Virtuality Check Power Relations and Alternative Strategies in the Information Society

by Fortier, Francois

• ISBN13: 9781859846285
• ISBN10: 1859846289
• Edition: 00
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2001-08-17
• Publisher: VERSO

Summary

Information and communications technologies (ICTs) and the new economy they herald are generally either glorified as unprecedented opportunities for post-industrial enfranchisement, or vilified as a mirage conjured up for their own ends by those who run the world.  This book sets out to review the relationship between information technologies and society. It examines the development of ICTs, and explores the ways in which they are used to subjugate workers, manipulate consumers, and extend media monopolies and commercial control. Heavily steered as they are towards the interests of the state and corporate sectors Francois Fortier argues that ICTs currently do little more than polarize economic and political power in an anti-democratic fashion. Yet alternative forms and uses of ICTs do exist and have been promoted by progressive social sectors for nearly two decades. Concluding with a study of these initiatives, Fortier proposes a new political economy of ICTs, aimed at facilitating rather than obstructing democracy.

Author Biography

Francois Fortier is a political economist who has contributed extensively to books and journals on the political economy of the Internet

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements	vii
Introduction	1	(6)
Discourse of Machines and Machines of Discourse	7	(19)
Definitions	7	(4)
Perspectives	11	(15)
Functional neutrality	11	(3)
Instrumentalism	14	(2)
Ahistorical inherence	16	(2)
Historical inherence	18	(8)
Information Society or Control Society?	26	(57)
Subsuming Labour: Cybernetic Productivity	26	(15)
Trapping Consumers: No Free Cyber-Lunch	41	(17)
Profiled marketing	48	(5)
Monopolization of trade	53	(5)
Influencing Audiences: The Cyber-Manufacturing of Consent	58	(11)
Watching Citizens: Cybernetic Technologies Indeed	69	(14)
Alternative Strategies	83	(15)
Conclusions	98	(9)
Notes	107	(23)
Bibliography	130