Theories of the Information Society, Third Edition - Cryptome

NETWORK SOCIETY
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the ‘mode of development’, then Castells must face the charge, irrespective
of his somewhat different terminology, that he regards change as developing
though a series of hierarchically tiered stages of the sort familiar to all readers of
post-industrial theory: whether from industrialism to post-industrialism (Bell’s
concepts), or from industrialism to informationalism (Castells’s preferred term),
the differences in substance are hard to see. It follows, as it must, that he argues
that a certain technological foundation is the prerequisite and determinant of
social and political life.
Moreover, this is not just a matter of reducing political options (though it
does, indeed, mean just that), since it is also a position which flies in the face
of a good deal of sociological analysis of technological change, notably that
which insists that it is mistaken to imagine technology as an autonomous, asocial
phenomenon which yet exercises a decisive impact on society.
Epochal change
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At this point it is appropriate to consider further the presumption in Castells that
informational capitalism marks an epochal change. While capitalism remains in
force, it is clear, too, that he believes – as the title of his trilogy announces – that
we have entered the ‘information age’. I want now to reflect on Castells’s account
of change in terms of the question, just how does one identify epochal transitions?
In doing so, I intend to raise doubts about Castells’s concept of information itself
which, I shall argue, is eclectic and confusing, albeit central to his depiction of
epochal change.
A moment’s thought makes clear that epochal shifts are not identified
straightforwardly even by momentous developments. For instance, wars and
plagues can have enormous consequences, as may famine and religious crises,
but the promotion of these to the level at which they become signals of epochal
transformation always requires an interpretative frame. This is not to deny the
importance of particular events and processes; it is rather to underline how interpretation
remains inescapable. That said, epochal shifts are not all in the eye of
the beholder: the evidence that can be adduced, and the quality of argument,
allow some markers to be accepted more readily than others. I am, in short,
sympathetic to the writing of epochal history and am convinced of its feasibility,
even while I concede that epochal shifts are not self-evidently there, whether in
the form of political trends, economic developments or technological innovations.
Martin Albrow’s (1996) interesting study, The Global Age, underlines the
fact that there are alternative ways of identifying major transformations over
time. He distinguishes three historical epochs, the medieval, the modern and the
global, arguing that the last age, one into which we have recently entered, is
brought about by an accumulation of factors, but is signalled by the planet
becoming the reference point in economic, political, educational and ecological
affairs. Marxists, of course, have stressed other markers of epochal change:
namely, slavery, feudalism and capitalism. Daniel Bell, to whom I referred above,
has a different set of indicators: pre-industrial, industrial and post-industrial. Manuel
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