The Information Society: An IntroductionThe impact of the `information society' are multiform and transdisciplinary. There are few areas of social, political and economic life that have not been affected or challenged by the new technologies of information and communication.
In this short introduction, Armand Mattelart unpacks the notion of the information society, and examines why it has become the dominant paradigm for social change in the 21st Century. Critically, he also asks why the notion has come to dominant in the absence of any critical examination of the conditions under which it has been produced. Combining a long-term historical and geopolitical perspective, Mattelart questions the axioms used to legitimate the Information Society and critically assesses the ways in which it has been conceptualised as a theoretical concept as well as policy making tool.
This introduction will be of interest to all students of media and communication, as well as social scientists in general. |
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American analysis Babbage became become Bell Brzezinski cent centre century civilisation Claude Elwood Shannon communication competition computerisation concept countries created crisis culture cyberspace Daniel Bell debate decentralised decision-making democracy deregulation developed discourse doctrine economic electronic end of ideology European Union favour Fordism forecasting Francis Bacon French future global information society human idea industrial society information highways information society innovation institutions intellectual International Telecommunication Union Internet invented knowledge labour language legitimacy Leibniz linked machine Mattelart McLuhan ment methods military munication nation-state neoliberal Norbert Wiener operations organisation Otlet Pentagon philosophy political post-industrial society post-modern principle probability theory production programme regulation revolution role Saint-Simon satellites scientific scientists sector social specialists statistical strategy technical technological determinism telecommunications term theory tion trade UNESCO United universal utopia Vauban Wiener worldwide