Theories of the Information Society, Third Edition - Cryptome

INFORMATION AND THE MARKET
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to draw attention to the prospect of interactive technologies being used for
shopping from home via the television monitor or PC. Joseph Turow and
colleagues (2005) provide sobering evidence of retailers’ use of the Internet to
‘datamine’ computerised records for commercial purposes, a practice encouraged
by widespread public ignorance. Online stores can closely follow movements of
site visitors, amass information that enables consumer profiling and then target
such customers. More intimate still, where the consumer can be induced to ‘sign
in’ with a password, the ‘store gains a gold mine of information’ (p. 6) that can
be enhanced further by adding information made available by data brokers. In
such ways people may be ushered into still more privatised forms of life, while
at the same time the suppliers will be able to construct, electronically, detailed
portraits of every purchase. Thereby each transaction may be monitored, each
programme watched recorded, contributing to a feedback loop that will result
in more refined advertising and cognate material to lock the audience into
consumerism further.
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Objections to Critical Theory
This chapter has concerned itself with Critical Theorists’ way of seeing the ‘information
society’. What, though, about some critical evaluation of its own claims?
There are a number of objections to be made to the Critical Theorists’ position.
One which is quick to the lips nowadays concerns the issue of policy. On
the one hand, it is objected that it is hard to find in the writing of critics any practical
propositions. ‘What would you do, then?’ is a cry of many. On the other
hand, and often connected to the same point, is the alacrity with which those
who oppose Schiller and his ilk proclaim that the collapse of communist societies
invalidates the critique. Since it is at least implicit in the writing of Schiller that
a non-capitalist form of social organisation is possible – for instance, he recurrently
favours ‘public information’ over ‘private’ forms – and since the major
experiments in collectivism have dramatically come to an end, the Critical
Theorists are, not unreasonably, asked to respond to this objection.
But the insights of Critical Theorists are neither obviated because they do
not present an alternative policy, nor are they nullified simply because noncapitalist
regimes have fallen. The major value of the work of Schiller lies in its
capacity to understand and explain the ‘information age’. This is important not
least because any alternative form of society that may be conceived must, if it is
to be credible in any way, start with a sound grasp of the realities of the here
and now. Very many future scenarios – and coming ‘information society’ sketches
are commonplace – actually commence their analyses from idealistic premises
such as the ‘power and potential of technology’ or ‘just imagine what we could
do with all the information becoming available’. Distinct advantages of Schiller’s
accounts are that they remind us to start with an understanding of things as they
are before we begin dreaming about alternatives.
Further, in explaining the genesis of the ‘information age’, Schiller’s work
presents the possibility of radically other ways of organising society. Seeing that
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