The information society is characterized by the displacement of symbolic production. Information society its features and signs
- increasing the role of information and knowledge in the life of society;
- an increase in the share of information products and services in GDP;
- creation of a global information space that ensures effective information interaction of people, access to world information resources and satisfaction of their needs for information products and services".
The increasing use of information as the main socio-economic resource, leading to the formation of the information society, gives rise to two opposite trends: the movement towards openness, and towards
cover. Therefore, we can talk about an open, closed and mixed information society that combines the features of openness and closeness.
An ideal theoretical model can be the model of an open information society, which can be characterized as "... a society of freely operating, not united in large groups with the same standard of behavior of individuals, using a rapidly growing amount of relevant information." It is a society with a flexible social, economic and political structure, in which each individual has access to the information and other resources necessary to freely make their own decisions. As the openness of society grows, control over the movement and use of information by the state and certain influential groups is weakened. All relevant information is gradually becoming publicly available. There is a possibility of unlimited access for each individual to any socially significant information (if it does not violate the rights of other individuals). There is an effect of transparency of the social environment, which allows each citizen to make independent and effective decisions, to avoid excessive influence of external (including group) forces on him. The construction of social classes is being eroded, and social groups, all of whose members behave in similar ways under the same conditions, are becoming ever smaller. The growing openness of society and the increase in the degree of individual freedom are not an unconditional blessing. Generating freedom of information and freedom of activity, the openness of society also contributes to the growth of illegal business, corrupt officials, prostitution, drug addiction, banditry and terrorism. The closer an open society is to a primitive one, the stronger the negative aspects of its openness manifest themselves as one of the sources of the opposite trend towards a closed society, the restriction of the individual freedom of citizens. Another source of this trend is the desire of individuals and social groups to monopolize relevant information and its carriers, turning their ownership into a source of non-competitive income.
A fully open society does not exist today, and the prospects for its emergence in the future are vague. In any open society, there is a fairly strong tendency to become more closed. This is due to the fact that the advantages of individual freedom and openness become such only at a certain level of well-being and culture of citizens. The elimination of the negative aspects of openness occurs gradually, as social wealth grows and the fears of most people about its possible loss. The presence of such fears creates the basis for the emergence of a state in which free behavior that does not violate laws and accepted social values is more beneficial than their violation, and openness is more beneficial than closeness.
World experience shows that each country is moving towards the information society in its own way, determined by the prevailing political, socio-economic and cultural conditions. In developed countries, there has long been an efficiently functioning market economy that ensures the constant growth of information needs and effective demand for information products and services, there is a powerful middle class, which is the main consumer of information services. The economies of these countries have free funds to invest in the development of information and communication infrastructure. Most of them have a well-developed infrastructure
production and provision of information products and services to the population, a system of computer education has developed and the sphere of information and telecommunication services is rapidly expanding. Finally, these countries have state strategies and programs for building the information society.
The path of Russia's transition to the information society is determined by its current socio-economic and cultural characteristics, which include:
Thus, the market and non-profit sectors, which are still considered separately, are interconnected. The authors of the Futures Commission suggest that "civil servants" receive a citizen's subsistence allowance and are not considered unemployed. They don't get any benefit from labor management.
Art and culture in future work. As can be seen from the above quotation, the Freistaat-Bavaria and Saxony Commissioner for Future Affairs attaches central importance to the development of art and culture for the development of a knowledge society. Art and culture are an integral part of the information society. However, the offerings of art and culture alone are not enough. Particular attention should be paid to cultural education in particular. The final report of the Accreditation Commission "The Future of the Media in Business and Society - Germany's Path to the Information Society" repeatedly pointed out that lifelong learning is the key to successfully changing the information society and therefore the link to employment.
- one side:
- the presence of negative economic trends characteristic of the transitional economy of Russia:
- the predominance of the share of the primary sector in the national
- insufficient level of development of high-tech
- a small share of science-intensive products in GDP
- low absolute size of GDP (14th place in the world) and size of GDP per capita (104th place in the world);
- low level of investment attraction
- limited domestic demand, etc.;
- insufficiently developed information and communication infrastructure;
- lack of sufficient solvent demand for information products and services;
- the absence of a large middle class - the main consumer of information products;
- on the other hand:
- the growth of information needs of the entire population in socially significant political, economic and social information;
- the presence of a high scientific, educational and cultural potential created in the USSR and still preserved in Russia;
- relatively cheap intellectual workforce capable of setting and solving complex scientific and technical problems;
- advanced formation of modern communication systems in relation to other sectors of the economy, comparable in terms of growth rates with developed countries;
- dynamic development of the Russian market of information and telecommunication technologies, products, services (14-19% per year).
The transition of any country to the information society requires large material costs for the formation and development of the information and economic space, the market for new information technologies, products and services, the formation of data banks of publicly available information resources. Today, US spending in the information technology sector reaches 10% of GDP, but through these investments, the US receives more than 25% of its GDP. Approximately the same volumes are typical for other developed countries.
This path is unacceptable for today's Russia, since significant investments will be needed in a fairly short period of time: at least 8% of GDP over 7-10 years, which would allow reaching the average European level of informatization.
Therefore, it is necessary to look for a path focused on the socio-political, economic and cultural characteristics of Russian society and requiring a minimum of capital investment from the state, at least a minimum rate of economic growth, the rapid development of commercial structures, and an increase in the quality of life of the population.
In the existing conditions, the direction of cash flows and the rate of economic growth acquire. It is possible to develop exports and import-substituting products, attract investments for the development of the raw materials sector and, through these measures, maintain the current level of development, but it is impossible to catch up with developed countries. Due to its low economic level, Russia cannot catch up with the developed countries in terms of the level of application and updating of new information technologies, but, in principle, it can overtake it by creating something fundamentally new.
For Russia, with its high educational level and yet unspent intellectual potential, the chance of revival is seen in the use of education and science as a long-term competitive advantage. In conditions of rapid evolution, this makes it possible to overtake locally without catching up.
To implement the described direction, it is necessary to bring under the Russian scientific and technical potential an appropriate financial base of both state and non-state funding, for which it is necessary: "
Cultural education is a prerequisite for continuing education in general. Cultural literacy includes essential reading literacy as well as media competence. It is also important that the images can be deciphered. In modern media, images and signs have become essential to decipher and interpret these signs, which is part of the competence of the media. Cultural education comes across something out of the ordinary and opens the show, but it also makes the fun.
And this is certainly one of the best prerequisites for successful educational processes. In order for art and culture to play an important role, the authors of the commission on future issues ask them to promote art, as well as art, in addition to great events. And among them are various cultural institutions in their entire range from music schools through libraries to theaters and museums. At the same time, it is important to emphasize that art and culture is not only a state-funded sector. Also included are the cultural and media industries.
- improve the investment climate in the country;
- stimulate the development of small and medium-sized businesses, allowing newly created enterprises to compete with those who form the foundations of the "old economy";
- create an infrastructure for supporting fundamental knowledge, consisting of the following links: state support for fundamental science and R&D; availability of an accessible education system; the dominance of imperfect competition, which ensures the receipt of excess profits from innovations; the functioning of a significant part of private capital to finance discoveries and inventions on a market basis.
- Informatization of the entire system of general and special education: from kindergarten to graduation from high school and subsequent forms of training and retraining of specialists; increasing the role of qualifications, professionalism and creativity as the most important characteristics of human potential. Informatization of the education system, focused on the formation of a new generation that meets the conditions of the information society in terms of the level of development and lifestyle, is the main promising task of transition to it. Its solution should help young people get a prestigious and better-paid job, improve their cultural appearance, leisure and entertainment, maximize their personal abilities, prepare themselves for life and work in the information world.
- The formation and development of the industry and the corresponding infrastructure of information and communication services, including home computerization, oriented to the mass consumer, is one of the main tasks for the development of the information environment of society. It is directly related to our interest
ment, economic structures and public authorities in the use of information as a resource for social, economic and individual development and in improving the efficiency of public administration . The development of the information environment is also associated with the personal, including financial, participation of citizens in the formation of the information society. The solution of this problem will raise the level of information culture and computer literacy, ensure the development of the most dynamic sector of the market of information and communication tools, information products and services and support domestic manufacturers, and will also contribute to the organization of new jobs (telework), home health care, leisure , e-commerce, information and cultural services, including for the disabled, etc. - Providing fundamental Russian science with adequate state and non-state funding.
In Russia over the past 7-10 years, the following factors of socio-economic and scientific-technical development have been formed, which can be considered as economic prerequisites for the transition to the information society:
In order to develop this sector of the economy, a positive framework is needed, among other things, in tax laws or copyright laws. However, art and culture are not only the fermentation of the information society. Arts and culture is a labor market, like many others, and therefore, like other segments, is subject to the change in the labor force described above.
In addition, art and culture in general will play an important role in addressing the crisis in the information society. Here, art and culture must be considered in all their complexity, as a disturbing factor in society, as a segment of the market, as an object of education.
- information becomes a public development resource, the scale of its use can already be compared with traditional resources (energy, raw materials, etc.). Today, the volume of sales in Russia of only computer technology and informatics (mainly computers and peripheral devices) reaches more than 1 million units per year and is estimated at about 1.5 billion dollars. As international experience shows, the cost of selling a software product is usually equal to or slightly higher than the cost of equipment, and the cost of personal communications, audio and video equipment is commensurate with the cost of computer equipment. These minimum estimates add up to $3.5 billion. Such a value of the total cost of information already has macroeconomic significance and characterizes the growth in the use of the information resource;
- the share of new information products and services in GDP is increasing (in 2000 it was 0.3%, at present - 0.8%, in 2010, according to forecasts, it will reach 2%).
- In Russia, the domestic market of new information technologies, products and services has been formed and is successfully developing. The volume of funds circulating on it, according to various estimates, reaches 4-6.5 billion dollars. in year. According to preliminary forecasts of the Ministry of Economic Development, the implementation of the FTP "Electronic Russia" will lead to an increase in the volume of the market for new information technologies, products and services by 2005 by 2-3 times and by 2010 - by 5-6 times. The fleet of personal computers in the economy will increase 5 times, and home computers - 4 times. Every second computer will have access to the Internet. All higher educational institutions are planned to be connected to the Network by 2005, all schools - by 2010;
- In general, the development of telecommunication systems and means is proceeding at an accelerated pace in the country, and the number of corporate information networks is increasing. New communications enterprises are actively developing. Enterprises that own 87% of traditional infrastructure generate 49% of industry revenue. New operators are 13% of the market and 51% of revenues;
- the number of subscribers of world open networks is constantly growing. The number of regular Internet users in Russia increased in 2001 by 39% compared to 2000 and amounted to 4.3 million people. The total number of Internet users in Russia in 2001 was about 10 million people;
- the national communication network using satellite channels is intensively expanding. The country is successfully telephonized and the market for mobile communications is growing rapidly;
- many sectors of the economy, the banking sector and the sphere of public administration and education have been largely computerized; -
- in public opinion there is an understanding of the relevance of the task of transition to the information society from the political and economic points of view. This is evidenced by the wide public resonance of the "Concept of State Information Policy", which can be considered as a policy to ensure the initial stage of Russia's transition to the information society;
- today Russia is part of the global political and economic community in a way it has never been in the past. Literally and figuratively, it is connected to the rest of the world by cable and satellite communication channels, actively used by hundreds of thousands of cellular and simple telephones, faxes, computers, etc.
- creation and development of the technological base of the information society;
- development and implementation of political, social, economic, legal, organizational and cultural solutions that ensure movement along the chosen path.
- development of the Concept of legal support of the transition process, which is the basis of state influence on this process, defining the main directions and tasks of improving the system of information legislation, including in the field of copyright and related rights and intellectual property protection;
- development of existing and creation of new network structures and technologies built on the basis of international experience and standards;
- organization and deployment of broad socio-political propaganda support for the process of transition to the information society;
- selection of modern information and communication technologies adequate to educational technologies and educational processes (computer training programs, satellite and cable television, multimedia, etc.);
- creation of specialized public information resources (databases and data banks, electronic libraries, etc.), including non-profit ones, focused on solving educational problems;
- organization of a network of specialized educational centers of regional and city subordination, as well as training and retraining centers for teachers and teachers equipped with modern informatization tools.
- development of cheap specialized devices for network interaction of users with information systems, public terminals of information and reference and advisory systems for social purposes, as well as the development of systems for software content and service support for home computerization;
- creation of economic conditions facilitating the integration of state and non-state structures in the development and development of the market of information and communication services for the population.
- the development of cheap means of computerization of mass libraries, museums, archives and other cultural institutions, the widespread introduction of electronic printing in the practice of book publishing and mass printing;
- formation of public databases and data banks in the field of humanities and social sciences;
- creation of a wide network of cultural information and information and entertainment centers in the regions, cities and towns, including in neighboring countries, as well as the development of a powerful Russian-speaking sector on the Internet, technological support for sites of cultural and information centers '.
rational society is one of the priority areas for the development of Russian society.
One of the conditions for Russia's transition to the information society is the formation of a developed information and economic space and its integration into the global information space, which should ensure stable economic growth, improve the quality of life of the population and socio-political stability of society and the state.
And, of course, this also applies to changes that affect the cultural sector itself. New information and communication technologies also strongly influence the production, use and mediation of culture. The workplace culture is in a state of upheaval.
Thus, the boundaries between different sectors are abolished. Artists, scientists and technicians work together to develop new technical forms. Very complex methods require the cooperation of people with different abilities and training. This is one of the possibilities of the information society, it helps to break the established division of disciplines. For example, the last year with open eyes and eyes about the Frankfurt Book Fair not only heard the loud whisper of the concentration processes in the publishing industry.
The author of the term "information society" is considered to be the American economist F. Machlup, who first used it in his work "The Production and Application of Knowledge in the USA". Regardless of him, this definition was also proposed by the Japanese scientist T. Umesao. In philosophical and sociological studies, the concept of "information society" has been used to denote a society of a qualitatively new type, in which activities related to the production, consumption, transmission and storage of information predominate. The information society was considered as one of the stages of the post-industrial or as an independent stage of social development following it. In the early 1990s, these definitions were used as synonyms.
In 1962, Marshall McLuhan introduced the concept of "electronic society" as a special stage in the development of modern society, in which electronic means of communication begin to play a leading role. Communication technologies are considered by a Canadian researcher as a key factor determining the emergence of socio-economic systems. In the well-known work “The Guttenberg Galaxy”, M. McLuhan points to the relationship between the creation of the printing press, which resulted in the emergence of a new type of communication strategies, which, in turn, irreversibly influenced the development and formation of the political, economic, social structure of an industrial society and its institutions. Since it was precisely in the conditions of the mass distribution of the printed word that opportunities appeared for the development of entrepreneurship (on the basis of private property) and the democratization of society on the basis of suffrage.
McLuhan's attention was focused on the audiovisual media, primarily television, which
which acted as a representative of the entire global electronic reality. Television, according to McLuhan, is gradually destroying print culture, thus suppressing previous cultural forms. Being the most important element of the global information network, television actually turns the world into a "global village". McLuhan formulated two fundamental characteristics of television. The first of them is related to the mosaic, fragmentation of the structure of the television information product, which is a set of visual and auditory messages devoid of strict internal logical connections. Thus, events of different content, scale, discourse, time and place of action are combined in a short news program. The second characteristic reflects the cumulative effect, the mutual reinforcement of disparate messages in the recipient's perceiving consciousness, which combines individual signals into a kind of semantic unity.
In the foreign literature of the late 70s and 80s of the twentieth century, the problems of the information society were actively discussed. T. Stoner argued that information is a special type of resource, similar to capital: capable of accumulating, transferring, storing for subsequent implementation. Within a post-industrial society, national information resources represent the largest potential source of wealth.
In parallel with the studies of American authors, Japanese scientists presented their concepts. Among them is the work of I. Masuda "The Information Society as a Post-Industrial Society", in which he described the basic principles and characteristics of the upcoming society. According to Masuda, its foundation will be computer technology designed to replace or significantly enhance human mental labor. The information technology revolution will act as a new production force, the consequences of which will be expressed in the form of mass production of high-quality cognitive information and new technologies. The most important sector of the economy in the new society will be intellectual production, and new technologies
Communication technologies will ensure proper storage and distribution of new products.
In the global information society, from the point of view of I. Masuda, there will be a serious transformation of values: classes will disappear, conflicts will be reduced to a minimum. As a result, a society of consent with a small government will appear, which will not require a bloated state apparatus. In contrast to the industrial society aimed at the production and consumption of goods, according to Masuda, time will become the main value of the information society.
The well-known futurist Alvin Toffler made his contribution to the development of the ideas of post-industrialism and the information society. The author of the "wave" concept of social development, outlined in the book "The Third Wave", offers his own scheme for the evolution of forms of social order, highlighting three "waves" in the history of civilization: agrarian (until the 18th century), industrial (until the 1950s) and post - or super-industrial (starting from the second half of the twentieth century). Toffler describes the process of the withering away of industrial civilization in terms of the "technosphere", "sociosphere", "information" and "power spheres", pointing to the cardinal changes that are currently undergoing in all spheres. As an information society, Toffler considers a third wave society, where information becomes the main type of property, while previously it was land (agrarian wave) and means of production (industrial). The transition to information property represents a revolutionary explosion as it is the first property that is intangible, intangible and potentially infinite.
The social class basis of the information society, according to
O. Toffler, will constitute a “cognitariat”, which is a social group that actively uses knowledge, and not physical labor. The development of computer technology and means of communication will lead, according to Toffler, to a change in the structure of employment, and in combination with the increasing intellectualization of labor, to the emergence of so-called "electronic cottages", which will allow moving work from the office to the worker's home. In addition to saving time and reducing transport costs, the cost of providing centralized workplaces, the introduction of "electronic cottages" will
promote, according to Toffler, the strengthening of the family and strengthen the trend towards the revival of the attractiveness of small towns and village life.
Within the framework of the stage approach, which assumes the sequential movement of society from one phase to another, theorists of the information society single out one or another stage of social development, using the dominant sector of the economy as a basic criterion. Thus, in an agrarian society, the economy was based on agriculture, economic activity was directed to the production of food, the main resource was the land. Industry became the dominant economic sector of an industrial society, production activity turned out to be associated with the production of goods, capital was considered the most significant resource. The information society is based on the production and use of information for the development and effective existence of other forms of production, knowledge is used as a resource.
In the concept of Professor J. Martin, the information society is understood, first of all, as a “developed post-industrial society” that arose in the West. The researcher made an attempt to identify and formulate the main characteristics of the information society according to several criteria. The technological criterion assumes that information technology, which is widely used in all social spheres, structures, organizations, in the business environment and in everyday life, is becoming a key factor in the development of society. The social criterion is related to the fact that new standards for the production and consumption of information provoke changes in the quality of life, lead to the formation of the so-called "information consciousness", the existence of which is possible only if there is free and wide access to information. The economic criterion reflects the crucial role of information in the economy of the modern type. Information becomes a resource, a good, a service, increases employment and adds value to products and services. The political criterion indicates the specifics of the political process, which in the conditions of the information society ha
It is characterized by the ever-increasing participation of citizens in the processes of government, since information technology facilitates the possibility of communication with government officials and public control over their activities. Martin believes that in the information society, the emergence of a consensus between social groups and classes is to a greater extent ensured. Finally, based on the cultural criterion, Martin characterizes the information society as a society that recognizes the cultural value of information, contributing to the formation of information values that ensure the further development of both society as a whole and the individual in particular.
J. Martin notes that, speaking of the information society, it should not be taken literally, but considered as a landmark, a trend of change in modern Western society. From his point of view, in general, this model is focused on the future, but in the developed capitalist countries one can already name a number of changes caused by information technology, which to a certain extent confirm the concept of the information society.
Among these changes, Martin names such as: structural changes in the economy, especially in the area of labor distribution; increased awareness of the importance of information; growing awareness of the need for computer literacy; widespread dissemination of information technology; government support for the development of computer microelectronic technology and telecommunications.
Ultimately, Martin offers the following understanding of the information society: it is a society, the most important indicators and prospects of which are directly related to the effective use of information. Standards of quality and standard of living, systems of production and consumption, education and leisure, social security, management and interaction of the main components of the social structure as a whole in a society of this type are closely dependent on the development of the information and cognitive components.
In 1996, the first book in Manuel Castells' trilogy "The Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture" was published. In his truly large-scale work, the scientist analyzed in detail the processes of social development throughout the 20th century and formulated the concept of informational capitalism, which reveals the main features of the modern information society (see the subsection “Manuel Castells’ informational capitalism”).
In 1999, Don Tapscott published the book "Electronic-Digital Society: The Pros and Cons of Networked Intelligence", in which he presented his attempt to comprehend the global nature of the changes taking place with humanity. Tapscott points out that education is the area currently undergoing the most serious modernization. The traditional educational system no longer provides graduates with a long-term job security, since the rapid pace of knowledge renewal requires constant retraining. In the electronic society, the very idea of learning, the relationship of learning with work and everyday life is being revised: the information society is based on mental work, therefore, work is increasingly intertwined with study, which turns into a lifelong occupation. Tapscott highlights the key features of the new society: knowledge orientation, digital representation of objects, virtualization of production, innovative nature, integration, convergence, elimination of intermediaries, transformation of producer-consumer relations, dynamism, globalization and a number of others.
Domestic experts began to actively address the issues of the post-industrial/information society only in the last decades of the twentieth century. Soviet researchers from the standpoint of the formational approach criticized the concept of post-industrial society and did not have the opportunity to correlate Western developments with the realities of the life of the Soviet state. However, in the late 80s - early 90s of the last century, works by domestic authors began to appear on the problems of the formation of a global information society and the inclusion of Russia in this process.
Equally unmistakable were the opportunities for rationalization arising from the use of new technologies in the printing sector. The electronic media did not push the book into print. But they radically change it. In this case, everything can be electronically controlled from the order by extracting the text from the digital library, printing, binding and finally delivery to the customer. People, few people, are only needed to control the production process.
However, they also make it clear that electronic media developers and providers have realized they have nothing to sell without content. It will be shown in the next few years whether "software books" are a fashion item or whether they can dominate the competitive book market.
AI Rakitov noted that the transition to a new information society becomes possible when social activity is aimed primarily at the production of services and knowledge. The main task of the information society is related to ensuring the right and opportunity of a citizen, regardless of the time and place of his location, to obtain the information he needs.
Rakitov describes the information society in accordance with the following characteristics: that any citizen, group of persons, social organization has a realizable opportunity at any time and anywhere in the country to gain access to the information necessary to solve individually or socially significant tasks; production and operation in the mode of free access of modern information technologies, the use of which can be carried out by any individual, group or organization; availability of a developed infrastructure to ensure the creation and storage of national information resources, which, in turn, are effectively used to maintain an appropriate level of scientific, technical, technological and, in general, social progress; acceleration of processes of automation and computerization of technological and production processes, control systems as a whole; transformation of basic social structures, resulting in the development of the service sector, the expansion of profiles of information activities.
Well-known domestic experts on the problems of the information society G. L. Smolyan and D. S. Chereshkin, analyzing the essence and specifics of a new stage of social development, including in relation to Russian reality, identified a number of signs of the information society. Researchers rank among the most important characteristics: the creation of a single information space, the intensification of information processes, as well as the economic integration of states; the emergence and, in the future, the predominance in the economies of countries of new technological structures, the essence of which is to ensure mass production and the use of network information, communication, and computer technologies; raising the level of education through
use in educational processes of information exchange systems operating at various levels - from regional to international; increasing the requirements for qualifications, professionalism and creative potential of employees.
Among the many different approaches, concepts and theories that describe the phenomenon of the information society, one can single out some universal characteristics that are somehow recognized by almost all researchers. So, the global information society is most often understood as a new type of society, the foundation of which is the accelerated and inclusive development, dissemination and convergence of information and communication technologies. This is a knowledge society that assumes a special role for the cognitive component, in which the main competitive advantage and the key to success are knowledge and skills that allow you to receive and use information in conditions of secure and guaranteed unhindered access to it. The new information society is global in nature, in which the exchange of information is not limited by temporal, spatial or political barriers. Finally, and in this scientists see the humanistic orientation of the information society, it promotes the interpenetration of cultures, and also provides individuals, groups, and communities with new opportunities for self-realization.
At the same time, it should be noted that far from all the arguments of the supporters of the concepts of post-industrial and information societies have met and are meeting with indisputable approval. A skeptical attitude towards the information society as a new social reality is contained in the studies of G. Schiller, M. Alyetta, D. Harvey, E. Giddens, J. Habermas. Representatives of this group agree that information plays a key role in modern society, but its forms and functions are well known, obey established principles and do not lead to qualitative changes in social relations. A serious critical analysis of ideas, approaches and concepts that describe a new type of society is
It will also prove the impact of this technology on book printing and the book trade. It is now clear that the growth of the labor market, arising from the need for content, cannot compensate for the resulting loss of jobs in production. This also applies to the rather traditional means of radio and television. Here, of course, the expansion of this market also leads to an increase in profits. On the one hand, they are characterized by intermittent employment; on the other hand, the use of digital technologies, which also means job loss.
F. Webster, who pointed out the conceptual and methodological shortcomings of the most recognized theories of the information society (see the subsection "Frank Webster: a critical analysis of the theories of the information society").
The history of the concept
The term "information society" owes its name to the professor of the Tokyo Institute of Technology Y. Hayashi, whose term was used in the works of F. Machlup (1962) and T. Umesao (1963) that appeared almost simultaneously - in Japan and the USA. The theory of the "information society" was developed by such well-known authors as M. Porat, J. Massuda, T. Stoner, R. Karts and others; to one degree or another, it received support from those researchers who focused not so much on the progress of information technologies themselves, but on the formation of a technological, or technetronic (technetronic - from the Greek. techne), society, or denoted modern society, starting from the increased or growing role of knowledge, as "the knowledgeable society", "knowledge society" or "knowledge-value society". Today, there are dozens of concepts proposed to designate individual, sometimes even completely insignificant features of modern society, for one reason or another called, nevertheless, based on its characteristics. Thus, in contrast to the first approach to terminological designations, the second one leads, in fact, to the rejection of generalizing concepts and limits the researchers who profess it to the study of relatively particular issues.
Since 1992, Western countries have also begun to use the term, for example, the concept of "national global information infrastructure" was introduced in the United States after the well-known conference of the National Science Foundation and the famous report of B. Clinton and A. Gore. The concept of "information society" appeared in the work of the European Commission's Expert Group on Information Society Programs under the leadership of Martin Bangemann, one of Europe's most respected experts on the information society; information highways and superhighways - in Canadian, British and American publications.
At the end of the XX century. the terms information society and informatization have firmly taken their place, and not only in the lexicon of information specialists, but also in the lexicon of politicians, economists, teachers and scientists. In most cases, this concept was associated with the development of information technology and telecommunications, allowing on the platform of civil society (or at least its declared principles) to make a new evolutionary leap and worthily enter the next, 21st century already as an information society or its initial stage.
It should be noted that a number of Western and domestic political scientists and political economists are inclined to draw a sharp line separating the concept of the information society from post-industrialism. However, although the concept of the information society is intended to replace the theory of a post-industrial society, its supporters repeat and further develop a number of the most important provisions of technocracy and traditional futurology.
It is symptomatic that a number of leading researchers who formulated the theory of a post-industrial society, such as D. Bell, are currently acting as supporters of the concept of the information society. For Bell himself, the concept of the information society has become a kind of new stage in the development of the theory of post-industrial society. As Bell stated, "a revolution in the organization and processing of information and knowledge, in which the computer plays a central role, is developing in the context of what I have called a post-industrial society."
According to Professor W. Martin, the information society is understood as a "developed post-industrial society" that arose primarily in the West. In his opinion, it is not accidental that the information society is established primarily in those countries - in Japan, the United States and Western Europe - in which a post-industrial society was formed in the 60s and 70s.
W. Martin made an attempt to identify and formulate the main characteristics of the information society according to the following criteria.
- Technological: the key factor is information technologies, which are widely used in production, institutions, the education system and in everyday life.
- Social: information acts as an important stimulant for changing the quality of life, "information consciousness" is formed and affirmed with wide access to information.
- Economic: information is a key factor in the economy as a resource, service, product, source of value added and employment.
- Political: freedom of information leading to a political process characterized by growing participation and consensus among different classes and social strata of the population.
- Cultural: recognition of the cultural value of information by promoting the assertion of information values in the interests of the development of the individual and society as a whole.
At the same time, Martin emphasizes the idea that communication is "a key element of the information society."
Martin notes that, speaking of the information society, it should not be taken literally, but considered as a landmark, a trend of change in modern Western society. According to him, in general, this model is focused on the future, but in the developed capitalist countries one can already name a number of changes caused by information technologies that confirm the concept of the information society.
Among these changes, Martin lists the following:
- structural changes in the economy, especially in the area of labor distribution; increased awareness of the importance of information and information technology;
- growing awareness of the need for computer literacy;
- widespread use of computers and information technology;
- development of computerization and informatization of society and education;
- government support for the development of computer microelectronic technology and telecommunications.
- widespread - computer viruses and malware around the world.
In light of these changes, Martin argues, “the information society can be defined as a society in which the quality of life, as well as the prospects for social change and economic development, increasingly depend on information and its exploitation. In such a society, living standards, forms of work and leisure, the education system and the market are all greatly influenced by advances in information and knowledge.”
In an expanded and detailed form, the concept of the information society (taking into account the fact that it almost completely includes the theory of post-industrial society developed by him in the late 60s and early 70s) is proposed by D. Bell. As Bell argues, “In the coming century, the emergence of a new way of life based on telecommunications is of decisive importance for economic and social life, for the methods of production of knowledge, and also for the nature of human work. The revolution in the organization and processing of information and knowledge, in which the computer plays a central role, is unfolding simultaneously with the formation of a post-industrial society. Moreover, according to Bell, three aspects of post-industrial society are especially important for understanding this revolution. This refers to the transition from an industrial society to a service society, which determines the importance of codified scientific knowledge for the implementation of technological innovations and the transformation of a new “intelligent technology” into a key tool for system analysis and decision theory.
A qualitatively new moment was the possibility of managing large complexes of organizations and the production of systems that require coordination of the activities of hundreds of thousands and even millions of people. There has been and continues to be a rapid development of new scientific areas, such as information theory, computer science, cybernetics, decision theory, game theory, etc., that is, areas related specifically to the problems of organizational sets.
One of the extremely unpleasant aspects of the informatization of society is the loss of stability by the information society. Due to the increasing role of information, small groups can have a significant impact on all people. Such influence, for example, can be exercised through terror, actively covered by the media. Modern terrorism is one of the consequences of reducing the stability of society as it becomes informatized.
Restoring the sustainability of the information society can be achieved through the strengthening of accounting policies. One of the new directions for strengthening people accounting policies is biometrics. Biometrics is engaged in the creation of machines capable of independently recognizing people. After the events of September 11, 2001, at the initiative of the United States, the active use of international passports with biometric identification of people by automatic machines began when crossing the borders of states.
The second most important direction for strengthening accounting policies in the information society is the massive use of cryptography. An example is a SIM card in a cell phone, it contains cryptographic protection of accounting for payment by subscribers of a digital communication channel leased from an operator. Cell phones are digital, it was the transition to digital that made it possible to provide everyone with communication channels, but without cryptography in SIM cards, cellular communications could not become mass. Cellular operators would not be able to reliably control the fact that there is money on the subscriber's account and operations to withdraw money for using the communication channel.
Russia
Several stages can be distinguished in the activities of the authorities in the development and implementation of state policy in the field of information society development in Russia. At the first (1991-1994) the foundations were formed in the field of informatization. The second stage (1994-1998) was characterized by a change in priorities from informatization to the development of information policy. The third stage, which continues to this day, is the stage of policy formation in the field of building the information society. In 2002, the Government of the Russian Federation adopted the Federal Target Program "Electronic Russia 2002-2010." which gave a powerful impetus to the development of the information society in the Russian regions.
In order to ensure the confidentiality and anonymity of personal biometric data, Russia was the first developed country to start creating a special package of national standards: GOST R 52633.0-2006 (enacted); GOST R 52633.1-2009 (put into effect), GOST R 52633.2 (passed public discussion); GOST R 52633.3 GOST R 52633.4 (developed, being prepared for public discussion); GOST R 52633.5 (developed, being prepared for public discussion).
Since other countries do not yet have national standards for converting a person's biometrics into his personal cryptographic key, presumably the standards of the GOST R 52633 .xx package will be used in the future as the basis for the corresponding international standards. In this regard, it is interesting to note that already existing international biometric standards were originally created as US national standards.
Belarus
In 2010, the Council of Ministers of the Republic of Belarus approved the Strategy for the Development of the Information Society in Belarus until 2015 and a plan of priority measures for its implementation for 2010 (development of the information society is one of the national priorities and is a national task). The formation of the foundations of the information society has been completed, the legal basis for informatization has been laid. In the period up to 2015 in the Republic of Belarus, according to the Strategy for the Development of the Information Society in the Republic of Belarus until 2015, work should be completed on the creation and development of the basic components of the information and communication infrastructure for the development of the state system for the provision of electronic services (electronic government). It will include a nationwide information system integrating government information resources to provide electronic services; a single secure environment for information interaction; public key management system; an identification system for individuals and legal entities, as well as a payment gateway integrated with a single settlement information space through which payment transactions will be carried out. According to the informatization plan of the Republic of Belarus for the period up to 2015, it can be assumed that by 2015, each university will have broadband access to the Internet. The strategy for the development of the information society in the country provides for the growth by 2015 of broadband Internet access ports to 3 million (about 530,000 today), the number of mobile Internet access users will reach 7 million (about 1.6 million today). Today, over 87% of Belarusian schools have some form of Internet access, and over 21% have broadband access.
CIS countries
In the CIS countries, the information society is implemented on the basis of an interstate network of information and marketing centers (IMC network), which is a project similar to the "Digital Agenda for Europe" (Digital Agenda for Europe), presented by the European Commission as a strategy for ensuring the growth of the EU economy in the digital age and the dissemination of digital technologies among all sectors of society.
Literature
- Abdeev R. F. Philosophy of Information Civilization / Editors: E. S. Ivashkina, V. G. Detkova. - M .: VLADOS, 1994. - S. 96-97. - 336 p. - 20,000 copies. - ISBN 5-87065-012-7
- Varakin LE Global Information Society: Development Criteria and Socio-Economic Aspects. -M.: Intern. acad. communications, 2001. - 43 p., ill.
- Vartanova E. L. Finnish model at the turn of the century: Inform. Finnish society and media in Europe. perspective. : Moscow Publishing House. un-ta, 1999. - 287 p.
- Voronina T. P. Information society: essence, features, problems. - M., 1995. - 111 p.
- Korotkov A. V., Kristalny B. V., Kurnosov I. N. State policy of the Russian Federation in the field of information society development. // Under scientific. ed. A. V. Korotkova. - M.: Train LLC, 2007. ISBN 978-5-903652-01-3. - 472 p.
- Martin W.J. Information society (Abstract) // Theory and practice of social scientific information. Quarterly / USSR Academy of Sciences. INION; Editorial: V. A. Vinogradov (chief editor) and others - M., 1990. - No. 3. - S. 115-123.
- Chernov A. Formation of the global information society: problems and prospects.
- Tuzovsky, I. D. Bright tomorrow? The Dystopia of Futurology and the Futurology of Dystopias. - Chelyabinsk: Chelyab. State Academician. culture and arts, 2009. - 312 p.
Notes
Webster F. Information Society Theories.- M.: Aspect Press, 2004.- 400
see also
- Council under the President of the Russian Federation for the Development of the Information Society in the Russian Federation
Links
- , 2000
- Basil Lvoff Media and information society
- Kostina A.V. Trends in the development of information society culture: analysis of modern information and post-industrial concepts // Electronic journal “Knowledge. Understanding. Skill ». - 2009. - No. 4 - Culturology.
- Pogorsky E.K. The role of youth in the formation of the information society // Information humanitarian portal “Knowledge. Understanding. Skill ». - 2012. - No. 2 (March - April) (archived at WebCite).
- Pogorsky E.K. Formation of the information society in the Russian Federation: dialogue between citizens and local governments // Scientific works of the Moscow University for the Humanities. - 2011.
- Skorodumova O. B. Domestic approaches to the interpretation of the information society: post-industrialist, synergetic and postmodernist paradigms // Electronic journal "
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in sociology
On the topicINFORMATION SOCIETY AS A SOCIOLOGICAL CONCEPT
Completed:Shenets O.P.
Checked:Starovoitova E.N.
Zelenogorsk 2010
INTRODUCTION
1. INFORMATION SOCIETY: CONCEPT AND TRENDS
1.1 Essence and concept of the information society
1.2 Causes and consequences of information revolutions
1.3 Informatization of society at present
2. INFORMATION INEQUALITY OF MODERN SOCIETY
2.1 Information society and power
2.2 Social inequality
CONCLUSION
LITERATURE
GLOSSARY
INTRODUCTION
The information society is the concept of the modernization paradigm of the philosophy of history and social disciplines, according to which any society goes through the following stages in its development:
1) agrarian (pre-industrial, traditional);
2) modern (industrial);
3) post-modern (post-industrial, informational).
The concept of "information society" was formulated in the West in the 1980s in connection with the widespread microelectronic revolution. Over time, it acquired the status of one of the most common and common names for all philosophical and sociological concepts that seek to comprehend the new social reality that began to take shape in the 1950s, first in the United States, and then in Western Europe and Japan. The use of the term "information society" is widespread in the West to characterize the current state of socio-economic development. Along with this name, there are many others:
1) post-industrial society;
2) post-capitalist or service class society;
3) programmable or post-industrial;
4) scientific society;
5) superindustrial or third wave society;
6) civilization of services;
7) information and computer;
8) post-economic.
These concepts were developed within the framework of various versions of the information society - more technocratic or more humanitarian-oriented. The information society is characterized by a decisive role and a high level of development of information technologies. The main factor of social change is the production and use of information; theoretical knowledge, as the highest value and the main commodity, becomes a factor in the formation of a new social structure of society, new management models. If in a traditional society with its characteristic “gathering economy” the main resource is land, and in the industrial era, in the conditions of a “commodity-producing economy”, property and capital occupy a central place, then in the information society there is a transition to a “serving economy”, when the dominant role begins play the service sector, and information services.
A "quaternary" (information) sector of the economy is being formed (along with agriculture, industry and the service sector) under the influence of a rapidly developing system of social communications and information. As the service and information sectors develop, wealth loses its material embodiment (land, capital), symbolic capital appears - knowledge. The role of the economy (as the production of material goods) in the life of society is gradually decreasing, there is de-standardization and individualization in the sphere of production and consumption. The nature of labor is changing along the path of its automation (unmanned technologies are being introduced, the paradox of “disappearance of labor” in direct production arises), as well as in the direction of humanization and expansion of the participation of workers in production management. A “super-symbolic system for creating social wealth” is emerging, based on the use of information technology, that is, primarily the mental abilities of a person. These changes create conditions for the spread of domestic work based on electronic technology.
In the information society, the importance of higher education is growing, the new economy rewards cognitive and creative abilities, as well as flexibility, individualism and the ability to quickly adapt to constantly changing conditions. Organizational structures of a bureaucratic type are replaced by mobile structures of smaller temporary alliances of owners of common information, and leadership style changes from management to leadership. Knowledge and information are the backbone of the organization of the information society, as well as a key source of innovation and social dynamism. In the pre-industrial era, the main social institutions are the army and the church, in an industrial society - a corporation and a firm, and universities are at the center of the information civilization.
According to another position, no single social institution in the information society will play a central role, and society will be organized in the form of a network rather than a hierarchy of institutions. In the new society, the nature of power is changing, which acquires the highest quality and maximum efficiency. In an agrarian society, the source of power was coercion, in an industrial society, power was based on wealth, and in the information society, knowledge as an inexhaustible, universal, and democratic capital becomes the determining factor in the exercise of power. Not property, but knowledge and access to information stratify the information society, so that education, professionalism and qualifications become the main factors of status differentiation. There is a dispersion of ownership and the transformation of capital into a joint-stock form, which provides the potential opportunity to include virtually everyone in management. Power passes from the class of proprietors to an educated ruling elite. In the new situation, the main social conflict lies not in the contradiction between labor and capital, but in the clash between knowledge and incompetence. Knowledge and control over information means the possession of power and the possibility of influence. In the economic sphere, the localization of power is shifting from the sphere of production to the sphere of distribution; lack of information makes it impossible to participate in decision-making and organization. Information in the information society is the basis not only for conflicts, but also for social interaction. The specific features of the information society are the destandardization and demassification of all aspects of social life, as well as a high level of innovation and an accelerated pace of social change. This means, on the one hand, the intensification and instability of social ties, the predominance of "modular" relations in the field of interpersonal communication (the connection is established not with a holistic personality, but only with its specific function), an increase in social tension, and on the other hand, high social mobility ( especially among professionals and intellectuals). With regard to the consumption of products, a new attitude is being formed - the culture of "things of one-time use". Public and individual value systems are also subject to rapid transformation and are temporary. In the information society, there are many independent value systems offered by various social institutions and subcultures, so that a person is faced with the problem of choice - in the style of consumption, in education, and cultural orientation.
1 . INFORMATION SOCIETY: CONCEPT ANDTRENDS
1.1 The essence and concept of the information society
To begin with, it is necessary to understand exactly what a “post-industrial society” is. The society in which we live at the beginning of the 21st century is called the information society.
The term "information society" appeared in the United States in the theory of the same name in the 70s of the XX century. So they began to call a society that outgrew the industrial one.
So, between the post-industrial society and the information society, you can put an equal sign, because. modern post-industrial society in its daily activities can not do without information technology. Information society - the concept of post-industrial society; a new historical phase in the development of civilization, in which the main products of production are information and knowledge.
The post-industrial society, in turn, is a society in which the service sector has a priority development and prevails over the volume of industrial production and agricultural production. In the social structure of post-industrial society, the number of people employed in the service sector is increasing.
The hallmarks of the information society are:
1) increasing the role of information and knowledge in the life of society; 2) an increase in the share of information communications, products and services in the gross domestic product; 3) creation of a global information space that provides: effective information interaction of people; their access to world information resources; meeting their needs for information products and services. The service sector involves the mass service of the population. It was thanks to the emergence of such a sphere as the service sector that the emergence of a global information infrastructure took place, the users of which are the entire information society.
New information technologies are used in almost all areas of activity and have a huge impact on social reality, greatly changing it. Philosophers associate the main change with the emergence of a new social structure - the information infrastructure. Information infrastructure is a set of means for processing and using information, combined into computer and information networks.
Also, the information infrastructure will become the basis of the social and economic activities of the future, and will also allow any person to receive all the information of interest to him at any time and in any place.
The global information infrastructure is being developed as a worldwide information queuing network for the planet's population based on the integration of global and regional information and telecommunication systems, as well as digital television and radio broadcasting systems, satellite systems and mobile communications.
So, the information revolution has launched the process of building an information society. Some theorists predict its establishment in developed countries in the middle of the 21st century.
1.2 Causes and consequences of information revolutions
Until the 16th century, the activity of society was aimed at mastering the substance, that is, the knowledge of the properties of matter and the manufacture of first primitive, and then more complex tools.
Then, in the process of the formation of an industrial society, the problem of mastering energy came to the fore - first thermal, then electrical, and finally, in the 20th century, atomic energy. The mastery of energy made it possible to master the mass production of consumer values and, as a result, to raise the standard of living of people and change the nature of their work. At the same time, people have always had a need to express and remember information about the world around them.
Several information revolutions have taken place in the history of the development of civilizations:
1. The first revolution is associated with the invention of writing. It became possible to disseminate knowledge and preserve it for transmission to future generations.
2. The second revolution (mid-16th century) was caused by the invention of printing, which radically changed public culture.
3. The third revolution (end of the 19th century) is due to the invention of electricity. Telegraph, telephone, radio appeared, allowing to quickly transmit information.
4. The fourth revolution (70s of the XX century) is associated with the invention of the personal computer (PC).
The creation of personal computers was predetermined by the growing volumes of information that are difficult to cope with using traditional technologies: paper and pen. This contradiction began to have a negative impact on the growth rate of scientific and technological progress. They began to talk about the "information explosion", naming the rapid growth of flows and volumes of information. As a result, as a means for storing, processing and transmitting information, scientific and technological progress offered society a personal computer.
In the 1980s and 1990s, philosophers and sociologists developed the theory of the information society. Many philosophers criticized the shortcomings of the industrial society, noted its crisis and signs of transition to a new form of existence, the information society. The transformation of society into an information society is associated with the information revolution that began in the second half of the 20th century.
The information revolution consists of two revolutions:
1) computer;
2) telecommunications.
The telecommunications revolution begins in the mid-1970s and merges with the computer one. The computer revolution begins much earlier and proceeds in several stages. The first big stage covers the years 1930-1970, which is called the "zero cycle". It begins with the creation of the first computers. At this stage, in 1951, the first commercial computer UNIVAC-1 was created (it weighed 30 tons, contained 18 thousand lamps and performed 5 thousand operations per second). The second significant stage of the computer revolution begins with the creation of the first personal computers and their mass production. The telecommunications revolution is associated with the creation
a) fiber optic technologies;
b) satellite technologies.
The confluence of computer and telecommunication technologies has created a multitude of new products and services on the market. The information and telecommunications industry has now become a key sector of the economy of developed countries.
Thanks to the merging of the computer and telecommunications revolutions, it became possible to create information networks of enormous proportions, up to global ones. Through these networks, it is possible to transmit, find and process the necessary information much faster.
1.3 Informatization of society at present
information society social inequality
Until recently, no one imagined that humanity would be on the threshold of a new era in the development of civilization - information. Currently, there is an active process of informatization of society. Informatization is understood as the active introduction of computer technology and new information technologies in various areas of production, public and private life of people.
The information society is a society in which the majority of workers are engaged in the production, storage, processing, sale and exchange of information.
Recently, a new category of culture has appeared - informational. This is due to the fact that in order to live and work in the information society, a person must be prepared for the rapid perception and processing of large amounts of information; he needs to master modern means, methods and technology of work.
In addition, in the new living conditions, the degree of awareness of one person directly depends on the information acquired by other people. Therefore, it is no longer enough to be able to independently master and accumulate information, but one should learn such a technology for working with information when decisions are prepared and made on the basis of collective knowledge. Thus, a person must have a certain level of culture to work with information.
Being the most important component of culture as a whole, information culture is a product of a variety of human creative abilities. Information culture is manifested in the following:
In specific skills in the use of various technical devices - from telephone to personal computer and computer networks;
The ability to use computer information technology in their work;
In the ability to extract information from various sources - from periodicals to electronic communications;
The ability to present information in an understandable way and use it effectively;
In knowledge of analytical methods of information processing;
The ability to work with various types of information.
Information culture borrows and uses the achievements of many sciences: cybernetics, computer science, information theory, mathematics, database design theory and a number of other disciplines. An integral part of information culture is knowledge of information technology and the ability to apply it in practice.
Relatively recently, another new information technology has appeared - virtual reality.
Virtual reality is a highly advanced form of computer simulation that allows the user to immerse themselves in an artificial world and directly act in it using special sensory devices that link their movements to audiovisual effects. In this case, the visual, auditory, tactile and motor sensations of the user are replaced by their imitation generated by the computer.
Philosophers, considering the emerging new characteristics of everyday life, note that in the information society there is a revision of the basic principles of organizing the life of society (or "revision of the code of civilization"). The civilization of industrial society was based on six principles:
1) synchronization;
2) specialization;
3) standardization;
4) concentration;
5) maximization;
6) centralization.
All of them collapse in the information society and are replaced by others that make up the features of the information society:
1) Synchronization. Synchronized with the rhythms of production, the mechanized rhythm of life is replaced by social rhythms - the rhythms of activity not related to the production of things. Social activity itself is becoming more diverse, and its rhythms are also diversifying.
The main types of social activity are those associated with the production of information, in particular, the role of science and education, which feed the development of new technologies, is greatly increasing.
2) Specialization. The production of information is becoming a new way of creating social wealth. This method is based not on physical strength, but on the mental abilities of a person, and they develop in the process of education.
Education in the information society is subject to new requirements, due to the fact that in production now the change of technology is happening very quickly, new types of labor appear, and the old ones disappear completely. In this regard, there is a need to transfer labor resources from one industry to another.
3) Standardization. In the information society, there is a tendency towards individualization in everything.
4) Concentration. The principle of concentration of production, which led to the concentration of the population in large cities, will be replaced in the information society by the principle of the optimal combination of large and small, because the main production - the production of knowledge - is not tied to sources of fossil resources.
Computers can be brought anywhere in the world, from anywhere you can enter the information network and become a participant in the production of knowledge (write a book, calculate a project, draw up a report, and so on).
5) Maximization. The principle of maximization, which led to the construction of gigantic plants and factories, huge research institutes, will be replaced (and has already begun to change) by the principle of creating temporary teams to solve special problems. These teams will be able to set a convenient mode of work for themselves.
6) Centralization. The principle of centralization will be replaced by the principle of decentralization and deurbanization (from the Latin urbs - city) - a decrease in the role of cities in public life, since the need for the existence of huge cities (megacities) disappears.
Philosophers also note that in the socio-political sphere and in the field of international economics, information technologies open up completely unprecedented prospects. Currently, there are all prerequisites for:
1) the creation of a global economy (the United Europe became the first step in this direction);
2) solving social problems.
The openness of information makes a person stronger, and state power more dependent on citizens. Telecommunication networks create opportunities for the direct participation of all citizens in government, which makes it possible to avoid making important government decisions that ignore the interests of citizens or even their minority. Of course, all the optimistic forecasts that sound in the theory of the information society have as their premise a revision on the scale of the whole of mankind of attitudes towards the goals and objectives of production. Production must be put at the service of vital interests, and not war. It should develop taking into account the global problems facing, all people of the information society should be characterized by a high level of environmental consciousness.
2 . INFORMATION INEQUALITY OF MODERN SOCIETY
2.1 Information society and power
The management of the information society is carried out on the basis of the powers of authority by the system of state bodies. Power is information, not speaking at all. It is those people who can listen effectively and are able to extract valuable information from what they hear and have power.
One of the most meaningful classifications of power is its division in accordance with resources:
economic,
social,
Spiritual and informational,
Forced (political in the narrow sense).
Social power involves the distribution of statuses, benefits, privileges.
Coercive power relies on power resources and means control over people through the threat or use of violence (a sign of political power).
Subsequently, new technologies appeared in the information sphere that are directly related to information, the economy and other important areas of life. According to the legislation of the Russian Federation, the information sphere is the sphere of activity of subjects associated with the creation, transformation and consumption of information. The information sphere requires an information environment. Information environment - a set of technical and software tools for storing, processing and transmitting information, as well as socio-economic and cultural conditions for the implementation of informatization processes.
In the information sphere, even e-government, e-taxes, Internet voting and much more have appeared:
1. Electronic government - a public administration system based on electronic means of processing, transmitting and disseminating information.
2. Electronic taxes - a technology for processing and transmitting tax statements online.
3. Internet voting - voting using the Internet environment. In Internet voting, the voter receives an electronic ballot on a certain website and votes. The authenticity of the ballot is guaranteed by means of a digital signature.
In this regard, the authorities made it easier for their fellow citizens to perform certain actions prescribed by law, such as voting or paying taxes.
The appearance of handling electronic money has led to the emergence of information crime. Information crime - illegal actions in the information sphere that violate the rights of an individual, organization or state established by law and cause them moral harm or material damage.
But how to protect information from misuse, how to protect information from information crime? For this, a special information legislation was developed. Information legislation - a set of laws, regulations and other forms of legal regulation in the field of circulation and production of information and the use of information technologies.
Such legislation exists in the Russian Federation. An example is the Federal Law No. 24-F3 No. “On Information, Informatization and Information Protection” dated January 25, 1995. Just as Russian legislation provides for the freedom of the individual, so the information legislation has its own, informational freedom of the individual. Information freedom of the individual is the right of a person: - to receive information necessary for his life, professional activity and development; - to express their point of view about certain natural or social phenomena; - share information with other people.
Information here means any information, except for that which is a state secret of the country.
In order to educate cultural professional users in your country, it is necessary to instill in them computer literacy. Computer literacy implies the possession of a sufficient set of knowledge and skills to work on a computer.
To achieve these goals, at present, educational institutions, including secondary educational institutions, have introduced subjects for the study of information technology, where future potential information users are taught various computer programs, shells, and the like.
2.2 Social inequality
Consider three main social classes:
one). The rich (i.e. the elite);
2). Middle class;
3). Poor.
All these three social classes make up the concept of society in the broadest sense of the word. Society - a set of people: - United by historically established forms of their relationship and interaction in order to meet their needs; - characterized by:
1) stability;
2) integrity;
3) self-development;
4) the presence of special social values and norms that determine their behavior.
Society is a human community, the specificity of which is the relationship of people to each other. Society is a product of human interaction.
Society is an integral system of social institutions that perform the functions of regulating economic, political, legal, moral and other relations.
It is the middle class that subtly feels any changes in the state and is subject to it to change the situation, if necessary. The middle class is a class that occupies an intermediate position between the main classes in the system of social stratification. The middle class is characterized by a heterogeneous position, contradictory interests, consciousness and political behavior. Distinguish between the old middle class and the new middle class:
1) The old middle class - medium and small owners: small entrepreneurs, merchants, artisans, freelancers, small and medium farmers, owners of small manufacturing firms.
2) The new middle class - employees, managers, engineers, professional mental workers, who do not own the means of production and live by selling their labor.
CONCLUSION
It is obvious that at present we are entering the information era, where the main commodity will be information in its various manifestations.
Receiving undeniable benefits, such as the availability of information, its rapid dissemination, the free exchange of data between people, etc., one cannot but take into account the increased and changed requirements for a person as a member of society.
In the period of transition to the information society, in addition to solving the problems described above, it is necessary to prepare a person for the rapid perception and processing of large amounts of information, mastering modern means, methods and technology of work. In addition, new working conditions give rise to the dependence of the awareness of one person on the information acquired by other people.
Now it is not enough to be able to master and accumulate information on your own, but you need to learn such a technology for working with information when decisions are prepared and made on the basis of collective knowledge. This suggests that a person must have a certain level of culture in handling information.
It should be noted that the problem of informatization of society is discussed today by scientists more and more widely. Since obtaining information about what is happening in the country and in the world no longer requires direct communication between people, a person will be increasingly isolated from society, subjected to the illusion of independence from it.
It is necessary to cultivate a sense of responsibility of each person for what is happening in the world, achieving a clear understanding of the interdependence of all people. This task relates, first of all, to the education system and the mass media. The nature of changes in the social structure predicted by scientists under the influence of informatization in the above areas is as follows:
1) The number of social groups will grow, which will naturally lead to a decrease in their average size. Modern information technologies provide a real opportunity for a more accurate, operational consideration of people's interests.
2) The qualitative parameters of social groups will improve in terms of such parameters as the level of education, intelligence, etc.
3) The new percentages between social groups identified in society according to various criteria will probably look like this:
The proportion of people engaged in intellectual work - intellectuals - will increase.
The emergence of a special class of "intellectuals" is predicted. For those who do not want or cannot work intellectually, work is supposed to be in the field of information services, which, as noted earlier, should account for more than 50% in the information society in the structure of employment, or in the field of material production.
The number of employed people will increase. Older people will be able to continue working even after retirement, as the working age bar will rise (the body ages before the brain).
One of the highest places in the hierarchy of values (along with innovation) is the autonomy of the individual, which is not typical of a traditional society at all.
Personality is realized only through belonging to a certain corporation, being an element in a strictly defined system of corporate relations. If a person is not included in any corporation, he is not a person.
In a technogenic civilization, a special type of personal autonomy arises: a person can change his corporate ties, since he is not rigidly attached to them, he can and is able to very flexibly build his relationships with people, immerse himself in different social communities, in different cultural traditions. Modern science and technical creativity draw fundamentally new types of objects into the field of human activity, the development of which requires new strategies. We are talking about objects that are self-developing systems characterized by synergistic effects. Their development is always accompanied by the passage of the system through special states of instability, when small random impacts can lead to the emergence of new structures, new levels of organization of the system, which affect the already established levels and transform them.
For free orientation in the information flow, a person must have an information culture as one of the components of a common culture. The growing strength of the flow of information exchange between people has given rise to a new type of culture in which everything is subject to the need for classification, unification in order to maximize compression and increase efficiency in transmission from person to person, whether in person or through the media.
There is the problem of human life and activity in the new society, the form of its existence. Will he live in the "Electronic Cottage" as some futurists predicted, or will the form of life not change dramatically.
Everyone will have to rethink their life position as an individual, it is clear that there will be a redistribution of life values.
LITERATURE
1. Anurin, V.F. Fundamentals of sociological knowledge: A course of lectures on general sociology. [Text] / V.F. Anurin. - N.Novgorod: NCI, 1998. - 358s.
2. Belsky, V.Yu. Sociology. Textbook. [Text] / V.Yu. Belsky, A.A. Belyaev, D.G. Loshchakov. - M.: INFRA-M, 2002. - 304 p.
3. Vilyamsky, V.S. Fundamentals of organizing the activity of social systems. [Text] / V.S. Williamsky. - Rostov n / D .: Phoenix, 2006. - 544 p.
4. Komarov, M.S. Introduction to sociology. Textbook for higher institutions. [Text] / M.S. Komarov. - M.: Nauka, 1994. - 153 p.
5. Kravchenko, A.I. Sociology: Dictionary. [Text] / A.I. Kravchenko. - M.: Academy, 1997. - 405 p.
GLOSSARY
Virtual reality is a highly advanced form of computer simulation that allows the user to immerse themselves in an artificial world and directly act in it using special sensory devices that link their movements to audiovisual effects.
Power is a social relationship of domination and subordination, the structure of which includes persons who are the bearers of the will of power, as well as the means to maintain and maintain power.
The state is a social institution that has the power, strength and authority necessary for the distribution of resources and means that maintain order in a given social system.
Leisure is a set of activities in free time, through which the physical, mental and spiritual needs of a predominantly recreational nature are satisfied.
Spiritual-informational power is power over people, carried out with the help of scientific knowledge and information (preparation of decisions, impact on consciousness, including manipulation).
An individual is a specific representative of the human race.
The information society is one of the theoretical models used to describe a qualitatively new stage of social development, which the developed countries have entered with the beginning of the information and computer revolution.
Information infrastructure is a set of means for processing and using information, combined into computer and information networks.
Information culture is the ability to purposefully work with information and use computer information technology, modern tools and methods to receive, process and transmit it.
Information environment - a set of technical and software tools for storing, processing and transmitting information, as well as socio-economic and cultural conditions for the implementation of informatization processes.
Culture is a set of norms and values accepted in a given society and shared by the majority of its members.
Personality is a set of socially significant properties and qualities of an individual, thanks to which he is included in the system of social relations, diverse forms of activity and communication.
Macrosociology -- the level of sociological knowledge, focused on the study of large-scale social phenomena (nations, states, social institutions and organizations, classes, etc.).
Mass culture -- a form of culture of everyday life, the products of which are distributed through the media to the general public, without regard to regional, religious or class characteristics.
Microsociology is a level of sociological knowledge focused on the study of direct social interaction (interpersonal relations and processes of social communication in groups, the sphere of everyday reality, private problems).
Science is a social institution that carries out the process of purposeful production of knowledge.
Norms are standards (rules) that regulate the behavior and interaction of people in society.
Education is a social institution that ensures the transmission of social and cultural experience, knowledge, skills and abilities from generation to generation.
Society is a set of social relations of people: economic, political, legal, ideological, spiritual, etc., mediating their social activity.
The program of sociological research is a document containing a statement of the basic principles, theory and methodology of research, its procedures and organization.
Revolutionary social changes are extremely radical changes, involving a radical breakdown of the social system as a whole or its large subsystems.
A market economy is a self-regulating economic system based on the production and exchange of goods in accordance with the balance of supply and demand in a competitive environment of free commodity producers.
A social group is a set of individuals characterized by common interests, attitudes and orientations, normative regulation of their joint activities within a certain space and time.
Social inequality is a form of social differentiation in which individual individuals, social groups, strata, classes are at different levels of the vertical social hierarchy and have unequal life chances and opportunities to meet needs.
Social role -- a pattern of behavior of the individual, due to its position in the system of social ties and relationships.
A social system is a social process or phenomenon consisting of a qualitatively defined set of elements that are in mutual connections and relationships, form a single whole and are capable of changing their structure in interaction with external conditions.
Social stability is the state of a social system in which it is able to function effectively and change while maintaining the stability of its structure and functions.
Social structure -- a stable relationship of classes, social groups, strata, socio-demographic, professional, national-ethnic and other communities.
Social changes are changes that take place over time in social communities, groups, institutions, organizations and societies, in their relationships with each other, as well as with individuals.
A social institution is a stable, historically established form of organizing the life of people, and the rules and norms governing this activity.
Social control is the regulation of people's behavior in society with the help of norms and sanctions.
Sociology is the science of the functioning and interaction of social communities within the framework of social institutions.
The middle class is a class that occupies an intermediate position between the main classes in the system of social stratification.
Tradition is an element of social and cultural heritage that is passed down from generation to generation in certain social groups or societies for a long time.
Economic power is control over economic resources, ownership of values.
Elite culture is a form of culture that is focused on a narrow circle of consumers, the elite, and claims to be sophistication and sophistication.
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With the development of mankind, the role of information in the life of society and the individual has constantly increased. The most important human achievements in informatization- this is:
- appearance of writing (about $3000$ years BC, Egypt);
- the invention of printing ($X$ century -China, $XV$ century -Europe);
- means of communication (telegraph, telephone, radio, television; late $XIX$-early $XX$ centuries).
Now it is believed that we are gradually moving from an industrial society to a post-industrial (information) one.
Definition 1
Information society- this is a stage in the development of civilization at which information and knowledge become the main products of production.
Definition 2
The transition to the information society is often called informatization.
Japan, the USA and some European countries (eg Germany) have already moved closer to the information society. This can be judged by the following features:
- introduction of computers and information technologies in all spheres of life;
- development of means of communication (communications);
- teaching computer literacy to any person;
- freedom of access to any information;
- development of distance education using the Internet a;
- change in the economic structure in terms of informatization;
- changing the way of life of people (communication via the Internet, social networks, online stores, e-commerce ...).
Remark 1
As a result of industrialization, machines have replaced humans, and as a result of informatization, computers begin to independently collect and process information, replacing the mental labor of people.
On the one hand, the transition to the information society makes people's lives easier, because all the routine work is done by a computer. On the other hand, there are also negative consequences:
- strengthening the influence of the media (through mass information, a group of people can influence the human masses, which leads to tourist acts);
- as a result of the availability of information, the privacy of people and entire organizations is destroyed;
- a gigantic flow of information does not allow to determine its reliability;
- personal communication is increasingly being replaced by communication on the Internet (social networks, chats, blogs…);
- older people cannot adapt to changing conditions.
As a result of informatization, information is accumulated in libraries, banks and databases, which are called information resources country and the world as a whole. Nowadays, information resources have become a commodity. Many companies provide information services:
- search and selection of information;
- recruitment;
- education;
- advertising;
- consulting;
- creation of automated information systems and websites.
One of the hallmarks of the information society- wide introduction of information technologies in all spheres of life.
Definition 3
New information technologies- These are technologies related to the use of computer technology for storing, protecting, processing and transmitting information.
Information technologies include:
- preparation of documents;
- search for information;
- telecommunications (computer networks; Internet, e-mail);
- automation of control systems (creation and application of automated control systems);
- CAD (introduction of computer-aided design systems);
- geographic information systems (implementation of systems based on maps and satellite images);
- training (computer simulators, distance learning; electronic textbooks, multimedia development).
Increasing role of information in modern society requires from each person a certain culture of handling information and information technologies, i.e. information culture.
Information culture of society is the ability of society to:
- efficient use of information resources and means of information exchange;
- apply achievements and advanced information technologies.
Human information culture is his ability to use modern technologies to solve his problems related to the search and processing of information. A modern person should be able to:
- formulate your need for information;
- find the information you need using various sources;
- select and analyze information;
- process information;
- use the information to make a decision.
The success of a person depends on his ability to competently work with information.
concept "information culture" includes the ethics of information use.
Unethical:
- suppress the statements of others;
- threaten someone;
- distribute statements, images, photographs, personal files, opinions of others without their consent;
- retain copyright;
- “hack” websites, mailboxes, personal pages on social networks, blogs;
- Create malware to steal information.
All of the above is a criminal offense and is punishable by imprisonment for up to $5$ years (Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, article $272$).
In Russia, there are several stages of informatization of society.
At the first stage ($1991-1994$) formed the foundations in the field of informatization. Second stage ($1994-1998$) led to the development of the information policy of the state. Third stage, which continues to this day, is a stage in the formation of policy in the field of building the information society. In $2008$ was adopted Information Society Development Strategy up to $2020. The expected final result of the Strategy will be the presence of a wide range of opportunities for using information technologies for industrial, scientific, educational and social purposes. These opportunities will be available to any citizen regardless of his age, state of health, region of residence and any other characteristics. Opportunities for the use of information technology are provided through the creation of appropriate infrastructure, the provision of digital content and user training.
The informatization of society depends entirely on computerization and the introduction of new means of communication. Information society- a society in which the majority of workers are engaged in the production, storage, processing and sale of information, especially its highest form - knowledge.
Remark 2
On the one hand, the development of computer technology and communication technologies provides ample opportunities and seemingly complete freedom. On the other hand, in the information society, all the norms of law and morality that humanity has developed throughout history continue to operate.
it is a society that is being formed in the post-industrial phase of the development of civilization, which is characterized by a comprehensive informatization of social structures and is replacing the post-industrial one.
In the "social framework of the information society" D. Bell, the development of the concept of I. o. expresses the transition from the post-industrial predominance of the service sector over the production sector to the dominance of the information services sector. In this sense, the concept of I. o. reflects new aspects of the development of post-industrial society, is its additional characteristic (see "Post-industrial society").
On the other hand, I. o. can be understood as an independent stage of the historical development of civilization, following the post-industrial society and characterized primarily by the production of information, the level of awareness of the population and the development of education. In addition, the post-industrial society itself can be understood as the first stage of I. o. In this sense, the analysis of the problems of I. o. associated with the consideration of post-industrial society as the first in the history of I. o.
For research of possible ways of development And. in Western socio-philosophical theories, the concept of a post-information society is introduced (Hunt's work "The Post-Information Society"), i.e., a theoretical consideration of the problems of I. o. has its further development in the concept of post-information society: in-formation, in-formation, post-information society. Establishing the similarity of the DNA genetic information system, the genetic structures of the biosphere and the information structures of the social organization of the noosphere allowed Baudrillard to deploy the concept of a post-information society, the "virtual era" of which is replacing the departed "oral", "written" and "printing societies" of McLuhan. The concept of the post-information society reflects such a change in the sphere of information services as the determining basis of the information system, on which the former rational mechanism for the production of information is replaced by a probabilistic chaos of excess social information. In information "virtual reality" the formation of "redundant" socio-informational structures of the IO is taking place: in it, the redundancy of social information means only a lack of information about which part of it is redundant. As an ideology or hegemony of information structures, Baudrillard's "virtual reality" becomes the reality of I. o. In this regard, the concept of I. o. reflects, on the one hand, the way information structures are disseminated and, on the other hand, the level of informatization and computerization of society.
The emergence of the concept of I. o. closely related to the development of computer science and cybernetics in the works of N. Wiener, information management theory and information theory of value. The cost of human activity and its results is determined not only and not so much by labor costs, but by embodied information, which becomes a source of added value. In this sense, the concept of I. o. expresses a rethinking of information and its role as a quantitative characteristic for a qualitative analysis of social development. A certain level of social information, in addition to quantitative characteristics, makes it possible to reflect certain qualitative aspects of the development of society. The information theory of value characterizes not only the amount of information embodied in the results of production activity, but also the level of development of information production as the basis for the development of information production. - a certain stage of development of society.
The concept of I. o. in a certain way characterizes the changes in the worldview associated with the departure from the classical picture of the world. In this aspect of the concept of I. o. reflects a consistent change in the basis of society - from the natural world of traditional society to an artificial, created world (industrial - see "Industrial Society" - and post-industrial society) and to the world of social information I. o. Cyberspace, in which only intellectual programmers now work, is becoming an information space for the socio-cultural and, consequently, socio-economic development of the I. o. This is the basis for the production of information, which is the backbone of the structures of the I. O., in contrast to the industrial production of an industrial society. Education and science determine the level of production of information and the degree of development of the information system.
Problems of functioning of structures I. about. are closely connected with the problems of artificial intelligence (for example, Intel microprocessors or the development of text editors that correct human errors in computer typing). The concept of intellectual and information capital, introduced by Bourdieu, is important for the concept of I. o. For example, the intellectual property of Bill Gates, the creator and ideological inspirer of Microsoft (the world market leader in software for the computer industry), whose property is estimated at many billions of dollars, largely contributed to the creation of a new type of ownership and copyright for software products, the formation of an international intellectual property copyright systems.
Information interchange permeates the structure of the spiritual culture of the I. O., based not so much on the classical media of the "Gutenberg Era" in the understanding of McLuhan, but on innovative electronic media. The Internet can now rightly be attributed to the latter: both in terms of the number of audience around the globe and in terms of the volume of information services, the Internet is a global mass media.
The role of information as a strategic resource increases with the development of electronic media that manipulate the masses and public opinion. With the development of audiovisual technology, global computer networks (such as "Redcom" or "Internet" - with a multi-million audience in all developed countries, with e-mail, various magazines, conferences, bulletin boards, etc. within the information network "Internet"), accumulating information, access to it characterizes the possibilities of its use in a complex structure of power. An example of how a global information structure is formed is the system of interconnections within UNESCO, global media such as Eurovision, or the US National Information Infrastructure.
The social characteristics of the development of I. o. are the awareness of its various social groups, the availability of information, the effectiveness of the mass media services and their feedback capabilities, the level of education, the intellectual capabilities of society, primarily in information production.
Great Definition
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