Sociology: From Industrial to Information Society
1. Fundamental Concepts of Sociology
From the Industrial Society to the Information Society
Industrial Society
Material resources, production of material objects, new products. Elements of the production process: capital + resources + work. Quantity and homogeneity are valued; quality and diversity are valued. Full employment, strong reduction of work in the agricultural sector, prioritization of the industrial sector. Society structured in three social groups: high, middle and low.
Information Society
Intellectual resources, information processing, new processes. Elements of the production process: capital + resources + work + information. Drastic reduction of work places, strong reduction of agricultural and industrial sectors and, in lesser proportion, of the service sector. New sector: quaternary or information sector. Two-thirds society: one third of the population is socially excluded.
Globalization refers to the processes by which national sovereign states intermingle and overlap through transnational actors and their corresponding probabilities of power, orientations, identities and various frameworks.
Information Society
1st phase: social Darwinism (1973-1995)
2nd phase: Information Society for everyone (1995-2000s)
Which is the key in this new information society?
Who have information, who does not have (power/knowledge)
1st Phase Darwinism
- Jobs based on information
- Unemployment
- Social exclusion: the Third World and the appearance of the Fourth World, including the exploited and excluded at the work market
- Fragmentation of jobs: two-thirds society (André Gorz)
Fragmentation of workers: permanent, temporary, unemployed
- Permanent: university degree
- Temporary: precarious jobs, little qualified
- Long term unemployed: they did not complete primary studies
Power relations are embedded in the institutions of society, and particularly in the State. However, since societies are contradictory and conflictive, wherever there is power there is also counter-power, which I understand to be the capacity of social actors to challenge the power embedded in the institutions of society for the purpose of claiming representation for their own values and interests. (Castells)