INTRODUCTION

The concept of "information society" today has ceased to be a metaphor or designation of megatrends in the development of the modern world. The deep structural transformations of the economic mechanism that took place in the last third of the 20th century in a number of developed countries, which brought new science-intensive industries to the forefront instead of heavy industry, were accompanied by the rapid development of the “knowledge industry” and related technologies for transmitting and processing information, global computerization and the emergence of branched information technologies. systems. With the creation of the worldwide computer network Internet, humanity has practically entered the phase of formation and maintenance of a single global information and communication environment, and cyberspace, until recently only available to highly qualified programmers, is transforming before our eyes into the information field of socio-economic, political and cultural development. of the entire community, which makes it possible to provide the necessary information to individual citizens, their various associations, enterprises, authorities and administrations. We are constantly surrounded by computers, the Internet, television, cell phones, pagers - all this has become an integral part of modern man and form the information society.

All of the above determines the relevance of the study of this topic. In turn, the relevance of the research topic and the degree of development of the problem determined the purpose of the work: on the basis of literary sources, to study the features, problems and prospects of the information society and its impact on the world economy.

The implementation of this goal involves the solution of the following tasks:

Consider the concept and essence of the information society, as well as its main stages of emergence and development;

Analyze the process of informatization at the present time;

Explore the practice of formation and the impact of information technology on the global economy;

Determine the prospects, problems and trends of the information society.

The subject of the study is the information society and its main characteristics

The object of study in the course work is the world economy.

The methodological basis of the work is the dialectical method of cognition, general scientific methods (analysis, synthesis, induction, deduction, etc.), system analysis.

The structure of the work consists of three chapters, introduction, conclusion and list of references.

THEORETICAL ASPECTS OF THE INFORMATION SOCIETY

The concept and essence of the information society

Starting from the end of the 60s of the XX century in the developed capitalist countries (primarily in Japan and the USA) it becomes obvious that information and information resources begin to play a special independent role, no longer tied to material production. At the same time, information resources acquire the status of a determining factor in the development of material production, and not vice versa, as it was before. All this caused the emergence of a new approach to assessing the impact of information and information processes on society - the concept of the information society, in which information occupies a dominant position. The invention of the term is attributed to Yu. Hayashi, a professor at the Tokyo Institute of Technology. The contours of the information society have been outlined in reports submitted to the Japanese government by a number of organizations, notably the Economic Planning Agency and the Industrial Structure Council. The titles of the reports are indicative: "Japanese Information Society: Themes and Approaches" (1969), "Contours of the Informatization Promotion Policy of Japanese Society" (1969), "Information Society Plan" (1971). In these reports, the information society was presented as one where the process of computerization will give people access to reliable sources of information, save them from routine work, and provide a high level of automation of production. At the same time, production itself will also change - its product will become more "information-intensive", which means an increase in the share of innovation, design and marketing in its value. It was then that the now universally recognized idea was formulated for the first time that “the production of an information product, and not a material product, will be the driving force behind the education and development of society” [1, p. twenty]

Later, the term "information society" became widespread, and is currently used in various contexts. The closely related concepts of “knowledge society” and “post-industrial society” are also often used.

There are five definitions of the information society, each of which represents a criterion for understanding what is new in this society. These are technological, economic, cultural definitions and definitions based on the structure of employment and the spatial distribution of information technology.

The most common definition of the information society focuses on technological innovation. The key idea of ​​this definition is that breakthroughs in the processing, accumulation and transmission of information have led to the fact that information technologies are used in all aspects of public life.

The economic definition is related to a subsection of economics called informatization economics. Its founder, Fritz Machlap, has spent much of his professional career estimating the size and growth of the information industry. His work The Production and Distribution of Knowledge in the United States laid the foundation for measuring the information society in economic terms.

The cultural definition of the information society pays particular attention to the growth of information in public circulation.

Another popular feature of the information society is a change in the structure of employment. According to this definition, the information society arises when a large part of the population is engaged in work related to the processing of information.

A definition based on the spatial distribution of information technology pays special attention to information networks that link different geographical locations and have implications for the organization of time and space. This requires four elements. Information must take center stage as a strategic resource upon which the organization of the world economy depends. Computer and communication technologies provide the infrastructure that allows information to be processed and disseminated. There is a rapid growth of the information sector of the economy. The growing informatization of the economy contributes to the integration of national and regional economies. .

Despite the diversity of views of various researchers, it is still possible to identify some common fundamental features of the information society:

· the change in the role of information and knowledge in the life of society, expressed primarily in the unprecedented increase in the information saturation of economic, managerial and other areas of activity, in the transformation of information and knowledge into the most important resource for socio-economic development;

· transformation of the information industry into the most dynamic, profitable and prestigious sphere of production;

· the emergence of a developed market infrastructure for the consumption of information and information services;

· Increasing informatization of society with the use of telephony, radio, television, the Internet, as well as traditional and electronic media;

· Creation of a global information space that provides: effective information interaction of people, their access to world information resources and satisfaction of their needs for information products and services;

· profound changes in models of social organization and cooperation, when in all spheres of society there is a replacement of centralized hierarchical structures with flexible network types of organization adapted to rapid changes and innovative development.

Thus, despite the fact that the term "information society" has some heuristic value for the study of the features of the modern world, it is still too imprecise and vague. So far, there is no generally accepted criterion that singles out the fundamental novelty of this society and its difference from the previous ones. Most of these definitions operate with quantitative characteristics (“more information”), rather than qualitative indicators.

Definition of the concept of "information society"
Currently, there are several definitions of the concept of "information society". One of them, the most concise, but rather capacious, belongs to Professor A.I. Rakitov: “The information society is characterized by the fact that in it the main product of production is knowledge” .

Of course, this is only an economic description, which cannot cover all aspects of such a multifaceted concept as the concept of the information society. However, it reflects the main thing - the priority of information as an object and result of social production.

From an economic point of view, the following main types of societies are distinguished in the scientific literature today:

preindustrial society, which was dominated by the production of agricultural products, based on the use of manual labor and the muscular strength of animals, as well as handicrafts;

industrial Society, which began to form on our planet about 300 years ago and whose main economic characteristic is industrial production;

postindustrial society, the beginning of the formation of which is attributed to the middle of the 20th century and the main characteristic of which is the priority development of the service sector, which begin to prevail over the volume of industrial production and agricultural production;

Information society, in which the production of information products and the provision of information services prevails over all other types of socio-economic activity of people.

If we accept this classification of the stages of social development, then we can conclude that today, at the very beginning of the 21st century, most of the developed countries of the world are still at the stage of industrial societies, and the most developed of them (mainly the countries of the "big seven" ) - in the stage of transition from the post-industrial to the information society.

As for Russia, today, according to its macroeconomic characteristics, it belongs to developing countries and the transition from an industrial to a post-industrial society has just begun in it.

Distinctive features of the information society

According to A.I. Rakitov, the main distinguishing features of the information society are the following.

1. Each member of this society at any time of the day and anywhere in the country has access to the information he needs.

2. Society is able to provide each member with information technology (both computers and means of communication).

3. Society itself is capable of producing all the information necessary for its life.

Only the simultaneous fulfillment of all these conditions makes it possible to say that this or that society can be considered informational.
The main patterns of formation

information society
The formation of the information society is taking place in advanced countries before our eyes as a result of a complex socio-technological process - a global informatization. For the first time this term was used in the report "Informatization of Society", which was prepared in 1978 by a group of French experts on behalf of French President Giscard d'Estaing.

It is quite remarkable that after the translation of this report into English in 1980, it was already called "Computerization of Society". This indicates that at that time the public consciousness in most developed countries perceived only the instrumental and technological aspects of the process of informatization of society. Humanitarian-sociological and civilizational aspects of this process were not yet well identified and comprehended.

Many researchers consider foreign scientists I. Masuda, D. Bell, I. Martin and E. Toffler to be the first ideologists of the concept of the formation of the information society as a natural stage in the development of civilization. For example, the American sociologist E. Toffler, in his monograph “The Third Wave” published by him in 1980, argues that one of the reasons for the process of informatization of society that began in the second half of the 20th century is a completely natural reaction of social rejection of the mass standardization and unification that is characteristic of industrial society.

In an effort to satisfy the ever-increasing demands of the population in the consumption of goods and services, industrial society ensured the rapid development of their mass production and mass distribution in society. This led to the inevitable standardization of many elements of the culture of society, a significant limitation in the manifestation of people's individuality, an increase in routine and monotony in all spheres of public life.

Millions of people in industrialized countries are forced to live in the same dwellings, wear unified clothes of the so-called "consumer goods", eat the same food, listen to the same music, watch the same films, etc. Toffler believes that it is this trend that universal unification and gave rise to its opposite - the desire for diversity and individuality, which are more in line with the psychological nature of man.

This became one of the important psychological factors in the return of society to the values ​​of the pre-industrial era. But this return took place at a new technological level, which turned out to be capable, while maintaining the advantages of high technologization of society, to give the necessary features of diversity and individuality both to the products of social production and to the very organization of many production and social processes.

The main and highly effective means to achieve this goal were the means of informatics and new information technologies.

That is why in the second half of the twentieth century, the economy and industrial production in the developed industrial countries of the world began to acquire fundamentally new features. Increasing importance and social demand in society began to receive various kinds of services. In accordance with this, the structure of employment of the population also changed rapidly. Thus began to form post-industrial society - a society for the provision and consumption of services, which reached its peak in advanced countries by the beginning of the 21st century.

However, along with this, as a result of an increase in the diversity of goods, services and technologies, decentralization and complexity of production were carried out, labor specialization was fragmented, organizational forms of production management became more complicated and

sales of products. New types of activity appeared and quickly became popular: advertising, marketing, management. The result of all this has been a rapid increase in the amount of information circulating in society.

And this phenomenon is quite natural. At one time, Academician A.A. Kharkevich showed that in order to double the production of any commodity, it is necessary to quadruple the volume of production of the information necessary for this. In other words, the material well-being of society is closely related to the amount of information produced and used. And this relationship is exponential.

According to some estimates, since the beginning of our era, the first doubling of the knowledge accumulated by mankind occurred by 1750. The second doubling - by the beginning of the 20th century, that is, in 150 years. The third doubling - already by 1950.

Since 1950, the total amount of knowledge in the world has doubled every 10 years, since 1970 - every 5 years, and since 1991 - annually. This means that by the beginning of the 21st century, the amount of knowledge in the world has increased by more than 250 thousand times, that is, by several orders of magnitude.

Socio-economic aspects

the process of formation of the information society
The unprecedented and accelerating growth of information in society, which became increasingly noticeable in the second half of the 20th century, has been called "information explosion". It has become one of the signs of the transition of our civilization to a new stage of its development, the beginning of a new, informational era of human development.

Given the fact that under these conditions the ability of certain countries of the world community to produce, accumulate and use knowledge is decisive in assessing the prospects and opportunities for their further development, Professor I.V. Sokolova proposes to single out the following four main groups of these countries:

Countries that produce only raw materials, food and consumer goods under foreign licenses;

Countries that produce technical products under foreign licenses and partially - original technologies;

Countries producing original technologies (Japan and South Korea are good examples here);

Countries that produce not only new technologies, but also new knowledge.

To which of these groups Russia belongs today, the author invites readers to determine on their own and draw appropriate conclusions from this definition for the future.

Thus, the process of formation of the information society, based on the large-scale use of information and scientific knowledge, is carried out unevenly in the world, since it is determined by the level of general development of certain countries.

Professor I.V. Sokolova today develops a new direction in sociology, which she called sociology informatization. From the conceptual positions of this direction, the process of informatization of society should "organically fit into the total system of social activity", carrying out its intensification. Therefore, the process of informatization of society is proposed to be considered as a set of three interconnected processes, namely:

process mediatization society aimed at improving the means and methods of collecting, storing and distributing information;

The process of computerization of society, aimed at improving the means of searching and processing information;

The process of intellectualization of society, which is the development of people's abilities to perceive and generate information, the formation of new knowledge, including using the capabilities of artificial intelligence.

It is easy to see that all these three components of the process of informatization of society include not only instrumental and technological, but mainly social, “human” components.
Criteria for the transition to the information society
The process of transition from the post-industrial to the information society has revolutionary consequences for the development of human society, as it forms a new production and way of life and a new system of spiritual values. However, it is not carried out in leaps and bounds, but in an evolutionary way. The information civilization is formed and matures within the post-industrial society, gradually (albeit very intensively) replacing it in all spheres of people's social activity.

What can serve as a criterion, a quantitative indicator of the transition of a country to the stage of formation of the information society? Today we can point to three groups of such indicators:

Economic criteria that characterize the share of the country's gross national product, which is created in the information sphere of society. It is believed that if this share exceeds 50%, then we can assume that the transition to the information society has begun in this country;

A social criterion, the quantitative expression of which can be, for example, the share of the employed population associated with the production of information products, informatization tools and the provision of information services;

Technological criteria that determine the level of development of the information potential of society in terms of its information technosphere.

Such a criterion can be, for example, specific information armament of society, which is defined as the ratio of the total computing power of a country to the size of its population. This criterion was proposed by Academician A.P. Ershov back in 1988. It allows, based on the use of statistical data on the growth of the population of various countries of the world and the level of development of their computing potential, not only to quantify the current level of their informatization, but also to predict the expected level of its development.

According to academician A.P. Ershov, the information armament of society in advanced countries increases by a decimal order every eight to ten years. Therefore, in the information society, the value of the specific information armament can be 10-20 million operations per second per person.

As for other quantitative indicators, back in 1986 the total volume of US economic activity in the information sphere amounted to 60% of the gross national product. Achieving full informatization of the country according to this indicator is predicted for the second decade of the 21st century.

The rapid development of mass media, especially television, the creation and widespread use of personal computers, the construction of global information networks, the development of virtual reality technologies and other technological innovations have radically changed the life of society, not only bringing information activity to the fore, i.e. activities related to the production, consumption, transmission and storage of information, but also complicating and transforming reality. The fast-moving social changes caused by these changes gave rise to many futurological projects, such as “post-industrial society”, “consumer society”, “information highway”, “risk society”, etc., connected in one way or another with the formation and dynamic development "information society".

INFORMATION SOCIETY: TECHNOLOGICAL AND HUMANITARIAN ASPECTS

In modern scientific knowledge, there is no single position regarding the understanding of the information society. There are a large number of approaches that, in one form or another, try to describe the main features of this kind of stage in the development of society. To determine the information society, one should consider the main characteristics of society as an integral, changeable system, the components of which are in diverse relationships and interactions.

Consistency is the main characteristic of society as a material entity, in which individual and social consciousness also functions. In the course of their lives, people form a wide variety of social relations, among which the most fundamental are economic, political and legal, social and spiritual. Society as a system is also a unity of various social communities: ethnic or regional associations, classes and strata, social groups. Society is a systemic activity of people seeking to satisfy a variety of needs and interests: economic, political, legal, social, moral, religious, aesthetic, family and household, etc.

Any social system is characterized by:

• - presence goals(there are external and internal goals, realistic and utopian, strategic and operational, etc.);
• - presence borders, which may vary in length and in the degree of "transparency" or closeness;
• - certain adaptation to the internal and external environment, which allows the system to be more or less stable and dynamic;
• - functioning based on economic, political, social and cultural relations and communication links;
• - management and self-management on the basis of a certain ratio of unity of command and the participation of other people in leadership;
• - mandatory presence of a person, realizing the goals of the system, forming relations and communication links in it.

The classical definition of society says that it is a relatively stable system of social ties and relations between both large and small groups of people, determined in the process of the historical development of mankind, supported by the power of custom, tradition, law, social institutions, etc. and based on a certain way of production, exchange and consumption of material and spiritual goods.

The concept of "information society" became part of the scientific lexicon, primarily due to economic theories, in the early 60s in the United States, in order to explain the new role of information in the progressive development of mankind. The American economist F. Machlup as an independent area, along with the economic, political, social and spiritual spheres, singled out a relatively independent information sphere, the development of which is determined by the growth in the number of information interactions and the general flow of information. It is beginning to be seen as dominant and defining all aspects of life, especially in Western society.

Japanese researchers Yu. Hayashi and T. Umesao gave a slightly different meaning to the information society, assuming that the information society is based on the theory of "information explosion" (the economic sector of Japan at that time really developed in an implosive way), according to which a gigantic increase in information in a short time leads to qualitative changes in society and, above all, in its economic sphere.

Another position in the consideration of the information society was laid down in the studies of the French scientist S. Nora, who argued that fundamental changes in society are associated with the emergence and rapid spread of information and communication technologies that radically transform people's lives.

Another point of view is presented by F. Webster, who tried to systematize the entire problematic field of theories describing the information society. Webster linked the concepts of "consumer society" and "information society". In modern society, which largely bears the features of a consumer society, information cannot but play a significant role, because, firstly, consumers must know what and where they can consume, and secondly, in our individualized time they declare themselves through consumption. Both factors contribute to the dissemination of information, the first - because it is associated with advertising and promotion of goods (information reaches the consumer), the second - because the symbolic dimension of consumption works here: people, using certain things and relationships, declare themselves, again producing information .

An important issue is to identify the criteria of the information society, however, from the points of view presented, it is not entirely clear what exactly is meant by this term: if we use criterion for the formation of information as a separate sphere of society, then it is not clear what to do with the very phenomenon of information, which permeates all spheres of social life from the moment of its very appearance. It is no coincidence that the Gospel of John says that: “In the beginning was the Word (Logos), and the Word was with God, and the Word was

God" (John 1:1). Thus, the Logos existed, according to the words of the Christian father of the church, John Chrysostom, “before everything imaginable and before the ages.”

If we take as a basis such criterion as an increase in the amount of information, then with the same success, for example, Chinese or Japanese societies, due to the large amount of rice consumed, can be called rice.

If apply technological criterion, then it should be argued that earlier the life of society was based on labor-intensive and capital-intensive technologies: in the pre-industrial era, raw materials were considered the main production resource, and in the industrial era, energy, in the information era, human economic activity is mainly associated with the development of information, and its technological base is science-intensive technology. This position is also not perfect: after all, each new technology does not cancel the previous energy base, does not destroy the raw material base, and information technologies cannot be implemented without energy.

If you select consumer criterion, it is not clear what to do with societies where the information potential is quite high, but for one reason or another (for example, spiritual aspirations that exclude a consumerist attitude to life) have not become part of the general world of consumption.

One way or another, the analyzed campaigns are not fully justified and are not without serious contradictions.

An important question arises, why did the information society actually arise? The ideological sources of the emergence of the information society should be considered the theoretical views of such thinkers as F. Bacon, D. Diderot, D. Bell, M. McLuhan.

The English philosopher F. Bacon in the New Age called for the need to create a unified science of man, which is designed to help strengthen his practical activities to change the world based on experience. It is knowledge that motivates a person to action: “Knowledge is power!” (lat. “Scientia potentia est!”), Another meaning of this statement is possible, translated from English “Knowledge is power!”, Which can also mean “Knowledge is power!”. “He who understands the nature of man to the end, he can almost certainly become the blacksmith of his own happiness, he is born for power ...” - Bacon claimed.

In his utopian work The New Atlantis, Bacon tells about the possible outcomes of his project of knowledge. We are talking about the non-existent Pacific island of Bensalem, which is dominated by the highest technocratic power of scientists - the "House of Solomon", the purpose of which "is to know the causes and secret springs of all things and expand the limits of human power until everything becomes possible for him" . In the affairs of the scientists of the "New Atlantis" all the dreams of the humanists of the New Time came true. Based on technological advances (similar to modern sound recording, radio and television) and discoveries in physics, chemistry, mechanics, medicine, economics and agriculture, they created a social world of cloudless happiness, in which not only climatic conditions and crops, but also the duration and a high quality of life depends on the rational efforts of all members of society who own the relevant information.

In the conditions of the formation of the modern stage of development of the information society - the society of knowledge, the words of Bacon's warnings sound especially relevant, who believed that the unlimited accumulation of information can bring not only good, but also a terrible danger to humanity: “Knowledge is in the hands of an ignorant and inept person, without exaggeration, becomes a monster. Knowledge is multifaceted and can be applied in different ways. He has the face and voice of a woman - the personification of his beauty. Knowledge has wings because scientific discoveries spread very quickly across borders. He needs sharp and tenacious claws so that axioms and arguments penetrate into the human consciousness and are firmly held in it so that they cannot be got rid of. And if they are misunderstood or misused, they bring anxiety and anguish in one way or another and in the end just tear the mind to pieces.

French thinkers D. Diderot and J. D'Alembert published from 1751 to 1772. "Encyclopedia", realizing his grand project of Enlightenment. Enlighteners sought to change the ways of formation and transmission of knowledge, taking advantage of the presentation of information by the most important representatives of the scientific community of those times: philosophers, physicists, mathematicians, they created a systematic body of knowledge in various branches of human life and made it possible for any person to access this information, bypassing all estates. and workshop barriers.

In the second half of the XX century. cardinal changes began to occur in the field of scientific and technological progress, information and the accumulation of knowledge, which was comprehended in a number of scientific concepts.

In his post-industrial concept D. Bell believed that earlier the life of society was based on labor-intensive and capital-intensive activities for the extraction and processing of resources: in the pre-industrial era, raw materials were considered the main production resource, and in the industrial era, energy. In the information age, human economic activity is mainly associated with the development of information, and its technological base is science-intensive technologies.

D. Bell divided the history of society into three stages: pre-industrial, industrial and post-industrial, the main factor in this division is the development of the social management system, primarily in the economic sphere.

AT pre-industrial stage the basis of society is agriculture, the church and the army are its main institutions.

AT industrial stage - industry with a corporation and a firm at the head. The main figures were an entrepreneur, businessman, head of an industrial enterprise.

AT post-industrial stage - the basis of social relations is theoretical knowledge, and the place of its reproduction is the university. The leading role belongs to the "new people" - scientists, representatives of intellectual technologies and the creative elite, the middle class consists of engineers, researchers and, finally, the "proletariat of mental labor" - these are technicians and assistants.

The technological basis of the information society was the creation of personal computers, as well as the corresponding operating systems of an intuitive-graphic nature, which radically simplify interaction with an electronic machine for the user.

A clip based on George Orwell's dystopian book 1984 shows a "two minutes of hate" in which the dictator "Big Brother" inspires from a huge screen to the people gathered in the hall, dressed in the same gray robe, with reverence listening to their idol: "Today we celebrating the first anniversary of a great day. Day of purification of consciousness from hostile information. For the first time in history, we have created the Garden of Perfect Ideology. A place where every worker can flourish, safe from alien thoughts. The unification of our thoughts is our weapon, stronger than any fleet or army on this earth. We are one people, with one will, one goal, one motive. Our enemies must tell themselves that they will perish and we will bury them along with their worthless thinking. Together we will win!" (Fig. 2.1). Suddenly, a girl runs in, dressed, unlike the others, in a bright sports uniform with player headphones in her ears and with a huge hammer in her hands, who throws it at the screen, an explosion is heard and in place of Big Brother there is an inscription: “On January 24, Apple Computer will introduce Macintosh. And you will see why 1984 will not become like "1984".

Rice. 2.1.

In other words, the new technology will change the world in such a way, making it more open to communication, that from now on it will be impossible to have a totalitarian power that unifies and suppresses people.

AT wave concept E. Toffler, the information society is also the result of the development of the economy. The emphasis is on the development of technology and the cultural changes brought about by this development. The world is formed by peculiar waves of socio-economic development, technology determines the type of society and the type of culture. The logic of three "waves" is traced.

First was first wave - "agricultural civilization"(China, India, Benin, Mexico, Greece and Rome), which replaced the "pre-wave" culture of hunters and gatherers and within which a system of traditional patriarchal relations is taking shape.

Three hundred years ago there was an explosion that destroyed ancient societies and spawned a whole new civilization. second wave (industrial revolution). An “industrial civilization” has reigned on Earth, with characteristic relations of exploitation, a conveyor system of education and corporatism.

third wave ("information explosion"), brings with it new institutions, attitudes, values, a huge variety of subcultures and lifestyles. Information can replace a huge amount of material resources and becomes the main material for workers who are freely associated in associations.

E. Toffler argued that the emergence of a post-industrial society is a revolutionary change that will radically change the relationship between people and transform their consciousness and the very social fabric of being, becoming for them "a shock of the future".

Communication concept Canadian scientist M. McLuhan is based on the idea that the engine of history is a change in technology caused by a change in the way of communication. Human perception is determined by the speed of information transfer, and the type of social structure itself is determined by the dominant type of communication.

Just as hieroglyphs were necessary for ancient civilizations and, accordingly, to overcome the tribal organization of society, the alphabet "transferred" power from the priests to the military aristocracy, and its influence led to the formation of the ancient world with its "Greek miracle". Printing "spawned" the Reformation (individualism, national languages ​​and nation-states) and became the prototype of the industrial revolution. Modern means of communication act as external "continuations" of a person: television expands the boundaries of vision, radio - hearing, which leads to the creation of a "global village".

According to McLuhan, in the middle of the XX century. the transition of society from the book " Gutenberg galaxy"(named after the inventor of printing I. Gutenberg) to the electric galaxy The apotheosis of the new Electric Galaxy was the spread of visual technologies (cinema, television, video), which not only transformed the system of mass communications of society, but also changed the ideals, habits and behavior of humanity, which is on the threshold of a democratic, “liberated and carefree world”, uniting people of different nationalities, religions and beliefs.

If the cultural symbol of the traditional society was typography and the printed word, then today, according to the Spanish-American communicatologist M. Casels, we are witnessing the formation and development of a new galaxy - “ Galaxy Internet".

The introduction of electronic mass media into everyday life has led to a fundamentally new form of organizing text space in the virtual environment of the global network, where one-dimensional text is being replaced by multidimensional electronic hypertext. The latter is based on the possibility of an instantaneous transition from one volume of information to another at all points provided with links, moreover, any arbitrarily chosen places of texts can be endowed with such links.

Thus, following McLuhan's thought, it can be argued that the development of society is associated with new information technologies that make it possible to exponentially expand a person's feelings outside, progress in this regard follows from auditory perception(oral narratives), through linear writing(manuscript, print), to visual(film, video and television) and on to tactile(virtual reality) and non-linear text(structure of hyperlinks and written content of the Internet).

Information and communication prerequisites. The German philosopher J. Habermas believed that the media played a leading role in the development of society. The media can be window to the world expanding our vision and allowing us to see what is happening with our own eyes, without outside interference or bias.

But more and more often they are called interpreter of reality with varying degrees of objectivity, explaining and interpreting the disparate and incomprehensible events taking place in the modern world, as well as screen, barrier, hiding the truth in order to promote or divert from this very reality.

Information is one of the most significant and at the same time mysterious phenomena of the world around us. Initially, the term "information" was used to refer to information about something that people received or transmitted. Information was in its meaning equal to the message and in this regard, in fact, was identified with communication.

Attempts to comprehend the essence of this phenomenon have been made by many scientists for several decades, starting from the middle of the 20th century. However, generally accepted ideas about the conceptual nature of information in the scientific community have not yet been developed.

In the early philosophical definitions of information as a category, concept, property of the material world, subjectivism dominated, according to which information is a projection of the person himself onto the world around him (J. Berkeley, D. Hume).

Currently, among the many approaches to identifying the essence of information, the leading positions are occupied by three of them, which can be designated as ontological(materialistic), functionalist(idealistic) and activity.

ontological approach sees information as a physical phenomenon and emphasizes the relationship between information and the property of matter - reflection. So, according to V.I. Lenin: "All matter has a property that is essentially related to sensation - the property of reflection". Information is non-material, like all properties of matter, and is a formalized reflection of objective reality in its distribution and variability, diversity and manifestation. Information is a property of matter and reflects its properties (state or ability to interact) and quantity (measure) through interaction. Hence, information belongs to objective reality as a natural phenomenon of the material world or an integral function of all highly organized material systems, including society and the individual. Information exists in any material object in the form of a variety of its states and is transmitted from object to object in the process of their interaction. The set of states of the material system and all its subsystems represents information about the system.

V.G. Afanasiev believes that information "is messages, information about the social form of the movement of matter and about all its other forms to the extent that they are used by society, a person, are involved in the orbit of social life" . In other words, information should be understood as the whole complex of knowledge, the entire content of the available information that can be transmitted or received as a result of communication.

Another approach - functionalist, indicates the intangible nature of the information. Thus, the "father of cybernetics", the mathematician N. Wiener, argued that information is information, and not matter or energy. From this definition it follows that information is not a real object, but a mental abstraction, that is, a fiction created by the human mind. “Information is a designation of content that we receive from the outside world in the process of adapting us and our feelings to it.” Thus, information is an artificially created construction that can be used to achieve purely utilitarian practical purposes.

Third approach - activity, considers information as the exchange of information between people. Information is an objective property of material objects and phenomena to generate a variety of states that are transferred from one object (process) to another through fundamental interactions of matter and imprinted in its structure. Information is a set of information necessary for active influence on a managed system in order to change and optimize it.

Most philosophers today adhere to the ontological position, according to which information exists independently of our consciousness, and can only be reflected in our perception as a result of interaction: reflection, reading, receiving in the form of a signal, stimulus. The difference between these approaches, equally entitled to exist, allows us to understand the nature, possibilities, ways of being information and its significance in the modern world.

Consider some signs of the information society, among which both positive and negative characteristics can be indicated:

• - an increase in the role of information and knowledge in the life of society and the emergence of fragmentary thinking and clip consciousness;
• - dominance of the share of information communications, goods and services and the emergence of a virtual economy;
• - access to the necessary information for each member of society and at the same time alienation from the most necessary (information noise) part of society;
• - the ability of society to produce and disseminate information vital to it and the manipulation of public consciousness with the help of mass media;
• - development of e-democracy, information economy, e-government, e-government, digital markets, electronic social, economic networks and virtual violence;
• - Creation of a global information space in which effective information interconnection will be ensured and value identity will be lost.

Currently, there are several paradigmatic approaches to the information society: post-industrial, neo-Marxist, synergetic, post-modern, tekturny, network, spatial, cognitive (Fig. 2.2).

The post-industrial paradigm was developed by American sociologists and futurologists D. Bell and E. Toffler.

The main ideas are the belief that:

• - technology is the main engine of social dynamics;
• - new information technologies - a sign of the birth of the information society;
• - the volume of technological innovations should lead to a social reorganization that significantly improves people's lives;
• - computer technology has become for the information age what mechanization was for the industrial revolution;
• - the emergence of symbolic analysts (or symbolic manipulators) - politicians, intellectuals, media activists, ready to lead into a future where adaptability and constant retraining are the norm, possessing informational capabilities that allow them to achieve power.

In the neo-Marxist paradigm, G. Schiller argues that information and communication are only the main components of a new stage in the development of the capitalist formation - technocapitalism.

You just have to ask who benefits from these technologies and who retains control over their use(information becomes product, and its receipt will increasingly be possible only on commercial grounds; dissemination of information, access to it and the right to create it is carried out on the basis of class inequality; the nature of modern capitalism is determined by corporations that develop information technology in the interests of private business, not in the interest of society as a whole).

Rice. 2.2.

In the information society, more intensively than in the industrial society, the society is splitting into two classes. According to Schiller, this is the class of intellectuals (information rich), knowledge carriers and the class of those who are not included in the new information economy (information poor). This situation is characterized as digital divide).

In the synergetic paradigm of G. Haken and I.R. Prigogine, information is connected with the functioning of self-organizing (synergistic) systems. Based on the principles of self-organization explains emergence of order out of chaos, as well as the transition from one level of organization of a complex system to another.

In synergetics, the measure of disorganization is the concept of "entropy" (from the Greek. eshgorga - transformation), and the measure of organization is the concept of "negentropy" or "information". It is information that organizes the system and resists its self-destruction.

The processes of emergence and development of ordered space-time structures can occur spontaneously near special bifurcation points, in the vicinity of which the behavior of the system becomes unstable.

A complex system under the influence of the most insignificant influences (fluctuations) at the bifurcation point can dramatically change its state (butterfly effect). In the opinion of the representatives of the synergetic paradigm, the further development of society, collective memory and knowledge, the growth of the complexity of social ties and interactions should lead to a state of bifurcation, the consequence of which will be the emergence of a new quality - the information society with its inherent Collective Mind.

The postmodern paradigm (J. Baudrillard, D. Jameson) defines the information society as a reconstruction of the structures of a traditional society, which leads to decentralized social structures, the destruction of the hierarchical system of values, and the destruction of social ties. Information turns into exformation, i.e. destructive explosive substance exploding society. The form of information storage is "simulacrum" as a model (copy of a copy) of a real object or event. Modern man loses touch with the real world, living among simulacrum models. As a result, the opposition between the real and the artificial disappears.

In the information age, technological development has led to the fact that the attention of scientists has shifted from ends to means. Not the search for truth, but the solution of status problems, the struggle for funding determine the development of science. The choice of values ​​depends on the will of chance ("buffet"), which erases all criteria in the distinction between beautiful and ugly, true and false, good and evil.

In his textural paradigm, V.A. Kutyrev declares that the information society absorbs the natural with the artificial, turning into tektu(from lat. Tegere- to cover). There is a process of strengthening the alienation of man, the dehumanization of social relations, the dominance of postmodernist values ​​is being cultivated. “Not God and not man”... - this is the desired inhabitant of the world, emerging after the death of Homo sapiens as a historical natural and social being. It is quite legitimate in this case to consider him a posthuman. The post-human world loses its natural dimension, even the artificial, but objective environment, displaced by screens, incorporeal signs and information, disappears - an artificial, virtual substance.

For the survival of mankind, it is necessary to fight machine expansion, to defend a niche for man and understanding consciousness. Resist! And what we see: the victims of progress for valor believe that they are running ahead of its locomotive, joyfully shouting first about “dehumanization”, and then “improvement”, in other words, cyborgization of man. As if there is something to keep up with. They swore by humanism, without doubts and sadness abandoned it and became transhumanists.

The network paradigm (M. Castells) indicates that social relations today are organized according to the principle of networks, where each subject is interconnected with others. Previously, the basis of the community was the attachment of a person to the place of residence and work, today - the weakening of this attachment and the transition to weaker extraterritorial social ties. People are losing ties with local communities due to the fact that they realize their personal needs, relying on these new opportunities - network individualism(custom community).

Castells developed the principle of networks, according to which each individual is united with others by a system that includes a huge number of connections “a million invisible threads”, people are rapidly losing their traditional attachment to their place of residence, work, moving to “network individualism” and becoming part of global network structures.

Castells warned that the formation of a network society could also lead to a split in communications, which could be characterized by the commercialization of information, fragmentation and disunity between people and the imposition of false images on them. Castells connects the network society with the processes of globalization and proposes new terms related to the embodiment of this phenomenon: "flow space"(English, space flow) means liberation from the physical coordinates of objects and the dependence of the structural elements of the social world on the flow of electronic signals. nod "endless time"(English, timeless time) is understood as a rejection of the linear fixation of the sequence of events and can be represented through a set of information and instantaneous reformatting of communications depending on the emerging calls.

The technology to which the network society owes its existence is information superhighway(English) information highway) - which is an integral structure of deployed data networks, allowing almost any user to almost instantly contact any other, regardless of their location.

The network society forms a social structure on a global scale, which is characterized not by information or knowledge, but by a change in the direction of their use, as a result of which the main role in people's lives is acquired by global, network structures, displacing former forms of personal and material dependence.

Spatial paradigm. P. Bourdieu understood society as a social space, which "is a collection of agents endowed with different and systematically interconnected properties ...". At the same time, social space is the connections and interactions that are established between people (agents) and social groups.

Social space is constituted by an ensemble of subspaces (fields) as systems of objective links between different positions. There are various fields: economic, political, religious, etc.

The structure of social space and subspaces (fields) includes three groups of capital: economic, cultural and social. Economic capital is the resources of an economic nature (goods and money). Cultural capital is the resources of a cultural nature (education and cultural level). Social capital is resources, belonging to a social community (connections that can be used by an individual through its members). From here, Bourdieu follows the formulation of the problem of power over capital, which means the same thing as power over social space.

Symbolic (intellectual capital) describes the unique situation in which the poor but educated can influence the rich but incompetent, either as his advisor, or in the rank of a government official, or in the garb of a priest or judge. The power of money and the power of knowledge are equivalent in their capabilities, and which of them will defeat whom depends on the specific society and stage of historical development. Possession of power, capital, education creates unequal opportunities for people to succeed.

A special place in modern society is occupied by the "fields of journalism" and "fields of the media", emphasizing the possibility of the emergence of the phenomenon of "mediatization of reality" on this basis.

The social space, which is becoming more and more integrated on the basis of message carriers, acquires the properties of communication, this is the permeability of the social space for communication carriers, social technologies, and at the same time, this is the acquisition by each social unit (up to a specific person) of the ability to “broadcast” about itself, to declare its existence. In the ability to communicate, the information carrier increasingly manifests itself as its multiplier, infinitely increasing the power of influence through discursive practices, ideologies, symbolic forms, hypertexts and direct communication on other objects and on oneself.

Cognitive paradigm (P. Drucker). In the "post-capitalist society", knowledge becomes a productive resource of the individual, society, state, humanity as a whole. They begin to exceed in scale many other traditional resources: human, natural, material, and even capital.

The knowledge society seeks to overcome the existing contradictions of the information society: the dangers of the "digital divide", and the growing imbalance of information and knowledge, the protection of freedom of expression, the danger of total surveillance and control, the threat of information manipulation for political purposes, etc.

On the basis of the cognitive paradigm, the next stage in the development of the information society - the knowledge society - is being built.

Key Features of the Knowledge Society

• - the predominant role of non-material labor;
• - revision of the category of time as a criterion for measuring and cost of labor;
• - labor goes beyond the limits of “working time” allotted to it, it is now tied to the whole time of life;
• - living labor becomes linguistic and communicative to a large, if not predominant degree;
• - the desire of the intellectual and non-material labor force for autonomy from capitalist control (the creation of autonomous zones).

In the early 2000s, the United Nations, through its Educational, Scientific and Cultural Unit (UNESCO), made serious efforts to promote the knowledge society as a model for human development. To this end, UNESCO engaged a number of renowned intellectuals from around the world who created the World Report Towards Knowledge Societies in 2005.

Ageeva, Al-Khalil, Yusipov fjb-11

At present, any discussion about building an information society in the country must begin with an analysis of the crisis situation in the domestic information sphere, which is inextricably linked with the general decline in business activity.

In the audiovisual sector, the most developed and politically important sector, there is a decrease in advertising revenues, and, accordingly, programs for the development of commercial channels are frozen. The prospects for the development of pay TV and the accompanying specialization of broadcast channels move away indefinitely. The replacement of communication satellites of the space constellation and the corresponding development of satellite broadcasting, including its modern types, require long-term investments. The state has no funds, investments of the private sector and foreign investors will not go to this market in the near future.

The telecommunications infrastructure, which has developed significantly over the past few years, will apparently continue to progress, but at a slower pace.

On the other hand, there is a noticeable unification of the mass consciousness, since people “consume” the same news almost simultaneously, there is a massive propaganda of the lifestyle inherent in Western, technogenic civilization, and the same groups of goods are advertised in different countries. This mechanism of “globalization of mass consciousness” has a particularly strong effect on young people. Accordingly, in a couple of decades, a generation of people will grow up sharing much more stereotypes of consciousness than their predecessors.

Technological determinism as a conceptual basis for the information society is attractive because of the simplicity and clarity of the explanation of the historical process. However, it is dangerous because it generates utopias and illusions about the feasibility of technological projects. The laws of economics, politics, social psychology make their own significant adjustments to the initial vision of the information society as a "technotronic" society. What is technically feasible is far from always economically feasible, socially acceptable and politically justified. This feature must be kept in mind when developing the concept of building an information society in the country. In order for the idea of ​​the information society to be in demand in social terms, it must be included in the sphere of politics. The attractiveness of the concept of the information society for politicians lies in the fact that it draws the prospect of human development from a new angle.

Technological "intervention" allowed the countries of Southeast Asia to create a modern high-tech industry in the shortest possible time, to become one of the world's industrial leaders. The introduction of the latest technologies is the shortest way to the club of developed countries.

ITT (information technology and telecommunications), on the one hand, increase a person's ability to get a prestigious and highly paid job, shape their own leisure and entertainment world, and keep abreast of major world and local events. However, these opportunities are not open to everyone today. The already established property, cultural, and social polarization of society can be “enriched” by yet another division of people into those who and those who do not have information, access to it, and the ability to work with new technologies. In order to prevent a dangerous gap, coordinated efforts are needed at the state and international levels towards the elimination of computer illiteracy. Distance education through ITT is for many countries the only chance to prepare personnel for the information economy of the next century.

Considering the social aspect of the informatization of society, we are faced with a number of problems that do not have an unambiguous solution today. In our opinion, there are three main problems.

The first of them is the problem of employment of the population in connection with the informatization of society. Today, there is a clear imbalance: the rate of decline in traditional activities is greater than the rate of job creation created under the influence of information technology.

The second is the problem of interaction between the process of democratization of society and the protection of the secrets of the life of the individual. Will the information transparency of society lead to total information control over the individual? Added to this are the threats of manipulating the minds of citizens with the help of information media.

Finally, the third problem, which also does not have an unambiguous solution today, is the definition of ways to overcome the contradictions between national interests and the interests of conglomerates of a network society that has a supranational character. This is a contradiction of the global order - it permeates not only the sphere of economics and politics, but also the field of culture, which is discussed below and is associated with the processes of globalization and, in particular, with the formation of network structures.

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WELL:SOCIAL ASPECTS OF MODERN INFORMATION TECHNOLOGIES

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TOPICS

The concept of post-industrial society through the eyes of American futurologists. The main features of the technotronic society. Brzezinski. Marshall McLuhan on the prospects for the development of communication technologies. O. Toffler's Waves of Civilizations: Where is Mankind Going? Society as a self-sufficient system. Luman. The latest stage of human civilization in the concept of E. Giddens. W. Beck on the features of modern civilization. W. Beck: creation of the theory of risk society. Risks of Modernity: Methodological and Sociocultural Approaches. Global society: main features and development trends. Postmodern and the needs of new sociological knowledge. Hyperreality in the works of J. Baudrillard. Globalization: social and political consequences. The Contradictions of the Globalization Process. From globalization to glocalization: main development trends. The essence and main features of the information society. Information in modern society. Information resources and their role in the development of society. Essence of computerization processes. The role of knowledge in modern societies. Development of virtualization processes in modern society. Virtual worlds as an attempt to simulate real processes and phenomena. The essence and social consequences of the informatization revolution. The essence and social consequences of the computer revolution. Information comfort as a value in modern society. Information technologies: essence and trends of development. History of the development of new information technologies. State policy in the field of information in Europe. Development of information technologies in the USA. Public policy in the field of information in Japan. Informatization of Russian society: problems and prospects. Basic theoretical and methodological approaches to the analysis of the informatization process. New social strata in the information society. New trends in the social stratification of Russian society. Informatization: new opportunities and new risks. Development of new informatization technologies in Russia. National Information Resources. Virtualization of society: forms of manifestation, social consequences. Internet addiction as a new socio-psychological phenomenon. Russia: movement towards an innovative society. Computer crime and computer security. The use of information technology in politics: Russian realities. Sociocultural transformation of Russian society under the influence of information technology. The concept and essence of information security. The problem of "brain drain" from Russia. Formation of the information environment. The problem of informatization of public administration. Socio-psychological problems of informatization. The problem of personal information security. Information wars and their social consequences. Problems of information inequality: social consequences. Overcoming the Information Divide in Russia: Conditions, Trends, Prospects. The use of information technology in education. The use of information technology in distance learning. Changes in the structure of labor under the influence of the introduction of new information technologies. Development of the labor market in the field of information technology. The main characteristics of the information services market. The role of new information technologies in modern politics. Problematic field of research in the sociology of informatization. IT as a factor in the formation of new social communities.

LITERATURE

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6. Vershinin communication in the information society. - St. Petersburg: Eksmo-press, 2001.

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11. Zemlyanova Communications on the eve of the information society: Explanatory dictionary of terms and concepts. - M.: Mozhaisk-Terra, 1999.

12. Zemlyanova American Communication Studies: Theoretical Concepts, Problems, Forecasts. - M.: Moscow University Publishing House, 1995.

13. Ivanov Society. - St. Petersburg: Ecopsycenter ROSS, 2000.

14. Ivanov virtualization: Contemporary theories of social change. - St. Petersburg: St. Petersburg. state un-t, 2002.

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19. Nikolaev economy: development trends abroad and in Russia. - St. Petersburg: Research Institute of Chemistry, St. Petersburg State University, 1999.

20. Nisnevich and power. - M.: Thought, 2000.

21. From books to the Internet: Journalism and literature at the turn of the new millennium. Rep. ed. - M.: Publishing House of Moscow. un-ta, 2000.

22. Ovchinnikov hopes: state and prospects of political

Runet.// Political research, No. 1, Polis, 2002.

23. Peskov in Russian politics: utopia and reality. // Political studies, No. 1, Polis, 2002.

24. Skvortsov culture and integral knowledge. - M.: INION RAN, 2001.

25. Sokolova informatics (sociological aspects) - M.: Soyuz, 1999.

26. Metamorphoses of power: Knowledge, wealth and power on the threshold of the 21st century. - M.: AST, 2001.

27. Electronic business: evolution and / or revolution: Life and business in the Internet era. - M.: Williams, 2001.

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