The Information Society

What are we to make of the information society? Many prominent theorists have argued it to be the most profound and comprehensive transformation of economy, culture and politics since the rise of the industrial way of life in the 18th century. Some saw its arrival in a positive light, where the dreams of democracy, of ‘connectivity’ and ‘efficiency’ constituted a break with the old ways. But other thinkers viewed it more in terms of the recurrent nightmare of capitalism, where the processes of exploitation, commodification and alienation are given much freer rein than ever before. In this book Robert Hassan, a prominent theorist in new media and its effects, analyses and critically appraises these positions and forms them into a coherent narrative to illuminate the phenomenon. Surveying the works of major information society theorists from Daniel Bell to Nicholas Negroponte, and from Vincent Mosco to Manuel Castells, The Information Society is an invaluable resource for understanding the nature of the information society—as well as the meta-processes of neoliberal globalisation and the revolution in information technologies that made it possible.

Preface vii 1 The Information Society Today: The Acceleration of Just About Everything 1 2 The Coming of the Information Society 32 3 Information Takes Over 75 4 A Shrinking Planet 109 5 Commodification and Culture in the Information Society 135 6 Faster and Faster 159 7 Who Rules?: Politics and Control in the Information Society 190 Glossary 224 References 237 Index 253