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.
