Introduction to Information Society (3 credits/ 6 ECTS)

Themes:

• What is information society about ? Starting points and perspectives
• History of theories of information society
• Key contemporary thinkers of information society and "late" modernity: (Giddens, Castells etc.)
• Critical views on IS
• Globalization and information technology
• Different aspects of information society and globalization: identity, work, democracy, culture etc.

Starting points I

Media / Information Technology and Society:

Developments in mode of production          Developments in communication

and society                                                                     technology

Hunting / gathering                                      Speech

(tribal communities)                                        (face-to-face interaction)

Agriculture                                                   Writing

(states, feudalism)                                           (accounting, system

of laws, manuscripts)

Craft / Trade                                                Printing

(commercial capitalism)                                  (books, papers, announcements)

Industrial revolution                                    Electronic media

(industrial capitalism, socialism)                      (telegraph, telephone, film, record, TV, radio)

Information society                                      Digital communication

(late capitalism)                                              (computers, networks)

(Nordenstreng & Starck 2002)

New Perspectives in Social Theory

Theoretical concepts that describe social and cultural change in contemporary era:

Before                                              After                                           

Industrial Society                               Post-Industrial Society /                  Bell (1973; 1976)

                                                        Information Society

Organized capitalism                          Disorganized capitalism                  Lash & Urry (1987, 1994)

Modern                                             Postmodern                                   E. g. Harvey (1990)

Monopoly capitalism                           Technocapitalism                           Kellner (1989)

Earlier modernity                               Late modernity                              Giddens (1990)

Modern Industrial Society                 Risk Society                                  Beck (1992)

First media age                                  Second media age                          Poster (1995)

Industrial society                                Network society                            Castells (1996)

Sovereignity of nation states               Global empire                                 Hardt & Negri (2000)

National manufacturing society           Global information order                  Lash (2002)

Theories can put:

1. Emphasis on certain features and elements or society as a whole
2. Emphasis on the modern condition or process
3. Emphasis on the break with the past or on the continuation of the past

(Webster 2002)

-> Does information society exist? What is new in it? How is it different from the old?