From Information Society to Information Age - Environmental Reform in the Information Age - page 40

The backside of the Information Society
Although most of the studies on the Information Society thesis have
rather optimistic and positive connotations when analysing the trans-
formations in technological paradigm, occupational patterns, eco-
nomic structure and social and cultural institutions, there is also a vast
literature that is more critical and ambivalent towards the coming of
an Information Society. In contrast to some of the sceptics mentioned
earlier, these critics do not so much deny the (coming or prevailing)
transformation into an Information Society. They concentrate, rather,
on the negative effects and structural design faults of such a new society
in the making, highlighting especially three drawbacks.
First, and related to the argument of continuity of a capitalist
structure under conditions of an Information Society, several authors
have strongly criticised the concentration of information flows in the
hands of a few powerful multinationals and elites. The critical theorist
Herbert Schiller is arguably among the strongest critics of a posi-
tive connotation of the information revolution. For whose benefit and
under whose control will the Information Society be implemented?
Schiller ( 1969 ; 1981 ; 1989 ) basically provides three interrelated argu-
ments in emphasizing the inequalities and the power relations related to
the Information Society. First, information and communication inno-
vations are developed and implemented under market conditions and,
thus, decisively influenced by market pressures, inequalities and prof-
its. The commodification of information means that information is
treated like any other good or commodity under capitalism. Hence,
these information commodities will benefit few, whereas large sections
of society will be deprived of these benefits. Second, the capacity to gen-
erate information, the distribution of it and the access to information
are significantly determined by and run along class inequalities. Con-
sequently, unequal class positions determine the winners and the losers
of the informational revolution, in as much as it did with the Indus-
trial Revolution. Third, and finally, the dominance of contemporary
corporate capitalism, formed by oligopolistic, concentrated transna-
tional firms, means that the Information Society will resemble these
hegemonic interests. These three characteristics prevent Schiller from
any optimism on the outcomes of an Information Society. As capital-
ism continues also in the Information Society, there is nothing really
new to report in terms of inequalities and dominations.