From Information Society to Information Age - Environmental Reform in the Information Age - page 54

communication technologies as axial developments around which a
fundamental transformation of modern society takes place. Equally
often, other scholars have questioned and debated (i) to what extent
informational processes and information-based sectors are really trans-
forming modernity's constitution and outlook; (ii) the sometimes overly
optimistic or structural pessimistic evaluations of such developments
for society; and (iii) the technology determinism that follows from
some of these analyses. From our analysis of the Information Society
and Information Age literature over the past forty years, a number of
conclusions seem relevant for this volume. First, although in the 1970s
and 1980s there was considerable debate as to what extent informa-
tion technologies and information processes were really changing the
constitution of modernity, at the turn of the millennium - with new
information and communication technologies spreading quickly and
widely, and accelerated processes of globalisation - this debate seems
to be less intense. Increasing consent seems to emerge on the significant
influence of informational developments in restructuring the modern
order. Second, more recently, within the Information Age literature,
a set of new issues has emerged, among which structural uncertain-
ties (instead of rather unproblematic knowledge generation), the role
of states in global governance (compared to a strong nation-state per-
spective) and global networks and flows (instead of just information
technologies). Third, throughout these forty years, the environment
has remained largely absent in the theoretical studies that try to under-
stand how and to what extent informational developments transform
modernity. Limited attention has been given to the consequences of
these perceived informational developments for both the environment
directly and environmental governance and reform.
The next chapter starts at this latter end by analysing to what extent
information and informational developments have been included in the
ideas, reflections and debates on environmental governance and reform
over the past forty years.