation
  displaced agricultural society?
• Are information and knowledge driving the
  global economy?
• Can least developed countries become part of the
  IS?
• Is the IS benefiting everyone in the developed
  world (e.g. Europe, US)?

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The Network Society

• Builds onto the foundations of the Information
  society and focuses on networks and their
  organizational forms

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The main proponents..
Jan Van Dijk The Network Society (1999, 2006)
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Manuel Castells The Rise of the Network Society
(part of a Triology)
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What is a Network Society?

• A new techno-economic system (society) where the
  key social structures and activities are
  organized around electronically processes
  information networks
• Social Structures involve the organized
  arrangements of humans in relations of
  production, consumption and reproduction,
  experiences and power expressed in meaningful
  communication coded by culture
• Networks a set of interconnected nodes, with no
  centre

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• So its not just about networks nor social
  networks because networks have been very old
  forms of social organization. It is rather about
  social networks which process and manage
  information and are using micro-electronic based
  technologies

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Examples of nodes...

• A network is a set of interconnected nodes, a
  node is a point at which a curve intersects
  itself. For example
• They are stock exchange markets and their
  ancillary advanced service centers, in the
  network of global financial flows
• They are national councils of ministers and
  European commissioners in the political network
  that governs the EU
• They are coco fields, clandestine labaratories,
  secret landing strips, street gangs and money
  laundering financial institutions in the network
  of drug trafficking that penetrates economies,
  societies and states through out the world...

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Nodes continued...

• They are television systems, entertainment
  studios, computer graphics, news teams and mobile
  device generating, transmitting and receiving
  signals in the global network of the new media at
  the roots of cultural expression and public
  opinion in the Information age
• The typology defined by networks determines that
  distance (intensity of interaction) between two
  points is shorter if both points are nodes in the
  same network that if they were not.
• The distance (physical, social, economic,
  political, cultural) for a given point varies
  from zero( and infinite (

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Characteristics of Networks contd...

• The new economy is organized around global
  networks of capital, management and information
  whose access to technological know-how is at the
  roots of productivity and competitiveness
• The work process is individualized, labour is
  disaggregated in its performance and reintegrated
  in its outcome through the multiplicity of
  interconnected tasks in different sites, ushering
  in a new division of labour based on the
  attributes/capacities of each worker rather than
  on the organization of the task
• For the first time, capitalist modes of
  production shapes social relations over the
  entire planet...(networks and financial flows)

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Characteristics continued...

• Technological/technical convergence (telecoms,
  data comms and Mass comm) leading to
• Social integration/impact
• The demise of Mass audiences
• Two-way communication and interactivity
• The death of time and distance
• Personalized media
• Globalization and Cultural standardization
• Transformations in Politics and democracy (see
  virtual political parties, e-voting, e-referenda,
  e-advocacy, e-news etc)
• Transformation of work and employment

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Characteristics of these networks

• Networks work in binary logic of inclusion and
  exclusion (with processes of domination and
  counter domination)
• Digital networks are global (emergence of
  globally interdependent social structures)
• Adopt to operating environment and expansive
• Emphasis shifted to organizational transformation
• Self-reconfigarable (unity of purpose and
  flexibility in execution) (Appropriate for a
  capitalist economy based on innovation,
  globalization and decentralized concentration
  for work, workers and firms based on flexibility
  and adaptability

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Space of flows...

• Real power is to be found within networks rather
  than confined in global cities (Castells, 2001,
  409)
• Power of flows takes precedence over flows of
  power and
• Network a place for the re-organization of power
  relationships

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Criticism

• Digital Divide (see Norris Pippa, 2001)
• Global divide Not all Countries are a part of
  the Net (Gabriel Bar Harm)
• Social divide social equality is at stake since
  certain categories of people participate more
  than others
• Democratic divide
• Castells exaggerates the importance of links in
  the networks (Jan Van Dijk)
• The rise of counter-networks (of the excluded)

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Literature to consult

• Webster, Frank (2002) Theories of the Information
  Society. London Routledge (2nd Edition)
• Curran, J Gurevitch, M (2005) Mass Media
  Society. London Hodder Arnold (4th Edition) -
  Chapter 15 by N. Garnham
• Castells, M (1996) The Rise of the Network
  Society.Vol. 1 of the Information Age Economy,
  Society and Culture. Oxford Blackwell
• Hamelink, C (1999) The Ethics of Cyberspace.
  London Sage
• Servaes, J N. Capentier (eds.) (2005) Towards a
  Sustainable IS Deconstructing the WSIS. Bristol
  Intellect Books
• Van Dijk J (2nd Ed.) (2006) The Network Society,
  Sage Publication, London

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QUIZ Information and Network Society
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• Q1. The information society can be described as a
  society in which
• The creation, distribution, diffusion, use and
  manipulation of information is a central
  economic, political and cultural activity
• Information is more important than knowledge
• Every one on the global has equal access to
  information since information can now reach all
  corners of the globe

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• Q2. The Information and Network societies are
  driven by
• Economic ambitions
• The need for global political, social and
  cultural integration
• Developments in technological innovation
• America and Europe

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• Q3. The Post Industrial Society was a concept
  first used by Daniel Bell to mean...
• A society were knowledge is a key factor in the
  economy, outstripping manufacturing
• The rise of a service sector
• Decline in agricultural-based work
• Predominance of Information based work

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• Q. 4. The Post-Fordism can be described as
• The decline in the production of the ford car
  brand
• The decline in mass production, mass
  audiences
• The Post-industrial Society

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• Q. 5. Who called the Information Society the
  Knowledge Industry.
• Fritz Machlup (1962)
• Manuel Castels (1999)
• Daniel Bell (1973)

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• Q.6 What is the Japanese word for Information
  society
• Johoka Shakai
• Konnichiwa
• Nanika atta

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• Q7. A Network soceity is one in which
• The network economy stresses that businesses will
  work collectively in webs or as part of business
  ecosystems rather than as stand-alone units.
• 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.

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• Q8. The following critic(s) have accused Castells
  of being too technologically deterministic.
• Daniel Bell (1973)
• Norris Pippa (2001)
• Nicholas Garham (2004)

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• Q9. What was the World Summit of the Information
  Society about
• A pair of UN sponsored conferences about
  Information and Communication (IS) that took
  place in 2003 (Geneva) and 2005 (Tunis)
• Conference aimed to bridge the so-called global
  digital divide separating rich countries from
  poor countries by spreading the access to
  internet in the developing countries
• Was a conference established 17 May as a World
  Information Day

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• Q10. Raw muscle power was to the pre-industrial
  society, machines were to the industrial society
  and .. is to the post-industrial society
  (Daniel Bell, 1973).
• Food
• Nuclear power
• Information

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• Q.11. When we say the Information/Network society
  has brought about the demise of Mass Audiences
  we mean.
• The fragmentation of audiences by media houses or
  communication business to suit their different
  needs
• The death of our ancestors who lived in the pre
  and post industrial era
• There is no more masses left to network With in
  the Network society

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• Q12.The nature of Castels networks are that they
  are
• Global
• Inclusive as much as exclusive
• Have the same unit of purpose, goals, motivation
• Emphasize organisational forms
• Appropriate for capitalist economics and are
  based on flexibility and adaptability
• All the above

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Answers

• A
• AC
• ABCD
• BC
• A
• A
• ABC
• C
• ABC
• C
• A
• F

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Food for thought..

• Think of examples where the relationship between
  media and globalization does not work according
  to the network society thesis....

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MESSAGES FOR STUDENTS...

• Seminar this week (Friday 12 October) Anders Moe
  is discussing the spread and popularity of
  Japanese comics and anime in Room 207. The
  seminar will combine all the groups and will take
  place at 12H00
• MA students Deadline for sending Sarah Chiumbu
  outline of term papers ideas is tomorrow, Friday,
  12 October. Her email is s.h.chiumbu_at_media.uio.no
  
• Conference on Africa on Monday 15 October, the
  Freedom of Expression Foundation is Hosting a
  seminar on New news out of Africa? The seminar
  will be discussing media images of Africa and how
  Norwegian journalists and Norwegian media
  presents the various aspects of change in African
  countries. Place Radisson SAS Scandinavia Hotel
  Time11.15-15.00