The Information Society (eBook)

Cyber Dreams and Digital Nightmares

Robert Hassan (Autor)

eBook Download: PDF | EPUB

2013 | 1. Auflage
280 Seiten
John Wiley & Sons (Verlag)
978-0-7456-5528-4 (ISBN)

Infos

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.

Autor

Robert Hassan is Senior Researcher in Media and Communications at the University of Melbourne.

Inhalt

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

Rezensionen

"Robert Hassan provides here an accessible and valuable
review of the information society, with his own forceful argument
for the role of neo-liberalism in shaping this accelerating and
volatile world in which we must live."

Frank Webster, City University of London

"Robert Hassan has successfully updated the stale notion
of information society. From the perspective of Internet culture
Hassan takes apart the self-evident information technology hype.
Instead of leading us further down into cold, sociological
formulas, The Information Society engages in contemporary
debates around the network effect. Hassan singles out two
processes: commodification and acceleration. The critical
contribution centres around the speed illusion of today's network
society, culminating in the often heard question: how do you deal
with chronic distraction?"

Geert Lovink, University of Amsterdam

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 25.4.2013
• Reihe/Serie: DMS - Digital Media and Society
• Reihe/Serie: DMS - Digital Media and Society
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Mathematik / Informatik ► Informatik ► Datenbanken
• Themenwelt: Informatik ► Office Programme ► Outlook
• Themenwelt: Naturwissenschaften
• Themenwelt: Sozialwissenschaften ► Kommunikation / Medien
• Themenwelt: Sozialwissenschaften ► Soziologie
• Schlagworte: Communication & Media Studies • Communication Studies • Informationsgesellschaft • Kommunikationswissenschaft • Kommunikation u. Medienforschung
• ISBN-10: 0-7456-5528-9 / 0745655289
• ISBN-13: 978-0-7456-5528-4 / 9780745655284