Page 12 - DLIS101_LIBRARY_AND_INFORMATION_SOCIETY

Unit 1: Library in Social Context

latter’s account is technologically determinist because Castells points out that his approach is Notes
based on a dialectic of technology and society in which technology embodies society and
society uses technology. But Castells also makes clear that the rise of a new “mode of
development” is shaped by capitalist production, i.e., by society, which implies that technology
isn’t the only driving force of society.
• Antonio Negri and Michael Hardt argue that contemporary society is an Empire that is char-
acterized by a singular global logic of capitalist domination that is based on immaterial labour.
With the concept of immaterial labour Negri and Hardt introduce ideas of information soci-
ety discourse into their Marxist account of contemporary capitalism. Immaterial labour would
be labour “that creates immaterial products, such as knowledge, information, communica-
tion, a relationship, or an emotional response”, or services, cultural products, knowledge.
There would be two forms: intellectual labour that produces ideas, symbols, codes, texts,
linguistic figures, images, etc.; and affective labour that produces and manipulates affects
such as a feeling of ease, well-being, satisfaction, excitement, passion, joy, sadness, etc.
Overall, neo-Marxist accounts of the information society have in common that they stress that
knowledge, information technologies, and computer networks have played a role in the
restructuration and globalization of capitalism and the emergence of a flexible regime of
accumulation. They warn that new technologies are embedded into societal antagonisms that cause
structural unemployment, rising poverty, social exclusion, the deregulation of the welfare state and
of labour rights, the lowering of wages, warfare, etc.
Concepts such as knowledge society, information society, network society, informational capitalism,
postindustrial society, transnational network capitalism, postmodern society, etc., show that there
is a vivid discussion in contemporary sociology on the character of contemporary society and the
role that technologies, information, communication, and co-operation play in it. Information society
theory discusses the role of information and information technology in society, the question which
key concepts shall be used for characterizing contemporary society, and how to define such concepts.
It has become a specific branch of contemporary sociology.

Self Assessment

State whether the following statements are true or false:
7. Antonio Negri, characterize the information society as one in which people do immaterial
labour.
8. An information society is a society in which the creation, distribution, diffusion, uses,
intigration and manipulation of information is a significant economic, political and cultural
activity.

1.4 Summary

• The Modern Library identified itself at its onset as “The Modern Library of the World’s Best
Books”.
• An information society is a society in which the creation, distribution, diffusion, uses, inte-
gration and manipulation of information is a significant economic, political, and cultural ac-
tivity.
• One of the first people to develop the concept of the information society was the economist
Fritz Machlup.
• Fritz Machlup (1962) introduced the concept of the knowledge industry.

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