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Foundation of Library and Information Science

Notes change continually as his social position and environment changes. Similarly, it is likely that
the communication activity of a group or organization will be related to the stage that the
ensemble has reached in its development.
Thirdly, we may expect to find a continually evolving pattern of informative communication
within society as a whole, strongly dependent on changes in the underlying social structure and
relationships.

3.2.1 Aspects of Industrial Society

The characteristic features of life in an industrial society are obvious enough. Most of us live – or
have lived – in a nuclear family group, visited from time to time by more distant kin. We meet
friends and acquaintances on social occasions. Some of us join associations to indulge special
interests – sports, music, politics, etc. To earn a living, we mostly work in organizations –
commercial, industrial, education, administrative, etc.
We are acutely aware of the great variety of occupations to which the social division of labour
has led.

Example: Our daily lives bring us into contact with many other organizations - shops,
schools, the post office, gas and electricity supply, transport services, departments of local and
national government, the police, health and welfare services, trades unions and professional
associations, banks, solicitors, insurance companies and estate agents. We receive the outputs of
organizations concerned with communications – the press, publishing, and broadcasting.

We are aware that the multiplicity of individuals, groups, associations, and organizations is
interdependent, that there is a continual flow of money, goods, energy, information, people and
other resources between them – a flow without which the life of society cannot exist. Even a local
and temporary disruption of a service (such as the electricity supply or the buses), or a strike by
doctors, can cause social havoc, and we are continually oppressed by the fear of widespread and
long-term economic or political crisis.
This interdependence, to a degree, enforces cooperation and accommodation between the
multiplicities of interests, but we know that the result is no heavenly harmony. All the interests
are also, to a degree, competing, in conflict. Individuals may compete for jobs or for status in
their social groups and associations. Economic organizations and services compete for a share in
the market. Government departments compete for limited budget resources. Within industrial
organizations, the broader conflict between capital and labour may be observed.

Did u know? At the global level, competition and conflict among nations is far more evident
than intermittent cooperation.
We are also increasingly aware that the dynamic interweaving of flow processes that constitute
society is a not a ‘steady state’, with an unchanging overall pattern. Every association and
organization in society seems to be growing or declining, developing or decaying, in continual
change. Almost every year sees building of a new nation state and, sometimes the disappearance
of an old one. Organizations are created, merged, divided, or go bankrupt. Their relative
strengths, status, and influence continually alter. Overall, as well as random perturbations and
cyclical oscillations, the flow patterns display secular trends – slow or dramatic changes in
particular directors. These upheavals are, in part, initiated by perpetual innovation – the
production of new goods and services, the introduction of new techniques, new styles of behaviour,
new ideas. The innovations are themselves, in part, a consequence of increase in the speed,
extend, and variety of information available to individuals and communities.

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