Modernization theory

Theories of the information society
Spectacular innovations in information and communication technologies, especially computing, and their rapid global expansion have led to claims that this is the age of the information society. Breakthroughs in the speed, volume and cost of information processing, storage and transmission have undoubtedly contributed to the power of information technology to shape many aspects of Western, and increasingly, global society. The convergence of telecommunications and computing technologies and the continued reductions in the costs of computing and international telephony have made the case for the existence of the information society even stronger. The technologically-determinist view of communication was promoted by Canadian media theorist Marshall McLuhan (1911-80), one of the first thinkers to analyse the impact of media technology on society. Arguing that, 'the medium is the message', he maintained that viewed in a historical context, media technology had more social effect on different societies and cultures than media content (McLuhan, 1964). Another key figure, Alvin Toffler, though more populist than Bell, was very influential in propagating the idea of an information society, calling it the third wave - after the agricultural and industrial eras - of human civilization (Toffler, 1980). The 'third wave' was characterized by increasing 'intercon­nec­ted­ness', contributing to the 'evolution of a universal interconnected network of audio, video and electronic text communication', which, some argue, will promote intellectual pluralism and personalized control over communication (Neuman, 1991: 21).
In this version of the information society, the democratic potential of new technologies is constantly stressed. However, critics such as Frank Webster emphasize 'historical antecedents', arguing that 'there is no novel, "postindustrial" society: the growth of service occupations and associated developments highlight the continuities of the present with the past' (Webster, 1995: 50). These continuities need to be underlined, especially in the global context, as the transnationalization of media and communication industries has been greatly facilitated by expansion of new international communication networks, for example, among non-governmental organizations (Frederick, 1992). The resultant 'time-space compression' is implicated in what has been called, taking up McLuhan's phrase, the phenomenon of 'global village­zation' (Harasim, 1994). With its growing commodification, information has come to occupy a central role as a 'key strategic resource' in the international economy, the distribution, regulation, marketing and management of which are becoming increasingly important. Real-time trading has become a part of contemporary corporate culture, through digital networking, which has made it possible to transmit information on stock markets, patent listings, currency fluctuations, commodity prices, futures, portfolios, at unprecedented speed and volume across the globe. The growing 'informatization' of the economy is facilitating the integration of national and regional economies and creating a global economy, which continues to be dominated by a few megacorporations, increasingly global in the production, distribution and consumption of their goods and services. The growth of Internet-based trading, the so-called E-commerce (electronic commerce) has given a boost to what has been called 'digital' capitalism.
Some critics have been concerned with the growing commodification of personal information, from database marketing to individually targeted personalized advertising and consumer sales (Gandy, 1993). With the growing use of the Internet, companies can exploit commer­ci­ally valuable data on their users, for example, by so-called Cookies (Client-Side Persistent Information). Others have raised questions about the use of new technologies for personal and political surveillance (Lyon, 1994). US dominance of global military surveillance and intelligence data gathering through spy satellites and advanced computer networks, for political, and increasingly trade­-related espionage, must also be considered an integral part of the push towards creation of a global information society. The 'control revolution' (Beniger, 1986), though more pronounced in all modern organizations in 'networked societies', is in the process of going global.
Both Marxists and world-system theorists stress the importance of the rise of global dominance of a capitalist market economy that is penet­ra­ting the entire globe (Tehranian, 1999). With the collapse of communism, the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the eastern bloc, seen by many as alternative to capitalism, the shift within Western democracies from a public to a private sector capitalism, and the international trend towards liberalization and privatization have contri­buted to the acceptance of the capitalist market as a global system. However, ques­tions remain about the extent of globalization (Ferguson, 1992). It is argued that many of the indices of globalization are concentrated with­in the OECD countries, especially between the USA-EU-Japan triad, prompting scholars to talk of 'triadization' rather than the globalization of the world economy. It is beyond dispute, however, that in the post-Cold War world, transnational corporations have become extremely powerful actors, dominating the globalized economy. They must compete internationally and will, if necessary, sever the links to the na­tions where they originally operated, a trend which has been described as reflection of the 'global footlooseness of corporate capitalism'.

Enthusiasts talk of a new 'global consciousness' as well as physical compression of the world, in which cultures become 'relativized' to each other, not unified or centralized, asserting that globalization involves 'the development of something like a global culture' (Robertson, 1992). Others have been more cautious, arguing that globalizing cultural forces, such as international media and communi­ca­tion networks, produce more complex interactions between different cultures (Appadurai, 1990; 1996). Some have made the case for considering cultural practices as central to the phenomenon of globalization.

Global homogenizing forces such as standardized communication networks - both hardware and software, media forms and formats – influence cultural consciousness across the world. However, as the US-based anthropologist Arjun Appadurai argues (1990), these glo­ba­li­zing cultural forces in their encounters with different ideologies and traditions of the world produce 'heterogeneous dialogues'. Appadurai specifies five 'scapes' -ethnoscapes, technoscapes, finanscapes, mediascapes and ideoscapes – to describe the dynamics of contemporary glo­bal diversity. 'Ethnoscape' denotes the flow of people - such as tourists, refugees, immigrants, students and professional - from one part of the globe to another. 'Technoscape' includes the transfer of technology across national borders while 'finanscape' deals with international flow of investment. 'Mediascape' refers to global media, especially its electronic version – both its hardware and the images that it produces while 'ideoscape' suggests ideological contours of culture. Appadurai argues that the five 'scapes' influence culture not by their hegemonic interaction, global diffusion and uniform effects, but by their differences, contradictions and counter-tendencies-their 'disjunctures'.
Some critics see globalization as a new version of Western cultural imperialism, given the concentration of international communication
hardware and software power among a few dominant actors in the global arena who want an 'open' international order, created by their own national power and by the power of transnational media and communication corporations (Latouche, 1996; Amin, 1997; Herman and Mc­Chesney, 1997). A fear of what the US sociologist George Ritzer called the McDonaldization of society, is also expressed by scholars. Ritzer says he prefers the term 'Americanization' to globalization, since the latter implies more of a 'multidimensional relationship among many nations'.

While conceding the pre-eminence of Western media and cultural products in international communication, scholars influenced by post-structuralism dispute whether the global flow of media and cultural products is necessarily a form of domination or even a strictly one-way traffic, arguing that there is a contra-flow from the periphery to the centre and between the 'geo-cultural markets', especially in the area of television and films (Sinclair et a/., 1996). Ulf Hannerz contests the notion that globalization reinforces cultural movement from the 'centre' (the modern industrial West) to the peripheral 'traditional' world in a largely one-way flow, arguing that centre-periphery interactions are more complex with cultural flows moving in multiple directions, and thus the outcomes are opposite tendencies, both towards what he calls saturation and maturation, for homogenization and heterogenization.