Theories of the Information and Post-industrial Society
David M. Berry
The concept of what might broadly be termed the informational society has a number of fascinating theoretical elaborations, each emerging from distinct intellectual and disciplinary tradition. In this post (adapted from a table I created for my undergraduate students), I've attempted to provide is a map of this complex terrain, showing the various conceptual frameworks that have sought to capture the socio-technical transformations of the late 20th Century and into the 21st. I reproduce these tables which are meant to give a sense of alternative ways in which digital changes have been theorised – however they are not intended to be comprehensive, and indeed there are many others who have used similar historical eras to provide a sense of the changes.
It is useful to conceptualise these tables as overlapping waves with different intensities across regions. For example, while "information society" discourse could be said to have peaked academically in the 1980s-late 90s, it still remains influential in policy circles. Similarly, "platform society" doesn't simply replace "network society" but rather should be seen to intensify and transform certain aspects of it. These frameworks also have distinct geographical origins and applications that should be acknowledged. For example, Japanese theorists like Masuda developed early information society concepts with state support whereas European approaches often emphasise social democratic, welfare state and cultural policy. In contrast, North American frameworks frequently focus on entrepreneurship and individual innovation in the economy and Global South scholars have articulated alternative developmental pathways that are different to Western notions of an information society.
We might also consider the way in which the increase in digitalisation and computation is understood by different theorists. For example, some accounts are celebratory and emphasise emancipatory potential, efficiency gains, and democratic possibilities from digital technology. Whereas others might be more critical and focus instead on surveillance, inequality, commodification, and environmental concerns.
In Table 1, I attempt to trace the genealogy of information society concepts across different theoretical traditions. What becomes apparent is the shifting emphasis from early post-industrial formulations (Bell) concerned primarily with service sector expansion and knowledge work, through network-centric approaches (Castells) focused on connectivity and flows, to more recent computational and algorithmic conceptualisations (Berry, Zuboff) that foreground the material-discursive power of code, data and platforms.
| Concept | Theorists | Key Works | Field |
|---|---|---|---|
| Information Society | Fritz Machlup, Daniel Bell, Yoneji Masuda |
| Sociology, Economics, Communications Studies |
| Post-Industrial Society | Daniel Bell, Alain Touraine |
| Sociology, Political Economy |
| Network Society | Manuel Castells, Jan van Dijk |
| Sociology, Communications Studies, Media Studies |
| Post-Fordist Society | Alain Lipietz, Michael Piore, Charles Sabel, David Harvey |
| Economic Geography, Political Economy, Labour Studies |
| Knowledge Society | Peter Drucker, Nico Stehr |
| Management Studies, Sociology of Knowledge |
| Computational Society | David M. Berry, Luciano Floridi |
| Digital Humanities, Philosophy of Information, Software Studies |
| Algorithmic Society | Tarleton Gillespie, Frank Pasquale, Shoshana Zuboff |
| Science & Technology Studies, Media Studies, Law |
| Platform Society | José van Dijck, Nick Srnicek |
| Media Studies, Internet Studies, Political Economy |
| Digital Society | William H. Dutton, Jan A.G.M. van Dijk |
| Sociology, Anthropology, Media Studies |
| Epochal Framework | Key Periods | Major Theorists | Disciplinary Approach | Relation to Information Society |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Materialist-Historical | Feudalism → Capitalism → Communism | Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Louis Althusser, Antonio Gramsci | Historical Materialism, Political Economy | Information society as late capitalism (Herbert Schiller, Dan Schiller), cognitive capitalism (Yann Moulier Boutang), immaterial labour (Maurizio Lazzarato, Michael Hardt, Antonio Negri) |
| Medium Theory | Agricultural Age → Industrial Age → Information Age | Marshall McLuhan, Harold Innis, Neil Postman, Lewis Mumford Friedrich Kittler | Medium Theory, Technology Studies | Information technology as driving force, the "medium is the message", technological revolution (Castells) |
| Post-Modernist | Modernity → Post-Modernity | Jean-François Lyotard, Jean Baudrillard, Fredric Jameson, Zygmunt Bauman | Cultural Theory, Philosophy | Information society as simulation, hyperreality (Baudrillard), condition of knowledge (Lyotard's The Postmodern Condition), Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism (Jameson) |
| Long Wave Economic | Kondratieff waves; Industrial Revolutions (1st → 5th) | Joseph Schumpeter, Carlota Perez, Christopher Freeman, Nikolai Kondratieff | Evolutionary Economics, Innovation Studies | Information society as fifth technological revolution, ICT as techno-economic paradigm (Perez), creative destruction (Schumpeter) |
| Liberal-Progressive | Traditional → Modern → Postmodern → Cosmopolitan | Anthony Giddens, Ulrich Beck, Jürgen Habermas | Sociology, Social Theory | Information society as reflexive modernisation (Giddens, Beck, Lash), Risk Society (Beck), colonisation of lifeworld by system (Habermas) |
| World-Systems | Core-Periphery Relations Hegemonic Cycles | Immanuel Wallerstein, Giovanni Arrighi, Saskia Sassen | Global Political Economy, International Relations | Information society as manifestation of global capitalism, informational capitalism reinforcing global inequalities, the network state (Castells) |
| Surveillance-Control | Society of Sovereignty → Disciplinary Society → Society of Control | Michel Foucault, Gilles Deleuze, Giorgio Agamben | Philosophy, Critical Theory | Information society as enabling continuous control (Deleuze), surveillant assemblage (Haggerty & Ericson), biopolitical production (Hardt & Negri) |
| Ecological-Posthuman | Anthropocene → Capitalocene → Neganthropocene → Chthulucene | Donna Haraway, Bruno Latour, Bernard Stiegler | Science & Technology Studies, Environmental Humanities | Information society as technosphere, entanglement of human/non-human, technical exteriorisation (Stiegler), anthropocene computing (Gabrys) |
What's particularly interesting is how the temporality of these frameworks has compressed in more recent accounts. Where earlier concepts like "post-industrial society" projected decades-long transformations, contemporary notions like the "platform society" and "algorithmic governance" attempt to theorise changes occurring at accelerated tempos, reflecting the intensification of computational processes and their impacts on social life.
Bibliography to follow
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