Theories of the Information Society, Third Edition - Cryptome

NETWORK SOCIETY
Castells, though he does not explicitly say much about it, unquestionably subscribes
to the view that the information age represents an epochal break with
what went before.
Castells obviously gives great weight to informational developments
signalling this transformation. One recognises this, yet must query what Castells
means by information in his account of the new age. In his trilogy he adopts a
variable conception, moving from an emphasis on the ‘network society’ where it
is the flows of information which are the distinguishing feature, to discussion of
the automation of work processes by a variety of electronic devices, to insistence
on the centrality of informational labour which possesses essential qualities
such as communicative and analytical skills, to a definition of informationalism
as ‘the action of knowledge upon knowledge as the main source of productivity’
(1996, p. 17), then to the claim that an ‘informationalised’ society is one in which
‘information generation, processing, and transmission become the fundamental
sources of productivity and power’. It is pretty easy to recognise that these
conceptions of information are by no means the same. For instance, ‘knowledge
upon knowledge’ action cannot be subsumed into an information flow since, for
example, an industrial designer can add value to products by creative input that
has little need for an information network. Again, informational labour, at least
elements of it, can operate quite effectively without routine use of an information
network. Furthermore, just what constitutes a network is problematical, since
this might involve two people speaking on the telephone together or else the
exchange of prodigious amounts of electronic information between computer
terminals.
It is not unreasonable to ask of Castells which particular definition of information
is most germane for marking the new age. I have already said that he
reverts, as a rule, to the familiar ground of technology, especially towards ICTs,
which appears to define the ‘informational mode of development’, though this
sits somewhat uneasily with his focus elsewhere on the centrality of informational
labour. In truth, of course, Castells lumps together a variety of notions of information,
presumably on the grounds that, to grasp the big picture, it is the fact of
the increased import of information, and especially of information movements
between actors and sites, which distinguishes the new age that he refers to as
the ‘network society’.
Nonetheless, this process of homogenisation is not sufficient, since one is left
with the crucial question: What is it about information that identifies the new era?
A reply, tacit in Castells, that it is pretty well everything about information, just
will not do since we must search to distinguish the more from the less consequential.
We may understand more of this objection if we reflect, if only for
heuristic purposes, on an alternative conception of information. Drawing loosely
on the work of Desmond Bernal (1954) and, more recently, that of Nico Stehr
(1994), one may divide history into epochs in terms of the role of theoretical
knowledge, which we may define as information that is abstract, generalisable
and codified in texts of one sort or another.
Bernal divided history into different periods’ use of theoretical knowledge.
Thus the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the period of the Scientific
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