Theories of the Information Society, Third Edition - Cryptome

INFORMATION AND THE MARKET
cultural and economic capital too sharply, but I would underline the need for a
more sophisticated account of stratification in order to gauge differential access
to and use of information resources.
Another objection has to be the Critical Theorists’ tendency to offer an ‘all
or nothing’ view of information. Against this, it could be contended that, while
there is a good deal of ‘garbage information’ in circulation, this does not necessarily
mean that all the information directed at the general public is rubbish.
Indeed, while the output of television may be seen to have expanded dramatically,
and while the bulk of this may be a cocktail of chat, action adventures and
soaps, in absolute terms it is possible to contend that high-quality information
has also increased. In Britain, for instance, the introduction of Channel 4 in the
early 1980s may have brought more American serials to the screen, but it has
also increased the range and depth of television programming. However, audiences
are pitifully small for Channel 4, something that begs questions of the
capabilities (or at least the willingness) of audiences to discriminate qualitatively
between what is made available which, if not simply a matter of cultural capital,
is a close cousin.
A cognate matter is the issue of the rapid take-up of video cassette and digital
video recorders (VCR and DVR), which in Britain at least has had an as yet
immeasurable effect on viewing. One may speculate, however, that where their
major use is for recording off air to watch on more convenient occasions (‘timeswitching’)
this technology is allowing at least some audiences the flexibility to
increase their access to high-quality information (arguably the sort scheduled for
late-night minority audiences, put on too late for those who must rise before
8 a.m.). Much the same point may be made about pulp fiction. It is hard to look
across the titles in W. H. Smith and not feel a sense of dismay. Shallow and slick
crime and soft pornography jostle for the big sales, readily making one yearn for
Virginia Woolf and T. S. Eliot who are lost amid the likes of Tom Clancy and
Jeffrey Archer. However, if the biggest sales are for pulp fiction, it is also the case
that, in absolute terms at least, the classics are more available and more popular
than ever thanks to the ‘paperback revolution’.
Turning to information’s alleged role in the spread of consumerism, it is as
well to say at the outset that this is not a point restricted to Marxian critics. The
identification of excessive individualism, the weakening of collective bonds and
the central role in this of market practices have been concerns of a wide range
of thinkers covering a spectrum from Ortega y Gasset, T. S. Eliot and F. R. Leavis
to Jeremy Seabrook. A recurrent argument is that this requires manipulative
information to instil in people ‘false needs’, to convince them that some personal
weakness or hidden anxiety may be rectified by purchase of a given object such
as shampoo or scent.
However, such positions have come under attack for several related reasons.
At root there is some conception that once upon a time people had genuine needs
which were met by simple things, that somehow life was more authentic, even if
people were materially worse off. An image of ‘plain living’ but ‘high thinking’ is
operative here, the idea of the working man coming home after a shift in the mine
or factory to read his Cobbett or Hardy. And, of course, one objection is that life
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