This paper examines the significance of information communication technology (I.C.T.) for the theory and practice of organizations. There is voluminous literature in this field, but I.C.T. tends to be perceived as just another example of new technology. In fact, the information dimension of I.C.T. gives it a distinctive character in contrast to other technologies which remains under-theorized. The paper argues that information is intimately linked with power-knowledge rela tions and the forms of subjectivity that reside therein. In theorizing the exercise of power and the constitution of subjectivity, we suggest that three concepts — culture, control and competition — provide additional insights for the study of the development and application of I.C.T.s in organizations. The paper seeks to illustrate these arguments by reference to case study examples from financial service companies and the National Health Service.

Culture, Control and Competition; Towards a Conceptual Framework for the Study of Information Technology in Organizations:

From Charles Babbage's Difference Engine (a product of an increasingly global British maritime empire) to Herman Hollerith's tabulating machine (designed to solve the problem of "seeing like a state" in the newly trans-continental American Republic) to the emergence of the modern petrochemical industry, information technologies have always been closely associated with the human desire to understand and manipulate their physical environment. More recently, humankind has started to realize the environmental impacts of information technology, including not only the toxic byproducts associated with their production, but also the polluting effects of the massive amounts of energy and water required by data centers at Google and Facebook (whose physicality is conveniently and deliberately camouflaged behind the disembodied, ethereal "cloud"). This paper grounds the history of information technology in the material world by focusing on the relationship between "computing power" and more traditional processes of resource extraction, exchange, management, and consumption.

The Environmental History of Computing.

Three decades into the ‘digital age’, the promises of emancipation of the digital ‘revolution’ in education are still unfulfilled. Furthermore, digitalization seems to generate new and unexpected challenges – for example, the unwarranted influence of digital monopolies, the radicalization of political communication, and the facilitation of mass surveillance, to name a few. This volume is a study of the downsides of digitalization and the re-organization of the social world that seems to be associated with it. In a critical perspective, technological development is not a natural but a social process: not autonomous from but very much dependent upon the interplay of forces and institutions in society. While influential forces seek to establish the idea that the practices of formal education should conform to technological change, here we support the view that education can challenge the capitalist appropriation of digital technology and, therefore, the nature and direction of change associated with it. This volume offers its readers intellectual prerequisites for critical engagement. It addresses themes such as Facebook’s response to its democratic discontents, the pedagogical implications of algorithmic knowledge and quantified self, as well as the impact of digitalization on academic profession. Finally, the book offers some elements to develop a vision of the role of education: what should be done in education to address the concerns that new communication technologies seem to pose more risks than opportunities for freedom and democracy. Matteo Stocchetti (PhD) is Senior Lecturer at Arcada University of Applied Science and Docent in Political Communication at University of Helsinki and Abo Akademi University. The contributors of the volume include international experts on critical approaches to pedagogy, education and technology.

The digital age and its discontents

This article examines the mix of good and bad jobs in the restructuring of United States’ labor markets for information work between 1900 and 1980. Is the information sector still growing relative to other occupational sectors? What is the relative proportion of good to bad jobs in the information sector today? Is the mix of good bad jobs within the information sector changing over time? To answer these questions, we examine changes in the relative size of the information sector's labor markets and changes in five occupational strata within it—professional, semiprofessional, supervisory and upper‐level sales personnel, clerks, and blue‐collar workers. The information occupations mushroomed in size from 17% of the United States workforce in 1900 to over 50% in 1980. Information sector jobs vary widely in quality. Few information sector jobs are fully professional, and clerical jobs form the largest single occupational stratum. When we examined the growth of the various strata between 1900 and 1980...

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More Information, Better Jobs?: Occupational Stratification and Labor‐Market Segmentation in the United States’ information

The assessment of scholarly literature on the Information Society provided in this paper sets out and distinguishes between the analytical foundations of mainstream and critical contributions from a selection of disciplines and fields with a view to considering why there is so little reciprocal engagement among them, and whether there are new opportunities to promote a dialogue with those who hold the power to establish policies and investment practices with regard to information and communication technologies. Based on a review of hundreds of works, it is argued that a broader range of analytical frameworks needs to be considered if today's policies and strategies in this area are not to perpetuate inequality and injustice. In particular, we need to acknowledge that a plurality of visions of future information societies exists, embracing potentially conflicting values and priorities. More emphasis needs to be given to analytical approaches that privilege human well‐being and inclusivity.

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David Lyon

Papers

From `Post-Industrialism' to `Information Society': A New Social Transformation?:

Information Technology and Information Society: A Response to Fincham