Information Technologies and Social Transformation (1985) / Chapter Skim
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The Information Age: Evolution or Revolution?
The Information Age: Evolution or Revolution?
Pages 35-53
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From page 35... ...
Since all of these involve the accumulation, manipulation, and retrieval of data by computerized electronic devices and their application to many facets of human life, it is no wonder that the headlines shout that computer developments are transforming industry and society to produce a new "Information Age." Is this transformation evolutionary or revolutionary? After all, most technologies are evolutionary in the sense that they derive from prior developments.
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From page 36... ...
Although popular opinion credits Watt's steam engine with starting industrialization, many of its elements, such as power-driven machinery, the factory organization of work, and specialization of labor, had already begun in the textile industry long before Watt.2 Concomitant changes were occurring in mining and metallurgy, and transportation was being improved by the development of canals and roadways. Furthermore, the foundation of a national banking system and extension of joint-stock companies helped provide the capital and financial requirements for technical investment and commercial growth.
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From page 37... ...
Both elements must be present; a series of technological changes alone would not constitute an industrial revolution, nor would sociocultural changes without concomitant technological developments produce a new industrial era.3 To see if the much-heralded, incoming Information Age is truly a revolutionary phenomenon, let us analyze both the technological and sociocultural changes in the classical Industrial Revolution and see if parallel transformations are occu~nog today.
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From page 38... ...
. the use of new basic matenals, chiefly iron and steel; new energy sources, deriving from new prime movers and fuels, such as coal and the steam engine, and, later, electncity, petroleum, and the internal-combustion engine; mechanical inventions, such as the spinning jenny, the power loom, and machine tools, which increased production with a smaller expenditure of human energy; the centralized organization of work in the factory system, which entailed the further division of labor and specialization of function, and these, together with improved machines, making possible interchangeable parts and mass prodllction;4 the quickening of transportation and communication through the steamship, the steam locomotive, the automobile, and eventually the airplane; and in communications, the telegraph, telephone, and radio; and · the development of a science of technology.5 In the nonindustrial technological sphere, agricultural improvements embodying many of the same technical changes made possible the provision of food for a larger population.
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From page 39... ...
A CURRENT TECHNOLOGICAL REVOLUTION? Are the technological and the sociocultural changes occumog in relation to today's advances in computers of sufficient magnitude to hail ours as a revolutionary '`Information Age?
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From page 40... ...
Taylor's Scientific Management. But nowadays, computerized information devices form the heart rather, the eyes, hands, and mind the machine and allow for completely automated machinery, robots.
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From page 41... ...
These contemporary major technical changes in materials, fuels and prime movers, machinery, the organization of work, transportation, and communication all involve more knowledge and more information. Our industrial and agricultural technologies are increasingly reliant upon the newfound and enlarged technical capacity given us by computerized information devices.
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From page 42... ...
Agricultural technology is thus one of the chief beneficiaries of and contributors to the new Information Age. The R&D laboratory, which grew out of the German chemical industry in the latter part of the nineteenth century, helped create a science of technology engineering science and that is reflected in the education and practices of today's engineers.'2 Research and development, which has become characteristic of all technologically advanced industry, has, of course, been enhanced by our heightened informational capabilities.
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From page 43... ...
Advancing technologies have made feasible the creation of new production centers, having different resource advantages, throughout the world. Partly this is due to the geographical dispersion of natural resources; today's sophisticated technology frequently requires exotic materials not available in the United States, so that we are no longer a self-sufficient nation producing all we need for our own uses and exporting to others.
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From page 44... ...
Instead, as we can see from the example of the classical Industrial Revolution, old technologies
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From page 45... ...
In brief, industrialization carried with it political and social democratization and the Information Age, by facilitating widespread communication, might conceivably fortify democratic political control in the advanced industrial nations. Although we cannot be sure of that, we can be certain that governments will continue to be involved in economic policy and hence in technological activities.
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From page 46... ...
. The new Information Age requires even more complex and sophisticated technology, so there is need for a still higher degree of specialized technical skills including social skills as well as manipulative ones.
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From page 47... ...
At the same time there are apparently conflicting demands that this be done without plundering the earth of its resources or damaging the environment. In other words, the Information Age must stimulate technological growth to meet these demands and do so by new kinds of technical applications that will maintain the productivity and salubrity of our planet for future generations.
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From page 48... ...
We now have many and growing options in regard to the materials that we wish to employ, the energy sources that we intend to utilize, and the ways in which we go about producing and distributing food, goods, and services. Because the scientific technology of the incoming Infonnation Age offers us manifold choices, we can make decisions about the future course of society with due concern for conservation of natural resources, the preservation of the environment, and the well-being of our fellowman now and in the future.
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From page 49... ...
] 7 He pointed out that the technologies developed in the preceding century gave mankind the opportunity to bring about a new and better social system, allowing the vast quantity of material goods being turned out by an advancing technology to redound to the benefit to all of mankind, rather than being confined to a narrow few.
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From page 50... ...
Hence, we still cannot foresee exactly what some of the consequences will be, any more than the prophets at the turn of this century could foretell that the automobile would lead to the suburbanization of American society, provide the prototype for the mass production of all kinds of material goods, do away with the old distinction between city and country dweller, and, with its related industries, help produce the richest society in the world's history.
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From page 51... ...
Despite the many defects we can find in highly industrialized societies, including our own, the fact is that the most technologically advanced nations are the ones that have abandoned cruel and unusual punishments; have provided social welfare and medical services for all segments of society; have allowed for the greatest measure of racial, religious, and sexual equality; and have, in large measure, provided for freedom and a humane life for all. The Information Age promises to carry those hopes for the good
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From page 52... ...
12. Melvin Kranzberg, "The Wedding of Science and Technology: A Very Modern Marriage,~' in John Nicholas Burnett, ea., Technology and Science: Important
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From page 53... ...
17. William Fielding Ogburn, On Culture and Social Change: Selected Papers, edited by Otis Dudley Duncan (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1964)
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