Networks and the Information Society
How digital networks reorganize economy, society, and power, and the debates over the rise of an information or network society.
Definition
The information society is a social formation in which the creation, distribution, and use of information become central economic and cultural activities; the network society describes social organization built around digital information networks.
Scope
This topic examines theories of the information and network society, in which information processing and networks become central to social organization. It covers Castells's account of the network society, Benkler's analysis of networked social production, the protocological forms of control in distributed networks, and the political and economic implications of networked communication.
Core questions
- How do digital networks reorganize economic and social life?
- What forms of production and freedom do networks enable?
- How is control exercised in distributed networks?
- Does networking decentralize or recentralize power?
Key concepts
- Network society
- Information society
- Peer production
- Protocol
- Decentralization
- Datafication
Key theories
- The network society
- Castells's argument that information networks have become the organizing principle of the economy, society, and culture in the information age.
- Commons-based peer production
- Benkler's account of how networked information environments enable large-scale collaborative production outside markets and firms.
- Protocol and control
- Galloway's argument that distributed networks are governed by protocols that enable a new, decentralized form of control.
History
Theories of a post-industrial information society developed from the 1970s and crystallized in the 1990s with Castells's network-society trilogy. Subsequent scholars, including Benkler and Galloway, examined the productive possibilities and the new forms of control inherent in networked communication, debates now extended to platform societies.
Debates
- Liberation versus control
- Whether networked communication primarily empowers individuals and collaborative production or enables new, subtler forms of control and concentration.
Key figures
- Manuel Castells
- Yochai Benkler
- Alexander Galloway
- Jose van Dijck
Related topics
Seminal works
- castells1996
- benkler2006
- galloway2004
- vandijck2018
Frequently asked questions
- What is the difference between the information society and the network society?
- The information society stresses the centrality of information itself, while Castells's network society emphasizes the networked form of organization through which information flows.
- Do networks decentralize power?
- They can distribute participation, but theorists like Galloway argue networks also enable new protocological forms of control, so the effect on power is contested.