Information society: what it is and how it has evolved

Globalization and the dominance of satellites and the Internet have transformed our society.

The term "Information Society refers to an era in which the control and distribution of information are very important elements for economic and social development.

This is precisely the era we are living in today, and has been so named by various authors and government agencies. Below we explain some of the characteristics of the Information Society, as well as the proposals of some authors and related concepts.

What is the Information Society?

The second half of the 18th century witnessed a very important process of transformation that we know as the Industrial Revolution. Since this revolution, Western societies have been organized around the control and optimization of industrial processes. organized around the control and optimization of industrial processes, thus inaugurating an "Industrial Society".Thus, an "Industrial Society" had been inaugurated.

Approximately a century later, these industrial processes began to coexist with the development of technology. with the development of technologyand later with the powerful economic value gained from the control of information.

Progressively, the optimization of industrial processes has been replaced by the production, distribution and management of information, with the associated technologies. This change of model inaugurated the stage we have come to call the Information Society.

Development and boom

The concept of "Information Society" has had a special boom since the 1990s, from the expansion of the Internet and Information Technologies (ICT).. It was even a central theme in the debates of the G7 meetings in 1995, as well as in forums of the European Community and the OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development).

In the same decade, the United States government and agencies of the UN (United Nations) and the World Bank adopted the term and included it in their national and international policies. From this, the Information Society was the central theme of the International Telecommunications Union in 1998, and was finally consolidated in the World Summit of 2003 and 2005, which precisely had the name "Information Society".

Likewise, this model of society has developed alongside the expansion of the globalization paradigm and neoliberal models and policies, the goal of which has been to accelerate the establishment of a global, open and supposedly self-regulated market..

This is because one of the main characteristics of the Information Society is the use of communication technologies as a fundamental element in the development and acceleration of the global economy and international relations. Examples of these technologies are Internet, cellular telephony and satellite television, among others..

Background and key authors

Although the expansion of the term is relatively recent, the Information Society has been studied and defined by numerous defined by numerous intellectuals and government agencies since the 1960s. since the 1960s.

The following are the contributions of some key authors to the understanding of the Information Society.

1. Fritz Machlup (1962)

Intellectual at Princeton University who explored the activities of information and communication through the concept of "knowledge production" as an exercise with monetary valuefundamental for the development of the Information Society.

Marc Porat (1974)

Attached to Stanford University, he proposed that the activities related to the production and management of information have become progressively singularized and through new technologies that allow us to build differentiated and autonomous personalities.. To explain this, the author develops the term "information economy".

3. Daniel Bell (1973)

Introduced the notion of Information Society when he studied and proposed that a "post-industrial" society was developing, which according to the author is based on theoretical knowledge as an economic key.

4. Nora-Minc in 1978

These authors (Simon Nora and Alain Minc) are credited with the concept of "telematics", proposed in a paper in which they explain the development of the IT industry and the IT services sector. the development of the computer and telecommunications services industry and sector. and telecommunications. These sectors and industries are a fundamental part of the establishment of the economic policy of the Information Society.

Yoneji Masuda in 1980

The president of the Institute for the Information Society at the Japan University of Aomori made an analysis of the transition from the Information Society to the Post-Industrial Society, in which he explains how the production and management of information have shaped many of the plans and policies that are in place around the world..

Related concepts

The use of the concept of "Information Society" has some theoretical limits, so many authors have preferred to develop other terms that allow us to account for the social changes and challenges we are currently facing. Thus, for example, the concept of the "Knowledge Society" (adopted by the UN), "Knowledge Societies", "Post-Industrial Society" or "Age of Technology" have emerged.