Theories of the Information Society, Third Edition - Cryptome

INFORMATION, REFLEXIVITY AND SURVEILLANCE
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familiar interpersonal and village-centred life of pre-industrialism) to associations
which involve the mixing of people unknown to one another save in specific ways
such as bus conductor, shop assistant and newsvendor (the urban-orientated way
of life of the modern). Ever since Simmel we have appreciated how disorientating
and also often liberating the transfer from closed community to a world of
strangers can be. The city may fragment and depersonalise, but in doing so it
can also release one from the strictures of village life. Put in other terms, with
the shift towards town life comes a decline in personal observation by neighbours
and, accompanying this, a weakening of the power of community controls that
are exercised on an interpersonal basis. Entering urban–industrial life from a
country existence one is freed from the intrusions of local gossip, of face-to-face
interactions, from close scrutiny of one’s everyday behaviour by neighbours. By
the same token, in the urban realm one can readily choose freedom, be as private
as one likes, mix with others on one’s own terms, indulge in the exotic without
fear of reprimand, be anonymous.
The paradox here is that urban societies, being much more socially organised
than communal-based modes of life, must gather extremely detailed knowledge
about their publics in order to function. And in key respects the information
gathered by these institutions is more detailed, more insinuating and more individuated
than anything garnered in a pre-industrial community. There talk and
memory would be major means of gathering and storing information; today,
however, the information is put together and stored through a variety of means
(computerised and written records, merged databases, routine ‘metering’ of
actions such as use of electricity or banking services) and accumulated through
time. Anyone doubtful of the precision or weight of such information might reflect
on the tales a few months’ supply of bank or credit card statements could tell
about them (what they spend, where, on what, where they went, how much they
earned, what clubs they belong to, where they ate and with what regularity;
Burnham, 1983, pp. 20–48).
The impersonal life of association entails the collection of even greater information
about individuals than the world of neighbours. It may be that we can
readily shed the cloying grip of family and friends in the city, but we can scarcely
avoid the surveillance of the tax office, medical services or local authority. Much
of the observation undertaken today is of course anonymous, by which I mean
that a good deal is known about people’s lives – their shopping preferences, their
sexual proclivities, their lifestyles, their political allegiances – but, intimate though
it often is, it may not name, still less individuate, the subjects which supply the
information. An upshot of this is that people are most closely observed nowadays,
so much so that, living amidst strangers, they remain much more intimately
known than any previous generation, even those living in a cloistered community.
For example, today we know a great deal about people’s sexualities, about their
aspirations and secret desires, and also about political preferences at a given
time. All such information sets the contemporary society well apart from preindustrialism,
when mechanisms for gathering such information were not in
place. However, the information gathered about others, and ourselves, which
feeds into each of our own perceptions and even behaviour, does not necessarily
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