Theories of the Information Society, Third Edition - Cryptome

INFORMATION AND THE MARKET
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Alternative uses of technology are sought out by alternative groups. But they
are few and far between. They mostly fail because the technology is not
aimed at alternative uses, it is not developed to engender real change: for
better or worse, it is developed to preserve.
(Sharpe, n.d., p. 4)
Relatedly, when one comes to examine more closely the actual information
that has increased in such quantity in recent years, one can easily enough fail to
recognise the impress of market criteria. Since it is popular to presume that more
information is in itself advantageous, one rarely asks about the role of the market
and some of the negative consequences of this pressure. But it is useful to reflect
critically on the nostrum that all information is enlightening, in some way an
advance on a less ‘informed’, thereby more ignorant, previous condition. Scepticism
about the value of ever more television programming of an escapist kind
readily springs to mind here, and one supposes this is something about which
many readers might concur. One might also look sceptically at much of the information
made available on the Internet. To be sure, this is enormous, and enormously
varied. A good deal of information on the Internet is also of high quality,
especially that coming from public organisations such as universities and government
departments, and I discuss this further in Chapter 7. But who can doubt that
a very great deal of the information from the Internet is of dubious value, is but
an extension of selling, whether a corporation endeavouring to present an appealing
image or trying to persuade others to buy its products? It is surely possible to
envisage a situation in which the ‘more you watch, the less you know’, a milieu
in which there is more information, but where people are less informed than ever.
For instance, late in November 2003 a poll of British 16 to 24-year-olds found that
42 per cent could not name a single Cabinet Minister, yet half could list five characters
from the television soap EastEnders. Knowledge of celebrities, of the shows
and magazines in which they appear, is prodigious, but it stands in sharp contrast
to widespread ignorance of the mainsprings of social and political life (Ezard,
2003). Market hype and hucksterism surely have some responsibilities here.
Rather than commentators expressing awe at the growth of databases nowadays
available in real time from any terminal, one might ask hard questions about
the criteria which shaped their construction and the bases on which they are
made available. Doing so, one readily becomes aware that the designers of most
on-line information services have endeavoured to appeal to corporate clients
since these have an identifiable need for real-time business information and,
tellingly, they have the ability to pay the premium rates that have fuelled the
rapid rise of ‘information factories’ like TRW, Telerate, Quotron and Datastream.
In this context, Herbert Schiller’s comment is to the point:
In a market economy, the questions of costs and prices inevitably play the
most important . . . roles in what kind of base will be constructed and the
category of uses the base is intended to service (and by which it is to be paid
for). The selection of material that goes into a database is closely linked to
the need for, and the marketability of, the information service.
(Schiller, 1981, p. 35)
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