Information society |
An Information society is one which the creation, distribution and manipulation of information is becoming a significant economic and cultural activity. The knowledge economy is its economic counterpart whereby wealth is created through the economic exploitation of knowledge.
The information society is a new kind of society. Specific to this kind of society is the central position information technology has for production and Economics. Information society is seen as successor to industrial society. Closely related concepts are post-industrial society (Daniel Bell), post-fordism, postmodernity society, knowledge society, Telematic Society, Information Revolution, and informational society (Manuel Castells).
=Development of the Information Society model=
One of the first people to develop the concept of the information society was the . [http://infosoc2.informatik.uni-bremen.de/lehre/ig/WS99-00/studienbrief/abschnitt1_3.html]
=What is the Information Society=
There is currently no universally accepted concept of what exactly can be termed information society and what shall rather not so be termed. Most theoreticans agree that we see a transformation which started somewhere between the 1970s and today and is changing the way societies work fundamentally. Information technology is not only Internet, and there are discussions how big the influence of specific media or specific modes of production really is.
Some people, such as Antonio Negri and Newt Gingrich, characterise the information society as one in which people do immaterial labour. 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 and avoid the rest- even if they still sell steadily. Films are becoming more and more judged, in terms of distribution, by their first weekends performance, in many cases cutting out opportunity for word of mouth development.
Another problem with the idea of the information society is that there is no easily agreed upon definition of the term, which can not only include art, texts, blueprints and scientific theories, but also lies, football results, trivia, random letters, mistakes and so on. Information is not necessarily productive or useful. It can even be harmful.
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 (James Boyle, 1996, 6).
=Intellectual Property Considerations=
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, who s 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 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 Millenium Copyright Act in the United States (and similar legislation elsewhere) which make copy protection (see DRM) circumvention illeagal, to the open source and copyleft movements, which seek to encourage and dissemiate 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.
See also: World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS)
The Information Society is also the title of an sociological journal, founded 1981, which defines itself as a critical forum for leading edge analysis of the impacts, policies, system concepts, and methodologies related to information technologies and changes in society and culture (homepage).
Information Society was also a musical group, see Information Society.
= External links =
*[http://topics.developmentgateway.org/special/informationsociety Special Report - Information Society: The Next Steps ] *[http://coanews.org Currents of Awareness]|
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