CS104 Information & Information Systems (original) (raw)

The Information Society by Professor Hiranya K. Nath

This article briefly discusses various definitions and concepts of the so-called information society. The term information society has been proposed to refer to the post-industrial society in which information plays a pivotal role. The definitions that have been proposed over the years highlight five underlying characterisations of an information society: technological, economic, sociological, spatial, and cultural. This article discusses those characteristics. While the emergence of an information society may be just a figment of one’s imagination, the concept could be a good organising principle to describe and analyse the changes of the past 50 years and of the future in the 21st century. Key words: Information economy, information society, post-industrial society

The Genesis of the Modern Information Society and the Main World Characteristics

Administrative consulting, 2019

We consider the historical aspect of the formation of the modern information society as a result of the world information revolution. The main stages of the world information revolution are: the Neolithic revolution, iron revolution, the emergence of writing, the invention of printing; the appearance of the telegraph, telephone, radio and television; the emergence of electronic computers, the creation of the Internet. The idea of the information society was formulated in the late 60s-early 70s of the XX century. However, in the 70s of the 20th century there was a convergence of two simultaneously emerging ideologies-the information society and post-industrialism. To date, Information economy is a sector of the information industry of the economic system of the country. The new economic system is highly dynamic, leading to the growth of economic inequality countries, becomes a potential source of conflicts of a different nature. Information, as a reproducible resource, becomes an object of sale and purchase and a source of long-term economic growth. We consider the stages of the world information revolution. The Internet revolution is comparable in its value to the Neolithic and iron revolutions, with the industrial revolution that made the world economy leader England in the 19th century. We distinguish eight characteristics of the modern information society: unique knowledge, strengthening the role of entrepreneurship, digital technologies, creative highly qualified specialists, the growth of the global online population, the lack of ICT skills, the rapid development of the mobile world, the lack of a unified methodology for measuring ICT skills. The authors come to the conclusion about necessity of creation of uniform world information educational environment for people from all over the world due to the low global level of ICT-skills and the lack of a common methodology for the measurement ICT-skills.

The Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture. Volume I. The Rise of the Network Society

The British Journal of Sociology, 1997

Volume I The Rise of the Network Society ''We live today in a period of intense and puzzling transformation, signalling perhaps a move beyond the industrial era altogether. Yet where are the great sociological works that chart this transition? Hence the importance of Manuel Castells' multivolume work, in which he seeks to chart the social and economic dynamics of the information age. .. [It] is bound to be a major reference source for years to come.'' (Anthony Giddens, The Times Higher Education Supplement) ''A brief review cannot do it justice. No other scholar has approached the subject of the information age in as engaging and innovative a way as this author. Strongly recommended for academic libraries.'' (Choice) A little over a decade since its first publication, the hypotheses set out in Manuel Castells' groundbreaking trilogy have largely been verified. In a substantial new preface to the first volume in the series, Castells demonstrates, in the light of major world trends, how the network society has now fully risen on a global scale. The book discusses how the global economy is now characterized by the almost instantaneous flow and exchange of information, capital, and cultural communication. These flows order and condition both consumption and production. The networks themselves reflect and create distinctive cultures. Both they and the traffic they carry are largely outside national regulation. Our dependence on the new modes of informational flow gives to those in a position to control them enormous power to control us. The main political arena is now the media, and the media are not politically answerable. Based on research in the USA, Asia, Latin America, and Europe, Castells formulates a systematic theory of the information society and details the new social and economic developments brought by the Internet and the ''new economy.''

Course outline: Information society; an introduction ------- شرح درس مبانی جامعه اطلاعاتی

This course will generally discuss the nature of information society as well as critically review the main notions proposed to understand the different aspects on this ‘new society’. To this end, we will read writings from Giddens, Habermas, Castells, Schiller, Lyotard, etc. Moreover, we will investigate the ongoing debates on information society from a critical lens. Thus, we will use Marx, Frankfort thinkers (e.g., Althusser), post-modernists and post-structuralists scholars (e.g., Foucault) and Hannah Arendt’s ideas to better understand what information society is, how it works and the networks and mechanisms in which such a society entangles and embodies. Finally, we will focus on new conceptualization of such society like networked or platform society. Overall, this course will provide students with a comprehensive understanding of information society and will enable them to discuss the relevant theories and concepts critically.

The Nature of the Information Society: An Industrialized Country Perspective

Paper for the ITU Visions of the Information Society Lecture series in conjunction with PrepCom 2, World Summit on the Information Society, 2003

What does the twenty-first century" information society'mean for all of us? This paper will examine information society developments primarily from an industrialized country perspective. However, it will acknowledge that the spread of networks means that developments in the industrialised countries have major implications for developing countries.

The environment in an `information society

Futures, 1998

Social scientists and futurists have suggested that societal development is advancing to a novel stage, to an 'information society'. However, the crucial qualifiers of this 'new' society are ambiguous. Furthermore, environmental goals have created new challenges for information society studies. This paper examines the interaction and dynamics between the information society and sustainable development, which most often manifest themselves as competing scientific and socio-political discourses. On the one hand, there is the potential for reducing the stress on the environment: the emergence of information technologies and services can lead to a dematerialisation of production and immaterialisation of consumption. On the other hand, there are risks: positive environmental effects might be overcome by the 'rebound effect' caused by excessive economic growth. It is concluded that further theoretical and empirical studies are needed in order to examine the complex and contradictory relationship between the information society and environmental issues.

The Role Of Technology and Innovation In The Framework Of The Information Society

information society, 2012

The literature on the information society indicates that it is a still-developing field of research. It can be explained by the lack of consensus on basic definitions and research methods. There are also different judgments on the importance and the significance of the information society. Some social scientists write about a change of era, others emphasize parallelism with the past. There are some authors who expect that the information society will solve the problems of social inequalities, poverty and unemployment, while others blame it on the widening social gap between the information haves and have-nots. Various models of the information society have been developed so far and they are so different from country to country that it would be rather unwise to look for a single, all-encompassing definition. In our time a number of profound socio-economic changes are underway. Almost every field of our life is affected by the different phenomena of globalization, beside the growing role of the individual; another important characteristic of this process is the development of an organizing principle based on the free creation, distribution, access and use of knowledge and information. The 1990s and the 21st century is undoubtedly characterized by the world of the information society (as a form of the post-industrial society), which represents a different quality compared to the previous ones. The application of these theories and schools on ICT is problematic in many respects. First, as we stated above, there is not a single, widely used paradigm which has synthesized the various schools and theories dealing with technology and society. Second, these fragmented approaches do not have a fully-fledged mode of application to the relationship of ICT and (information) society. Third, SCOT, ANT, the evolutionary- or the systems approach to the history of technology – when dealing with information society – does not take into account the results of approaches (such as information science or information systems literature or social informatics, information management and knowledge management, communication and media studies) studying the very essence of the information age: information, communication and knowledge. The list of unnoticed or partially incorporated sciences, which focuses on the role of ICT in human information processing and other cognitive activities, is much longer.