Jonscher (1983, in Webster 1996)) provides a more simple occupational classification of the information economy: the information sector, which does the creating, processing and handling of information; and the production sector, which does the creating, processing and handling of physical goods.
The occupational definition, however, is criticized for its failure to account for the complex differences among jobs with the same titles that vary depending upon the working conditions (Miles 1991).
Another definition of the information society comes from the spatial approach, which places a major emphasis on the impact of information networks on the organization of time and space. John Goddard (1992, in Webster 1995) identifies four interrelated elements in the transition to an information society: 1) information is coming to occupy center stage as the “key strategic resource” on which the organization of the world economy is dependent; 2) computer and communications technologies provide the infrastructure that enables information to be processed and distributed; 3) there has been an exceptionally rapid growth of the tradeable information sector of the economy, characterized by the explosive growth of new media and online databases providing information; and 4) the growing informatization of the economy is facilitating the integration of national and regional economies. All these elements have come to contribute to the massive increase in transborder data flows—in telecommunications facilities, in communications between computers at every level from home to transnational organization, in exchanges between stock markets, and in access to international databases (Webster 1995).
The cultural definition of the information society is the most easily acknowledged, yet the least measured. It refers to the cultural impact of the extraordinary increase in the flow of information in social circulation. This is brought about by the role played by different media technologies in the television, video, radio, film, and publishing industries.
Lastly, and perhaps the most popular conception of the information society (and most relevant to this paper), is that of the spectacular technological innovation characteristic of the information economy. This refers to breakthroughs in information processing, storage and transmission, and the convergence of telecommunications and computing technologies. The computerization of telecommunications has led to the linking of computers and information between offices, banks, homes, shops, factories, and schools, resulting in the creation of the “information grid.” As this grid (called the ISDN—Integrated Services Digital Network) links almost every aspect of the economy, it becomes the highway of the information society, much like the role of roads and railways in the industrial era (Webster 1995).
The technological definition has two well-founded objections. First is the question of how much information technology is needed and how far should it take society before society can be called an “information society.” This is further complicated by the issue of the effectiveness of measurement systems that have been developed, if at all, to assess the rate of technological diffusion. The second objection lies in the debate on the primacy of technology in determining the needs of society, in what has become a hotly contested debate among social scientists, called the technological determinism debate.
The Technological Determinism Debate
The assignment of agency to technology with respect to its power to bring about social change has been the subject of much debate among technological determinists and many Marxist scholars. The role of technology in the information age is put into question in terms of its impact on the existing mode of production, and how it affects the forces and relations involved in it.
Technological determinists treat technology as the initiator of events, as the driving force and agency of change (Sussman, 1997). One of the foremost proponents of this view is Daniel Bell (1979), whose discussion of the post-industrial society ascribed agency to technology in bringing about social change. He argues that new communications enlarge the arenas in which social action takes place, without regard to human agency, or existing power configurations and organized interests in society. Further, “…his arguments about the post-industrial society tend to treat politics and ideology as largely irrelevant in a computer- and information-based society ruled by the rationality of a technocratic elite (scientists, engineers, technicians, professional administrators, and leading academics)” (Sussman 1997).
Another technological determinist is Dizard (1982, in Sussman 1997), who asserts that:
“In the communications and information fields, new technologies no longer develop in a linear fashion, separated by decades, with enough time in between for their implications to be sorted out and for them to be brought into active use. Now we are dealing with a wide range of converging technologies, which forces us to make immediate choices and leaves considerably less margin for error.”
In this line of analysis, humans are treated not as actors, but objects. Technology has no economic or political interest, only a way of governing that is politically neutral, though demanding but unstoppable (Sussman 1997).
Another supporter of technological determinism is the communications theorist Marshall McLuhan (1964), who claimed that technology lacked any political dimensionality, while ascribing power to electronic communications in its capacity to link people and communities to a “global village.” This orientation is part of a larger body of post-industrialist literature that have assumed the power of machines and tools to relocate people to industrial centers, of automobiles to create suburbs, of computers to establish service industries based on knowledge rather than on mechanical skills, thereby making labor anachronistic. Similarly, information technologies are said to provide the means by which industrial society is transformed to one based on the production and distribution of information and knowledge (Sussman 1997).
On the other hand, critical analysts argue that human agency must never be overlooked regardless of how functionally sophisticated technical instruments may be. They say that assigning autonomy to technology fails to take into account political power and economic interests, which have a predominant role in social formations, while concealing the existence of powerful corporations and how they conduct their activities according to their interests (Balabanian 1980, in Sussman 1997). Thus, leaving technological inquiry and decisions to apolitical technical experts means that their own or their sponsors’ particular biases and interests will determine what kind of technology is created and for what purpose. Besides, their control over the creation of technology is seen in how they protect their expert status by designing technological systems that can only be understood by them, which makes them indispensable and gives them political power over their clientele (Shapiro 1981 in Sussman 1997).
Armand Mattelart (1978, in Sussman 1997) points out that assigning creative social and historical agency to technology is an example of a commodity fetish. Thus:
“The communication fetish hides the repressive and manipulative character of the dominant technological power of the diffusion of information (a veritable new productive force) and presents it to those dominated by it as a force of liberation and good will.”
Critical theory holds that an analysis of the role of technology should “consider the unequal distribution of control…and the wider pattern of inequality in the distribution of wealth and power…especially the class structure and the unequal exchange between advanced and developing nations” (White 1984, in Sussman 1997). This kind of analysis is consistent with how Marx interpreted the characteristics and evolution of capitalism, where he showed how political power and the accumulation of wealth were historically intertwined, and how capitalism represented a structure of social classes functionally and culturally linked to the system of production.
Technological Determinism and the Mode of Production in Marx
Marx’s discourse on historical materialism maintains that the forces and relations of production determine the properties of non-economic institutions—the state, ideology, religion, etc. The forces of production are the forms of technology within society, through which society produces the goods needed to sustain its members. The relations of production, on the other hand, are the relations of power and authority through which the forces of production are utilized (Little 1986).
In the writings of Marx, the economic structure, or the totality of the relations of production (which give rise to the development of the forces of production), serves as the foundation of society under a given superstructure. The superstructure is modified as the economic structure is changed by the clashing of the relations and forces of production. A portion from A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy shows this explicitly:
“In the social production of their existence, men inevitably enter into definite relations, which are independent of their will, namely relations of production appropriate to a given stage in the development of their material forces of production. The totality of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society, the real foundation, on which arises a legal and political superstructure and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness…At a certain stage of development, the material productive forces of society come into conflict with the existing relations of production or—this merely expresses the same thing in legal terms—with the property relations within the framework of which they have operated hitherto. From forms of development of the productive forces these relations turn into their fetters. Then begins an era of social revolution. The changes in the economic foundation lead sooner or later to the transformation of the whole immense superstructure.”
(Marx, in Little 1986)
In discussing the transition from feudal production to capitalism in the Communist Manifesto, Marx writes: “the means of production and of exchange…were generated in feudal society. At a certain stage in the development of these means of production and exchange…the feudal relations of property became no longer compatible with the already developed productive forces; they became so many fetters. They had to be burst asunder; they were burst asunder” (Marx 1848 in Little 1986). This strengthens the argument that the economic structure can be changed by its clash with the material forces of production.
Marx says further that different modes of production are characterized by profoundly different relations of production, and that these differences impose different laws of development and organization of the social formation. Some modes of production lead by their own internal dynamic to the development of a new mode of production. Since the mode of production is the structure of social organization through which human beings satisfy their material needs at a particular point in history, there are common elements that can be found among them. This includes organized labor, common forms of tools and raw materials, dealing with scarcity and surplus, and the need to satisfy human needs. He points out, however, that the concern should be with the historically specific features of the mode of production, in the social relations that distinguish one mode from another. The relations of production, as defined here, are the social relations of production, and not merely work relations. For example, the relation between two workers using a two-man saw is merely a work relation, as it is defined by the character of the technology in use and not by the power held by some individuals over others (Little 1986).
In Marx’s writings, the implications of technology per se are not given as much emphasis as the social relations through which technology is utilized. There is a suggestion, however, that technology and social institutions pf production do impose logic on social life (Little 1986). But with regard to technological determinism, several positions have arisen. G.A. Cohen argues that for Marx, “the forces of production are historically fundamental: as the forces of production develop they create relations of production that at first favor their development and then become obstacles to further development” (in Little 1986)
Little says that Cohen’s argument depends heavily on the statement of Marx in A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, quoted earlier. Another theorist, however, argues that the bulk of Marx’s historical explanations do not conform to the schema of technological determinism; his attention is primarily directed to the specifics of the relations of class and property within which historical processes take place (Miller, in Little 1986). Little himself argues at length that Marx’s position in Capital seems to attribute explanatory primacy to the relations of production that define the capitalist economic structure, as it is the social relations of production characteristic of capitalism that lead to the explosive expansion in technology and productivity.
Further, Young argues that the imperative in the capitalist mode of production that has led to the accumulation of capital and the increase in technology and productivity follows from the social relations of capitalism. He maintains that capitalism develops through the following contradiction: the relations of production cause the forces of production to expand without limit and make it possible to smoothly realize the price of the commodities so produced. This places the cause of dynamism in capitalism on the relations of production within the economic structure, and not on the forces of production.
Castells and the Informational Mode of Development
In his discussion of the informational city, Manuel Castells examines the relations between technological innovation, socio-economic realignment and changes in locations and places. Central to his theory is the idea that a combination of capitalist restructuring and technological innovation is the major factor transforming society and urban and regional terrains (Webster 1995)
He makes a distinction between the capitalist mode of production and the informational mode of development. The capitalist mode of production is “premised on the search for profit, private ownership of property (though capital may be held by the state), competition between participants, marketability as a key determinant of what gets made and remains available, and growth (capital accumulation) as a major goal of capitalist enterprise.” A mode of development is defined as a means of generating a given level of production. Thus, the informational mode of development, which is a new socio-technical paradigm, is one whose main feature is “the emergence of information processing as the core fundamental activity conditioning the effectiveness and productivity of all processes of production, distribution, consumption, and management.” (Castells 1989 in Webster 1995).
Webster discusses the implications of this distinction—the mode of production as a way of organizing societies, and the mode of development as a means of achieving productivity—as the difference between social arrangements and technical requisites. Castells is explicit in saying that “modes of development evolve acoording to their own logic,” and that the informational mode of developemnt is relatively autonomous from the capitalist mode of production. This means that social change may be determined, to an unspecified extent, by technology, and that however much capitalism may change, a certain technical realm will remain intact.
Castell’s theory is very much within the realm of the technological determinism debate. Statements such as “a technological information revolution as the backbone of all major structural transformations” readily lends him to the label of a technological deterrminist. He makes a more substantive argument, however, as he considers the role of the informational mode of development in the context of a crisis within advanced capitalism that developed in the early 1970s. He says that the combination of capitalist restructuring and informationalism, or the timely arrival of the informational mode of development at a time of capitalist crisis, has led to the revival of the capitalist enterprise. The massive increases in productivity, the creation of new and improved products, the flexibility of production, and internationalization of economic affairs, all brought about by information technology, have greatly helped restructure the capitalist economy (in Webster 1995).
In this restructuring, the informational economy gained primary importance, as the development of IT networks around the globe shifted the concern of organizations to the management of and response to information flows. This has led to the expansion of production, distribution and sales systems, thereby causing the proliferation of transnational corporations, global networks, and international labor migration.
Castells (2000) further argues that the global economy is characterized by the existence of information networks that connect corporate centers and financial markets. Thus, the actual operations of capital have come to take place in these information networks. This shows how great the impact of information technology has been on the management of production and distribution, and on the productive process itself.
Bibliography
Booth, David (1985) “Marxism and Development Sociology: Interpreting the Impasse”, in Shaw, Martin (ed.) Marxist Sociology Revisited: Critical Assessments Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire and London: The McMillan Press, Ltd.
Castells, Manuel (2000) “The Global Economy”, in Held, David and Anthony McGrew (eds.) The Global Transformations Reader Cambridge: Polity Press
Little, Daniel (1986) The Scientific Marx Minneapolis: The University of Minnesota Press
Straubhaar, Joseph and Robert LaRose (1996) Communications Media in the Information Society Belmont,CA: Wadsworth Publishing Company
Sussman, Gerald (1997) Communication, Technology, and Politics in the Information Age Thousand Oaks, CA, London and New Delhi: Sage Publications
Webster. Frank (1995) “Information and the Idea of an Information Society” in Webster, Frank (ed.) Theories of the Information Society London and New York: Routledge
__________________ “Information and Urban Change: Manuel Castells” in Webster, Frank (ed.) Theories of the Information Society London and New York: Routledge
