Theories of the Information Society, Third Edition - Cryptome

CHAPTER SIX
Information and the market:
Herbert Schiller
Any analyst of the contemporary world must acknowledge the tremendous
increase in information and ICTs. It is evident to anyone, even to those taking
only a cursory look, that, for example, there are many more images than ever
before and, of course, there is a large range of new media technologies transmitting
them. It is also obvious that information networks now cover the globe,
operating in real time and handling volumes of information with an unprecedented
velocity, making the telegram and telephony of the 1970s appear way out
of date. The remarkable ascent of the Internet, from virtually zero in 1995 to
majority access across Europe within a decade (Eurostat, 2005), is well known.
Usage is chiefly at work, but in countries such as Britain well over half of all
homes are connected (Oxford Internet Survey, 2005). Figures are even higher
for the United States (Cole, 2005). It is impossible to ignore the routine use of
computerised workstations in offices, to be ignorant of rolling news and digital
television channels, to be unaware of the pervasive spread and sophistication of
computer games, to be blind to the expansion of advertising and its metamorphosis
into forms such as sports sponsorship, direct mail and corporate image
promotion. In short, the ‘information explosion’ is a striking feature of contemporary
life, and any social analyst who ignores it risks not being taken seriously.
As we have seen, there are thinkers, most prominently Daniel Bell, who
believe that this is indicative of a new ‘information society’ emerging. For such
people novelty and change are the keynotes to be struck and announced as
decisive breaks with the past. Against these interpretations, in this chapter I
want to focus on Marxist (perhaps more appropriately Marxian 1 ) analyses of the
‘information age’, centring on one thinker, Herbert Schiller, who acknowledges
the increased importance of information in the current era, but also stresses its
centrality to ongoing developments, arguing that information and communications
are foundational elements of established and familiar capitalist endeavour.
Given the widespread opinion that Marxists hold to an outdated creed,
insisting doggedly that nothing very much has changed this past century, it may
seem odd to encounter a Marxian thinker who conceded, even stressed over thirty
years ago, that we are living in an era in which ‘the production and dissemination
of . . . “information” become major and indispensable activities, by any measure,
in the overall system’ (Herbert Schiller, 1976, p. 3). Perhaps this presumption tells
us only that there is a good deal of misunderstanding about Marxian scholarship.
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