The Information Society: Validity and Defining Criteria

Introduction: The Rise of the Information Society

For more than a decade it has been commonplace to say that people living in developed and progressive social orders — such as those in Japan, North America, and Western Europe — inhabit an "information society." This claim is made regularly by legislators, academics, and industrialists, each of whom is concerned with being prepared for and competitive in the information age. So familiar has this term become that it hardly seems controversial: it is simply an accepted part of the vocabulary used by influential commentators who remark on the prevailing global condition, treated as an unquestioned premise rather than a claim requiring scrutiny (Webster, 2003).

It is essential to note that during the latter half of the twentieth century, the word "information" was transformed into a focal and almost magical term across most areas of human society and scholarship. This may be illustrated by the coining of new scientific and technological disciplines such as Information Science, Information Theory, Information Systems, and Informatics (Hesse, Muller and Rub, 2000).

This trend appears firmly entrenched, with enough indications that it will persist for at least several foreseeable decades. It is therefore not out of place to describe the century beginning in 1950 as the "information century" and to characterize the present era — or at least large portions of it — as a society of information, as opposed to the industrial century of earlier times (Hesse, Muller and Rub, 2000).

Global Information Society

One of the fundamental assumptions of WSIS and UN-UNESCO is that we live in a new information society. Pyati (2005, p. 1) considers this an arguable claim — a view with which this paper broadly concurs. However, entering that debate is not the primary focus here. This paper aims instead to provide a working description of the worldwide information society that can serve as a basis for identifying the core ethical concerns associated with today's globally interconnected, data-driven world (Britz, 2008).

The essential position taken here is that the information society we live in today is not a radically new phenomenon but rather a continuation and extension of earlier relationships and forms of connectedness. It must be acknowledged, however, that brilliant new technological advances in ICTs have transformed these connections almost beyond recognition, profoundly affecting our economic, social, and political activities (Pyati, 2005). The argument is therefore that current ICTs represent a significant societal shift, reshaping the ethical and economic landscape alongside the information environment itself.

Evans and Wurster (1997), in their influential article "Strategy and the New Economics of Information," described this shift as the capacity of advanced ICTs to separate information from its original physical carriers. This points to the fact that data is no longer confined by linearity — it can be transmitted without direct supervision, and documents become interlinked autonomously, pieces finding each other across the network (Britz, 2008). As Evans and Wurster explained:

"When information is embodied physically — by a salesperson or by a piece of direct mail, for instance — it can go no further than the object that carries it. It is forced to follow the logic of the physical supply chain. But once anyone is connected electronically, information can travel on its own . . . what is truly revolutionary about the explosion in connectivity is the possibility it offers to separate information from its physical carrier." (p. 73, as cited in Britz, 2008)

This decoupling of information from its physical medium has had a significant impact on nearly all human activities. It permits more individuals to be reached simultaneously and exposed to more data interactively, and information itself can be modified and transmitted at negligible cost (Anderson, 2006).

The description of the information society adopted here therefore focuses on the major changes that ICT has produced in our knowledge and information-based activities (Britz, 2008). An information society, in this context, is a community that operates according to the logic of the exchange and lending of data as described above. It assigns the highest value to human capital as the primary source of innovation and productivity. Such a society is substantially connected through advanced ICTs to the virtual dimensions of finance and politics, and has broad exposure to the practical utility of information (Britz, 2008). A sophisticated physical infrastructure is the essential foundation of the new information-based economic model, enabling the delivery of the physical objects accessed and controlled through today's virtual ICT environments (Lor and Britz, 2007).

Technological Aspect of the Information Society

Stepping back from these matters for the purposes of this discussion, it is worth examining more closely — more carefully than is typical — what scholars actually mean when they use the term "information society." As will become apparent, when the concept is scrutinized, it proves to be genuinely ambiguous, lacking coherence, and of questionable analytical integrity. Indeed, the argument made here is that the concept of the information society is insufficient and unhelpful when we attempt to characterize the era in which we live. This suggests that contemporary policy is built on rather insecure foundations (Webster, 2003).

It is useful to distinguish at least four separate meanings of "information society," each of which involves different definitions and characteristics that lead to identifying what is supposedly new about the present era. These criteria are technological, economic, occupational, and spatial — each of which is examined in turn (Webster, 2003).

The most common definition of the information society emphasizes spectacular technological innovation. The central idea is that advances in data processing, storage, and transmission have led to the application of information technology (IT) across virtually every sector of society. The primary concern is with dramatic reductions in hardware costs, massive increases in processing power, and the subsequent deployment of these technologies across every conceivable domain. Since it has now become practical and affordable to embed computing components in typewriters, automobiles, cookers, watches, factory machines, televisions, and children's toys, the revolution in societal dynamics seems to signal the dawn of a new era (Webster, 2003).

Numerous books, magazine articles, and documentary programs have promoted this perspective, arguing that the "relentless micro" will usher in a wholly new "silicon civilization." More sophisticated variants of this technological path to the information society pay closer attention to the convergence of telecommunications and computing — now termed ICT (information and communication technology). In these accounts, the argument runs as follows: inexpensive data processing and storage innovations lead to their widespread adoption; one of the major sectors affected is the telecommunications industry, particularly switching technology, which, as it is modernized, merges with general computing developments and produces still more dramatic improvements in information management and distribution. This convergence is particularly significant because the broad dissemination of computing devices creates an inherent demand for connectivity (Webster, 2003).

In short, the computerization of the telecommunications sector means that computers and networks must be linked: hence the possibility of connections between terminals within and among schools, homes, workplaces, shops, banks, factories, and across the globe itself. This vision of networked computers working in tandem is regularly compared to the provision of electrical power. The "information network" is seen as analogous to the electricity grid: just as the power grid connects every home, office, factory, and shop to deliver electrical energy, the information network delivers data wherever it is needed. This is an evolutionary process, yet with the expanding possibilities of an Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN), the basic infrastructure of an "information society" is already being established. Once in place, these information systems become the highways of the digital age, analogous to the land, water, and air transport routes of the Industrial Age. Just as those routes carried the material goods that drove industrialization, an ISDN will provide the foundational infrastructure for the key resource of the post-industrial era — information. The rapid development of the Internet is a precise indicator of this trajectory (Webster, 2003).

There is, then, a clearly technology-oriented definition of the information society. Whether it envisions this as resulting from the impact of dramatically new technological breakthroughs or from the more incremental development of ISDN frameworks, all such accounts regard technology as the decisive distinguishing feature of the emerging order (Webster, 2003).

It may be tempting to dismiss technology-centered approaches to the information society outright. A great deal of awed commentary, overwhelmed by the pace and scope of technological change, has asserted that "the Computer Revolution will have a staggering and far-reaching effect, influencing every individual on earth in every domain of activity." (Evans, 1979) The futurist writing that adopts this tone is typically filled with alarmist warnings, shallow analysis of substantive issues, and the conviction that only the author has grasped what others have yet to appreciate. It presents a poor case for the legitimacy of technology-based criteria (Webster, 2003).

Nevertheless, this is a persistently recurring account, one that reappears in an apparently cyclical fashion. During the 1980s, amid enthusiasm about the "microelectronics revolution," this was the view promoted by figures such as James Martin and Christopher Evans, attracting substantial media attention. For a time it fell out of favor, only to return with renewed force under the banner of the "information superhighway" in the 1990s and in the celebrated work of MIT scholar Nicholas Negroponte (Webster, 2003).

Even if thinkers such as Alvin Toffler, Christopher Evans, and James Martin provoke a degree of skepticism toward technology-centered criteria, it must be acknowledged that many more serious scholars adopt what is at root a comparable approach. In Britain, for instance, a widely respected tradition developed a neo-Schumpeterian methodology of change. Combining Schumpeter's argument that major technological innovations produce "creative destruction" with Kondratieff's concept of "long waves" of economic development, these analysts contend that IT embodies a new era. This new "techno-economic paradigm" (Freeman et al., 1988) constitutes the Information Age, which is expected to mature in the early decades of the current millennium (Hall et al., 1988; Freeman, 1987; Freeman et al., 1982).

Elsewhere, Piore and Sabel (1984) proposed that new technologies provide the basis for a profoundly different mode of production — "flexible specialization." Thanks to advances in communication and computing, and the competitive advantages these provide to smaller firms capable of rapidly assessing markets and responding nimbly, the prospect emerged of ending "mass manufacturing" and replacing it with customized products made by versatile, multi-skilled workers with adaptive capabilities (Webster, 2003).