The idea of an information society
Three days ago, the veteran journalist Edwin Ariyadasa turned eighty
seven years. Today's 'Montage' is devoted a celebration of his life and
work. I first got to know Edwin in the 1950s without getting to know
him. What does this cryptic remark mean? As a schoolboy, I used to be an
avid reader of the series of essays by Janaka that appeared in the `Silumina'
supplement on arts and letters. This series dealt with art, literature
as well as scientific topics such as the theory of evolution in
accessible Sinhala prose. At a time when there was very little material
in Sinhala on contemporary topics and scientific concepts, the essays by
Janaka opened a very important window for us onto modern ideas and
concepts.
Later, after graduating from Peradeniya, I spent some time on the
editorial staff of `Dinamina'; I was a member of the features desk.
Around the table sat, Sisil Illangakoon, the features editor, who was
also my cousin, and B.A. Siriwardena, Jayavilal Wilegoda, G.S. Perera
and Hema Gunawardena. Edwin was at a different desk; but I got the
opportunity to discuss matters, both profound and trivial, with him at
length. Being new to Colombo, his advice proved to be extremely useful.
A decade or so later, when I became the Head of the newly inaugurated
Department of Mass Communication at the Kelaniya University, I invited
Edwin Ariyadasa to serve as a Visiting Lecturer knowing full well his
deep interest in, and intimate knowledge of, the field of communication.
As a journalist he used to write on a broad gamut of topics ranging from
literature and cinema to international relations. Through his copious
writings, he was able to create a landscape of authority around him. He
was also an accomplished broadcaster, and one of his memorable programs
was the live broadcast in Sinhala on the moon landing. He explained in
simple Sinhala the intricate science and the complex logistics that went
into this historic event. That program, organized by H.M. Gunasekera,
succeeded in a way few others did, in broadening the intellectual
horizons of the Sinhala listeners.
Over the past six decades, Edwin Ariyadasa has introduced very many
important concepts to the Sinhala reader. One such is the idea of the
information society which today has assumed the status of a privileged
concept in communication studies. Fritz Machlup had been working since
the 1930s on the idea of knowledge industries and his book on the
production and distribution of knowledge in the United States was one
seminal treatise that served to focus on the information society. The
writings of Daniel Bell on the post-industrial society, which he later
termed the information society, are another.
What is meant by the information society? It refers to a society in
which the generation, dissemination, reception and integration of
information has become the centre of social living. In more advanced
societies, the members of the information society are referred to as
digital citizens. There are a number of scholars and thinkers who have
written insightfully on this concept. Daniel Bell, Herbert Schiller,
Jurgen Habermas, Anthony Giddens, Alvin Toffler, Theodore Roszak, are a
few of them. Some, mostly in the domains of futuristic studies and
communication, are highly enthusiastic about this concept, while others
are less enthusiastic and harbour certain reservations. I belong to the
second category. The stupendous developments in information technologies
and the concomitant growths in the quantum of information have made an
undeniable difference to modern life. However, there are certain
negatives that we in our over-enthusiasm should not ignore downplay.
One of the most persuasive scholars of the information society that I
have encountered is Manuel Castells, an empirical sociologist. I once
listened to an hour-long interview he gave over the radio, which remains
in my memory as one of the most lucid on the subject.
He is a Spanish-born scholar who now works in the United States. His
trilogy of books, `The Rise of Network Society', `The Power of Identity'
and `End of Millennium', are to my mind, the most significant
interpretive works in this field of inquiry. Like many other teachers of
communication, I use them frequently in class.
His central argument is that the information age marks the
commencement of a new society which has spawned new networks that
facilitate information flows in ways that have not been encountered
before. He focuses on the idea of informational capitalism, and he
prefers the term `network society' to information society, claiming that
the latter is short of analytical rigor.
The information society is indeed an interesting concept; there is no
doubt the quantity and velocity of the travel of information has
increased dramatically in recent times, inflecting our lives in complex
ways.
However, in my judgment, there are a number of problems associated
with this concept. First the concept of information as used by these
writers, Castells included, is inexact and somewhat fuzzy; it functions
as a variable concept in which precision is silent. Second, the
quantification of the amount of information in circulation does not tell
us very much about its quality.
The more important question is what kind of information is being put
into circulation and what meanings do items of information carry. As
Baudrillard said, `there is more and more information, less and less
meaning.'
Third, the much touted notion that the information society signifies
a complete break with the past is misleading; there are obvious
continuities with the past.
The fact that it represents the latest phase of capitalism provides
us with one such historical linkage. Fourth, we live in a society in
which information is commodified and hence the manipulation of
information, its vendibility, becomes important; the mis-information
that is circulated by mass media, Internet and so on is glaringly and
disconcertingly obvious. It is as if we are living in a mis-information
society.
As teachers of communication, we find this concept challenging and
productively ambivalent. There is no doubt that it has emerged as a
dominant concept in communication studies.
The fact that Edwin Ariyadasa talked about it in Sinhala in the
1970s, when the concept was barely emerging from the shadows, is indeed
a testament to his prescience. |