1
LECTURE 1: Technology Debate
Webster (2014): Theories of the Information Society
Chapter 1: Intro
New way of conceiving contemporary societies: ‘information superhighway’ and cybersociety
brought about now by information and communications technologies (ICTs)
Social media:
● Explosion of interest in social media
● where users can both consume and produce information (leading to the invention of
the neologism ‘prosumer’)
● Potential of ‘crowdsourcing’ due to increased availability of computer communication
technologies, accessed by easy to use programmes: ‘anywhere, anytime, always
connected’ technologies have the potential to bring together previously isolated
people
○ ⇔ radical transformation of investment patterns (microfinancing)
○ of retailing (online shopping)
○ political engagement, where the once disenfranchised are empowered
○ shift from computer communications technologies towards interest in social
media, where commentary moves from concern with what technology is doing
to society towards what people can do with technologies that are now
pervasive, accessible and adaptable
Technology push and pull people:
● Technology predicts situations/problems/solutions w/ algorithms
● Everything correlates
● Establish algorithm
● Margin of error due to uncertainty of predictions
○ Room for error when making assumptions about what’s gonna happen
○ Algorithms are vague
○ Implications are unclear → what is the perfect course of action when
there are different norms and values?
○ ⇔ technology debate
Opposing povs:
1. Endorse idea of an Information Society
a. post-industrialism (Daniel Bell and a legion of followers);
b. postmodernism (e.g. Jean Baudrillard, Mark Poster, Paul Virilio);
c. flexible specialisation (e.g. Michael Piore and Charles Sabel, Larry
Hirschhorn);
d. the informational mode of development (Manuel Castells).
2. Regard informatization as the continuation of pre-established relations
a. neo-Marxism (e.g. Herbert Schiller);
b. Regulation School theory (e.g. Michel Aglietta, Alain Lipietz);
c. flexible accumulation (David Harvey);
d. reflexive modernization (Anthony Giddens);
e. the public sphere (Jürgen Habermas, Nicholas Garnham).
, 2
⇔ does not deny the importance of information in the modern world but
argue that its form and function are subordinate to long-established principles
and practices
Chapter 2: Definitions of the Information Society
1. Technological
a. volume of technological innovation must lead to a reconstitution of the social
world because its impact is so profound
b. 3 waves of technological revolution: agricultural revolution, industrial
revolution & information revolution
c. Merging of information & communication technologies
d. Rapid growth of internet and social media ⇔ information
‘superhighway’
e. Key reasons for change in established social order: interactivity, transparency
& flexibility
But: definition is ambiguous because unknown unit of measurement of technological impact
in society
2. Economic
a. Information Society [where] the major arenas of economic activity are the
information goods and service producers, and the public and private
(secondary information sector) bureaucracies
b. Porat distinguished the primary and secondary information sectors of the
economy. The former is susceptible to ready economic valuation since it has
an ascribable market price, while the latter, harder to price but nonetheless
essential to all modern-day organization, involves informational activities
within companies and state institutions
c. Machlup identified information industries such as education, law, publishing,
media and computer manufac- ture, and his attempt to estimate their
changing economic worth
d. Difficulty: behind the weighty statistical tables there is a great deal of
interpretation and value judge- ment as to how to construct categories and
what to include and exclude from the information sector; aggregated data
inevitably homogenize very disparate economic activities (need to distinguish
informal activities on qualitative grounds)
3. Occupational
a. Increase in informational work = information society
b. decline of manufacturing employment and the rise of service sector
employment is interpreted as the loss of manual jobs and its replacement with
white-collar work
i. raw material of non-manual labour is information (as opposed to the
brawn and dexterity plus machinery characteristic of manual labour
c. Occupational change stresses transformative power of information
rather than of technologies ⇔ information being what is drawn upon
and generated in occupations or embodied in people through their
education and experiences
d. Economy today is led and energized by people whose major characteristic is
the capacity to manipulate information. Preferred terms vary, from ‘symbolic
analysts’ and ‘knowledge experts’ to ‘informational labour
4. Spatial
, 3
a. Information networks can connect locations and can have an impact on the
organization of time and space
b. Information networks link together different locations - we can imagine a
‘wired society’ operating at a national, international and global level (ie:
between countries, cities, towns, offices, homes)
But: what actually constitutes a network? Different levels of networking? Flows of info?
When did we enter the network/information society?
5. Cultural
a. media-saturated environment which means that life is quintessentially about
symbolization, about exchanging and receiving – or trying to exchange and
resisting reception of – messages about ourselves and others
b. Can be done through movies, books, music, magazines, newspaper, fashion
Moody (2015): Chapter 10 - Values in Computational Models Revalued The Influence
of Designing Computational Models on Public Decision-Making Processes
Roles of values & trust in computational models in policy processes:
1. Designer of the model
2. Number of different actors
3. Amount of trust already present
4. Agency by humans or technology
Technology debate on design process:
● Determinism: technology is not neutral or value-free (ie: effects and consequences
can be good/bad/both)
○ Technological development does not depend primarily on the intention of the
user but is fixed within the technology itself
○ Agency not given to human user but attributed to technology
○ Political/social norms & values hidden inside technology
● Social constructivism: Economy, society, institutions, and culture shape the direction
and scope of technological development, the form of technology, the practice, and
the outcome of technological change
○ Agency: humans
○ Technology seen as human construct and shaped by humans
○ Technological frame: set of rules, ideas, and meanings within a group and it
determines the interaction between the members of a group. This means the
technological frame determines which meaning a group will attribute to a
technology
○ Strict constructivist: meaning of technology cannot be changed bc never had
meaning in the first place
○ Modern constructivist: can change according to societal development (ex:
atomic bomb/nuclear energy)
● Instrumentalism: technology seen as neutral and value-free tool
○ Technology can be used to any end
○ Technology is indifferent to politics → technology can simply be
used in any social or political context since it is not intertwined with
any context
○ Technology is rational → based on causal propositions; it can
therefore be transferred into any other context as well
LECTURE 1: Technology Debate
Webster (2014): Theories of the Information Society
Chapter 1: Intro
New way of conceiving contemporary societies: ‘information superhighway’ and cybersociety
brought about now by information and communications technologies (ICTs)
Social media:
● Explosion of interest in social media
● where users can both consume and produce information (leading to the invention of
the neologism ‘prosumer’)
● Potential of ‘crowdsourcing’ due to increased availability of computer communication
technologies, accessed by easy to use programmes: ‘anywhere, anytime, always
connected’ technologies have the potential to bring together previously isolated
people
○ ⇔ radical transformation of investment patterns (microfinancing)
○ of retailing (online shopping)
○ political engagement, where the once disenfranchised are empowered
○ shift from computer communications technologies towards interest in social
media, where commentary moves from concern with what technology is doing
to society towards what people can do with technologies that are now
pervasive, accessible and adaptable
Technology push and pull people:
● Technology predicts situations/problems/solutions w/ algorithms
● Everything correlates
● Establish algorithm
● Margin of error due to uncertainty of predictions
○ Room for error when making assumptions about what’s gonna happen
○ Algorithms are vague
○ Implications are unclear → what is the perfect course of action when
there are different norms and values?
○ ⇔ technology debate
Opposing povs:
1. Endorse idea of an Information Society
a. post-industrialism (Daniel Bell and a legion of followers);
b. postmodernism (e.g. Jean Baudrillard, Mark Poster, Paul Virilio);
c. flexible specialisation (e.g. Michael Piore and Charles Sabel, Larry
Hirschhorn);
d. the informational mode of development (Manuel Castells).
2. Regard informatization as the continuation of pre-established relations
a. neo-Marxism (e.g. Herbert Schiller);
b. Regulation School theory (e.g. Michel Aglietta, Alain Lipietz);
c. flexible accumulation (David Harvey);
d. reflexive modernization (Anthony Giddens);
e. the public sphere (Jürgen Habermas, Nicholas Garnham).
, 2
⇔ does not deny the importance of information in the modern world but
argue that its form and function are subordinate to long-established principles
and practices
Chapter 2: Definitions of the Information Society
1. Technological
a. volume of technological innovation must lead to a reconstitution of the social
world because its impact is so profound
b. 3 waves of technological revolution: agricultural revolution, industrial
revolution & information revolution
c. Merging of information & communication technologies
d. Rapid growth of internet and social media ⇔ information
‘superhighway’
e. Key reasons for change in established social order: interactivity, transparency
& flexibility
But: definition is ambiguous because unknown unit of measurement of technological impact
in society
2. Economic
a. Information Society [where] the major arenas of economic activity are the
information goods and service producers, and the public and private
(secondary information sector) bureaucracies
b. Porat distinguished the primary and secondary information sectors of the
economy. The former is susceptible to ready economic valuation since it has
an ascribable market price, while the latter, harder to price but nonetheless
essential to all modern-day organization, involves informational activities
within companies and state institutions
c. Machlup identified information industries such as education, law, publishing,
media and computer manufac- ture, and his attempt to estimate their
changing economic worth
d. Difficulty: behind the weighty statistical tables there is a great deal of
interpretation and value judge- ment as to how to construct categories and
what to include and exclude from the information sector; aggregated data
inevitably homogenize very disparate economic activities (need to distinguish
informal activities on qualitative grounds)
3. Occupational
a. Increase in informational work = information society
b. decline of manufacturing employment and the rise of service sector
employment is interpreted as the loss of manual jobs and its replacement with
white-collar work
i. raw material of non-manual labour is information (as opposed to the
brawn and dexterity plus machinery characteristic of manual labour
c. Occupational change stresses transformative power of information
rather than of technologies ⇔ information being what is drawn upon
and generated in occupations or embodied in people through their
education and experiences
d. Economy today is led and energized by people whose major characteristic is
the capacity to manipulate information. Preferred terms vary, from ‘symbolic
analysts’ and ‘knowledge experts’ to ‘informational labour
4. Spatial
, 3
a. Information networks can connect locations and can have an impact on the
organization of time and space
b. Information networks link together different locations - we can imagine a
‘wired society’ operating at a national, international and global level (ie:
between countries, cities, towns, offices, homes)
But: what actually constitutes a network? Different levels of networking? Flows of info?
When did we enter the network/information society?
5. Cultural
a. media-saturated environment which means that life is quintessentially about
symbolization, about exchanging and receiving – or trying to exchange and
resisting reception of – messages about ourselves and others
b. Can be done through movies, books, music, magazines, newspaper, fashion
Moody (2015): Chapter 10 - Values in Computational Models Revalued The Influence
of Designing Computational Models on Public Decision-Making Processes
Roles of values & trust in computational models in policy processes:
1. Designer of the model
2. Number of different actors
3. Amount of trust already present
4. Agency by humans or technology
Technology debate on design process:
● Determinism: technology is not neutral or value-free (ie: effects and consequences
can be good/bad/both)
○ Technological development does not depend primarily on the intention of the
user but is fixed within the technology itself
○ Agency not given to human user but attributed to technology
○ Political/social norms & values hidden inside technology
● Social constructivism: Economy, society, institutions, and culture shape the direction
and scope of technological development, the form of technology, the practice, and
the outcome of technological change
○ Agency: humans
○ Technology seen as human construct and shaped by humans
○ Technological frame: set of rules, ideas, and meanings within a group and it
determines the interaction between the members of a group. This means the
technological frame determines which meaning a group will attribute to a
technology
○ Strict constructivist: meaning of technology cannot be changed bc never had
meaning in the first place
○ Modern constructivist: can change according to societal development (ex:
atomic bomb/nuclear energy)
● Instrumentalism: technology seen as neutral and value-free tool
○ Technology can be used to any end
○ Technology is indifferent to politics → technology can simply be
used in any social or political context since it is not intertwined with
any context
○ Technology is rational → based on causal propositions; it can
therefore be transferred into any other context as well
