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Revista Universidad y Sociedad

versión On-line ISSN 2218-3620

Universidad y Sociedad vol.10 no.3 Cienfuegos abr.-jun. 2018  Epub 06-Feb-2018

 

Artículo original

The development of the information society

El desarrollo de la sociedad de la información

Ph. D. Dmitry V. Gribanov1  *  , Ph. D. Kseniya E. Kovalenko2  , MSc Natalia E. Kovalenko2 

1 Ural State Law University. Yekaterinburg. Russian Federation

2 Altai State University. Barnaul. Russian Federation

ABSTRACT

In the late XX - early XXI century a qualitatively new stage of its development has begun in the world, characterized by profound changes in all aspects of human existence and the growth of global crisis. In the world of science, these processes are described as globalization, the formation of the postindustrial world, the information society, as a transition to the noospheric development path; accordingly, controversial assessments of what is happening are expressed and various directions for the further development of world civilization are proposed. The development of information technology, and at the same time, the creation of a computer virtual world, is not only an inevitable future, but definitely progress. Global integration of information and telecommunication resources forms a global information infrastructure, the element of which, in particular, is the Russian information structure. The aggregate of all national information structures serves as a prerequisite for the creation of a global knowledge base, which turns out to be the productive force of modern society. However, this situation arose in connection with the expansion of the capabilities of modern technologies. Global technology of society poses the problem of its total technological determination, leading to a change in the existing type of sociability.

Key words: Global crisis; a virtual world; the Internet; an information society; information; knowledge

RESUMEN

A fines del siglo XX y comienzos del siglo XXI, ha comenzado en el mundo una etapa cualitativamente nueva de su desarrollo, caracterizada por cambios profundos en todos los aspectos de la existencia humana y el crecimiento de las crisis globales. En el mundo de la ciencia, estos procesos se describen como la globalización, la formación del mundo postindustrial, la sociedad de la información, así como la transición al camino de desarrollo noosférico; en consecuencia, se expresan evaluaciones controvertidas de lo que está sucediendo, se proponen varias direcciones para el desarrollo ulterior de la civilización mundial. El desarrollo de la tecnología de la información y, al mismo tiempo, la creación de un mundo virtual informático, no es solo un futuro inevitable, sino definitivamente un progreso. La integración global de los recursos de información y telecomunicaciones forma una infraestructura de información global, cuyo elemento, en particular. El agregado de todas las estructuras nacionales de información sirve como un requisito previo para la creación de una base de conocimiento global. Sin embargo, esta situación surgió en relación con la expansión de las capacidades de las tecnologías modernas. La tecnología global de la sociedad plantea el problema de su total determinación tecnológica, lo que lleva a un cambio en el tipo de sociabilidad existente.

Palabras-clave: Crisis global; un mundo virtual; Internet; una sociedad de la información; información; conocimiento

Introduction

New information technologies create ever stronger mechanisms of influence on people. Within the framework of this direction, the property, age, educational, gender, territorial and socio-cultural factors of influence of such mechanisms will be investigated.

Active implementation of information technologies leads to the formation of a qualitatively different type of culture, which brings with it a new type of thinking and, accordingly, education. Within the framework of this direction, an analysis will be made of the impact of information technologies on the evolution of the value system and the perception by the person of the surrounding world. It is planned to develop a long-term forecast of the impact of the development of information technologies on culture and everyday life, which should be the subject of broad public discussion, including participation of representatives of human rights organizations and major religious confessions, and the development of a mechanism that hinders the development of negative trends in the use of ICT in the humanitarian sphere.

The developing information society puts forward new requirements to the improvement of legal mechanisms through which it is possible to accelerate and facilitate the process of introducing advanced information technologies. In the framework of this direction, the possibilities of improving tax legislation, as well as modernizing the legislation on the economics of telecommunications networks, the economy of production of information content, the economy of the Internet, the economy of television and radio broadcasting, etc. will be studied. In addition, proposals on legislative regulation of Internet governance will be prepared. (Bell, 1979)

The development of information technology today is the technical basis for the formation of virtual network reality, which is an undeniable progress. However, today's introduction of the ideology of the "information society", based on the substitution of knowledge of information, leads to virtualization is no longer a computer, but a real one, the essence of which is the substitution of a pseudo-reality created by the larger (objective social relations) and subjective (individual and public consciousness) parts of the media. Education, not focused on the formation of a scientific worldview and on cultural meanings, risks becoming one of the institutions of similar crisis of consciousness. (Gribanov, 2016)

Modern society is increasingly characterized as "information", but the legitimacy of such a character is still in question.

The Internet acquires the status of the second, information reality, in which humanity can live and manifest itself in many spheres more effectively than in physical reality, for example, in state, educational, medical, scientific, industrial, commercial, communication, creative and others. People in such a society will interact with each other within the global information and cultural space of the Network. (Brodsky, 1963)

So, the power of the state in the information society will be determined primarily by the level of development of culture. A new kind of social reality is already emerging - the network, in the framework of which many areas are emerging and developing - virtual communication, virtual science, virtual education, virtual art, virtual literature, virtual business, virtual politics, etc.

Such a definition is objectionable. First, until the entire Internet network reaches the entire population of the Earth or even a large part of it, it is still very far. Secondly, the forecasts for the countries covered by the network are not so unambiguous. And, thirdly, most importantly, the role of information in modern society, according to the logic of the supporters of this definition, is such that under its influence the essence of a person changes, which in this case becomes only a "communicator".

Development

Reflecting these doubts, it seems to us, and there was a nominal definition in the encyclopedia mentioned: "The information society is a sociological and futurological concept that considers the production and use of scientific, technical and other information as the main factor of social development. The concept of an information society is a kind of theory of a post-industrial society, the foundation of which was laid In addition to the term "information society", different authors use different names: "enlightened society", risk society" (Beck, 2006), "post-capitalist society" (P. Drucker) and etc.

All these concepts appeared in the 70-80s, when social reality ceased to fit into the old explanatory schemes. So, A. Toffler (1980) believes that, following the first ("agrarian") and second ("industrial") waves of global technical changes, the third one is "informational". The social determinants of the realization of the world, material and spiritual culture are gradually changing. Society with a stable type of social system, traditions, societal values, prevailing stereotypes, paradigms, myths, types of rationality and mentality, conscious social and class interests undergoes an essential change.

So, what is an "information society" - a theoretical concept, a cultural and political project or an objective social reality? To answer this question, you need to understand what information is? And the defining, essential, in our opinion, is the difference of information from knowledge. (Sadovnichiy, 2005)

Attributive approach to the category of "information", which assumes that information is an attribute of matter, seems to us the most adequate. This approach is encountered in a number of authors. It is known that even Ukraintsev (1972), relying on Wiener's (1968), thesis on the difference of information from energy and matter, showed that "information causality" can be considered as "a special form of causal connection that differs from other forms precisely in that it consists not in the determination of matter or energy, but in the determination of structural relations ".Chertov (1993), emphasizes that B. Russell (1957) pointed out such a determination of relations at the time, investigating the phenomenon of preserving the structure of the cause in the structure of the investigation, and Kuznetsov (1968), seeing in such a phenomenon the basis for the transmission of information.

But if for simple, physical processes there is enough direct information transfer, then for more complex systems - biological, mental and social - an intermediary is necessary, which is the sign. That's when the concept of "information" is introduced into semantics.

Information chains, writes Chertov (1993), are not reliable, because the longer the chain, the more distortion of information; in this sense, the transmission of information through signs is more reliable. But in this case, the mechanism for transferring information changes radically: the sign becomes a "trigger", the key for launching a reaction "a priori" embedded in the "receiver," and the structure of signals and signs is not connected either with the "transmitter" or with the receiver ". So virtual reality is born. And besides, it is not exclusively in computer networks, which were nothing more than a modern form of virtualization.

Meanwhile, the essential difference between knowledge and information is precisely that knowledge is a social phenomenon. If information can be considered a form of existence of matter, then knowledge is the form of the existence of consciousness. Thus, the loading of knowledge with meaning is essential here: knowledge not only reflects the essential properties and relations of reality (this knowledge would not differ from thinking, but man from the computer), but also the semantic, purposeful relations of man and society to this reality. To reduce knowledge only to thinking, to "formal intelligence" means to greatly simplify the person. It is no accident in psychology, for example, the notion of "social intelligence" is used, which by volume does not coincide with the concept of "formal intelligence".

This significant difference between knowledge and information is implicit in the symbolic concept of culture, where the concept of "symbol" is anthologized and is essentially an opposition concept of "sign".

In exploring the notions of "information" and "knowledge", it should be noted that if we can say with respect to knowledge: "The more an individual knows, the better", then with respect to information, say "the more information" the individual consciousness "holds , the better ", we cannot, because to process information requires a completely different" system "- a computer. The human brain, apparently, is adapted by nature rather for the "processing" of knowledge, and not for processing information. This pathology, like schizophrenia, shows it well: in schizophrenia, the main symptom, along with the giant work of the intellect "within oneself," is the loss of the connection between the patient's personality and social reality-both objective and subjective. Therefore, in principle, there is no knowledge that absolutely destroys; if before us is knowledge, then it will be assimilated, internalized, woven into the subjective reality of a healthy person with a creative intention. Unfortunately, we cannot say the same about information: it can be for the healthy psyche and creative, and destructive, as well as its quantity, passing the barrier of perception and assimilation, destroys the individual, and today also the social consciousness.

Stanislav Lem (1968) called this trend another "technological trap" of our time, that is, the time of post-industrialism. The same was said by Sadovnichy in his plenary speech at the IV Russian Philosophical Congress: "Interference in the evolution of the living is not the only unknown in the complex equation of the future civilization. No less difficult is the forecast for the development of another key process that significantly changes the picture of the world - informatization" (Sadovnichy, 2005).

Conclusions

The Internet belongs to a small number of technological inventions of mankind (wheel, steam, electricity), which revolutionized not only the economic structure, but also social life. He logically completed the development of a whole family of information technologies (radio, telephone, television, computer), which led to the emergence of an information society.

The information technologies that predominate at this historical stage in many ways predetermine the structure of power, the type of government and the forms of social life. New relatively cheap and fast ways of printing helped to discredit the tsarist regime in Russia. With the advent of radio, and then television, there was a growing danger of exposing the population to an external, "hostile" ideology. The development of the mass media, the expansion of the possibility of receiving radio and television channels, the appearance of video recorders, powerful and fast copying equipment shook the totalitarian regimes that did not know other ways of fighting foreign ideology, except for prohibitions and stubs. Eventually, the information war was won by the West, and the totalitarian regimes of Eastern Europe fell.

The development of information technology, and at the same time, the creation of a computer virtual world, is not only an inevitable future, but it is a definitely progress. But against the background of this technological explosion, without sufficient reflection on its essence and its consequences, it is before our eyes that knowledge is replaced by information (for example, through the introduction of the ideology "information society") and, thereby, a virtual, that is, purely information, reality, in what the modern mass media excellently do. And only then, at the level of ideology, and at the level of social psychology, and at the level of social theory, the substitution of objective reality by this virtual reality takes place. But such virtualization of social, and then individual consciousness, and then of social reality as a system of social relations, is fraught with the birth of a society in which there is no place for man as a conscious being. In this regard, the introduction into the structure of public consciousness, and through them - into the individual consciousness of the new ideology, the "information society" appears to be part of the project to create a society without a human being.

The most important task is to show people what's new in their lives, at home, in communication, in healthcare, education, and other spheres that concern everyone, thanks to the promising areas of development of new technologies. To accomplish this task, conferences, round tables will be held, mass media will be actively involved (printed and electronic), specialized Internet sites will be created and promoted, including monitoring and analysis of the Internet media market, booklets, brochures, books in including electronic media.

Bibliographic references

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Brodsky, N.I. (1963). Causality and information. Bulletin of Leningrad University. Series of Economics, Philosophy and Law, 17(3). [ Links ]

Chertov, L. F. (1993). Iconic: experience of theoretical synthesis of ideas about the sign method of information communication. St. Petersburg. [ Links ]

Gribanov, D. V., & Kovalenko, K.E. (2016). Realization of reasonability in the right-cutting process. State and Law, 4. [ Links ]

Kuznetsov, I. V. (1968). The causality principle and its role in the cognition of nature. The problem of causality in modern physics. Moscow. [ Links ]

Lem, S. (1968). The sum of technology. Moscow. [ Links ]

Russell, B. (1957). Human cognition. Its scope and boundaries. Moscow. [ Links ]

Sadovnichiy, V. A. (2005). Knowledge and wisdom in a globalizing world. Plenary report at the IV Russian Philosophical Congress "Philosophy and the future of civilization". Moscow. [ Links ]

Toffler, A. (1980). The Third Wave. New York: Morrow. [ Links ]

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Received: March 15, 2018; Accepted: April 12, 2018

*Autor para correspondencia. E-mail: dvgribanov@yandex.ru

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