The Information Age

"The promise of the Information Age is the unleashing of unprecedented productive capacity by the power of the mind. I think therefore I produce." 

A sociologist of international stature, Manuel Castells has researched the interplay between industry, society and urban forms for thirty years or so. His recent work on economies, cities, societies and information technology culminated in the publication of a 1500 page monster work, The Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture, in three volumes: The Rise of the Network Society (1996), The Power of Identity (1997) and End of Millenium (1998). This is one of the most important works in the field and merits close attention. Some key ideas include:

Volume 1:The Rise of The Network Society

This volume presents evidence for the emergence of a new global, network-based culture, characterised by:

• the globalisation of strategically decisive economic activities
• the networking form of organisation
• the flexibility and instability of work and the individualisation of labour

Castells argues that:

• there is no systematic structural relationship between the diffusion of IT and the development of unemployment levels in the economy as a whole
• changes in communications enables the global distribution of events such as world sporting competitions but we do not live in a 'global village' but rather in customised cottages that are globally produced and locally distributed
• the multimedia world includes two major populations, those that can choose their communications options and those who must take what they are given
• the new global economy and the emerging informational society are spawning a new urban form, megacities with populations upwards of 10 million. The significance of these cities is not their size but their capacity to function as nodes of the global economy, concentrating media and political power, acting as magnets for regional resources and linking up the informational networks (New York, LA, London, Paris, Bangalore, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Rio de Janeiro, Mexico City, etc.). Al Qaida recognised only too well the symbolic significance of the World Trade Centre.

Volume 2: The Power of Identity

In Volume 2 Castells writes about the two major forces shaping the world, globalisation and identity. Globalisation threatens local cultures around the world and people have responded in various ways. Some movements are 'proactive' and seek to lead people into particular social forms, for example feminism and environmentalismwhile others are reactive and seek to build resistance on behalf of God, nation, ethnicity, family or locality. 

Volume 3: End of Millennium

The final volume of the trilogy deals with the processes of social change brought about by the interaction between networks and identity. As an academic sociologist Castells is not given to making populist predictions of the future but in Volume 3 he does describe some of the trends that "may configure society in the early twenty-first century", including:

• the IT revolution will accelerate further and will, through its transformational potential, lead to increased productivity
• the genetic revolution will continue to produce rich rewards
• the global economy will continue to expand
• nation states will survive but under changed conditions of sovereignty
• those who do not participate in the information economy will become more tribal in outlook - "the exclusion of the excluders by the excluded", or self-exclusion.

Castells writes:

"The twenty-first century will not be a dark age. Neither will it deliver to most people the bounties promised by the most extraordinary technological revolution in history. Rather it may well be characterised by informed bewilderment."

And again:

"The dream of the Enlightenment, that reason and science would solve the problems of humankind, is within reach. Yet there is an extraordinary gap between our technological overdevelopment and our social underdevelopment. Our economy, society and culture are built on interests, values, institutions and systems of representation that, by and large, limit collective creativity, confiscate the harvest of information technology and deviate our energy into self-destructive confrontation. This state of affairs must not be. There is no eternal evil in human nature."

He goes on to suggest that the full flowering of the information technology revolution will result in a much better world: a eutopian vision, not a dystopian one.

Summary based on 'Writing The New Economy' by John Middleton (Capstone, 2000).

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