Measuring the information economy
Machlup measured knowledge production in the US economy, and Porat estimated that information activities accounted for about half of US GNP in 1967.
Post-industrial society and the Third Wave
Bell's post-industrial society features a service economy, the pre-eminence of professional and technical classes, the centrality of theoretical knowledge, technology assessment and intellectual technology. Toffler called the information revolution the Third Wave.
Castells' network society
Castells analysed informational capitalism, in which networks reorganise economy and organisations and the space of flows outweighs the space of places.
Webster and critics
Webster classified definitions as technological, economic, occupational, spatial and cultural, and doubted that more information means a new kind of society. Schiller stressed commodification of information, Habermasian critics the decline of the public sphere, Foucauldian critics surveillance; unequal access raises the digital divide. Global media flows link to globalisation and cultural diffusion.
References
- Machlup, F. (1962). The Production and Distribution of Knowledge in the United States. Princeton University Press.
- Porat, M. U. (1977). The Information Economy. US Department of Commerce.
- Bell, D. (1973). The Coming of Post-Industrial Society. Basic Books.
- Castells, M. (1996). The Rise of the Network Society. Blackwell.
- Webster, F. (2014). Theories of the Information Society (4th ed.). Routledge.