Kevin Robins

A number of issues occur to me after reading the document produced by Jens Hoff and Morgens Kuhn Pedersen. They relate particularly to the theme of power and democracy. A key issue here must be to situate the development of information and communications technologies in the context of broader political economic transformations, associated with so-called globalisation.

(1) We need to examine more carefully the term "information" itself and the conditions of its possibility. How did knowledge become information. One might relate this to the way in which Marx analysed the transformation of concrete labour to abstract labour as labour-power became subjected to the law of exchange value. We should note the development in the sphere of knowledge (and knowledge labour) of abstraction. Information is formal and disembedded (where knowledge was substantive and contextual). Note Bill Readings' observation on the dereferentialisation of technological knowledge. The information economy in the educational sphere is increasingly linked to "transferable skills" and competencies - again abstract and disembedded. This is the kind of knowledge that is meaningful in a global economy (as opposed to a national cultural context).

(2) We should be aware of the discursive range and complexity of the term "information". At one level, it can be neutral and mundane, concerned with business systems. But, at another, "information" becomes a way of explaining both the material and social world. We should be very cautious about this mythical dimension of information. Note, too, that when information does become a way of explaining the operation of society, it is far from being the neutral way it is often presented as.

(3)Beware the danger of absolutising the idea of the information society. This is a consequence of an implicit modernisation/developmentalist paradigm that assumes that what we are studying is the way the world as a whole is moving. Dualism and polarisation is probably more likely. From a democracy perspective, note Zygmunt Bauman's comparison of the new "meaning-producing elites" to the "'absentee', extra-territorial Latin-speaking and -writing elites of mediaeval Europe": " Cyberspace, securely anchored in the ethereal websites of the Internet is the contemporary equivalent of mediaeval Latin - the space which the learned elites of today inhabit; and there is little which the residents of cyberspace could talk about with those still mired in the all-too-real physical space. Even less can they gain from that dialogue."

(4) I myself feel that it is important to take note of the roots of the "information technology revolution". Here the idea of the "control revolution" is important. Key reference points are the development of Taylorist methods in the factory, and the origins of the advertising, public opinion and market research industries. These are all non-technological developments. N.B., then, the history in which the development of ICTS makes sense may not be a history of technologies. Clearly a danger of this approach is that it may fail to take account of what is new. This must be offset against the problem of theories associated with technological revolutions and innovations to over-estimate what is new.

(5) Empowerment: we should be very guarded with this word. The tendency is to think of it from the perspective of the individual - indeed, this becomes a marketing tool for gaining acceptance of new technologies. But my individual empowerment may be at great social cost (e.g. the automobile system). Also empowerment means empowerment within the parameters of a particular system - a system that cuts off a whole range of other possibilities.

(6) The literature on information society/revolution cannot make one optimistic about the political project that seems to lurk at the heart of this project. (I would suggest that those engaged with technology issues are not the best equipped to deal with questions of democracy.) Two themes haunt the literature:
(a) Community. The belief is that the new technologies can restore a sense of community and belonging - now in new kinds of community rid of the "burden of geography", communities of affinity in virtual space, virtual communities. What is reinstated is a worn out ideal of Gemeinschaft. We need to be very cautious about this regressive notion that politics is about face-to-face style community ( e.g. Al Gore's notion of the Information Superhighway promoting a "global conversation").
(b) Communication. Here the notion is that the problems of the world are a consequence of communication problems. The "fix" is more "efficient" communication. And the assumption is that new communications technologies will make a better world. Everything is wrong with this way of thinking. And there is absolutely nothing new about it. As Armand Mattelart has demonstrated it has been around since the Saint-Simonians, and has accompanied every communications "revolution" in the twentieth century. How can we explain the persistence of this banal idea?
N.B. The communitarian ideal has become very much associated with the recent politics of the "Third Way".

(7) What do we mean by "democracy"? This term is a black box in the Hoff/Pedersen paper. If we are going to talk about the contribution of ICTs to democracy, we have to be clear about what it is they are contributing to. ( I suggest that when it comes to the contribution of ICTs to organisations and businesses, we are far more rigorous and fine-grained in our approach.) This area is one in which the academic division of labour is very damaging. How might serious debates on democracy be introduced into the discussion of ICTs? - to name but one example Cornelius Castoriadis' account of the project of autonomy vis-à-vis the project of "rational mastery". Without a more rigorous approach - which means starting out from the debate on democracy, rather than the debate on technology - we have no real contribution to make. The danger is that we come up with technological solutions for the "democratic deficit" simply because we have nothing else to offer.

(8) From the point of view of democracy/power, we must have regard to the tendencies towards social fragmentation associated with the new communications technologies - individualised consumption, virtual communities, etc. We need to consider the relationship between new media and the public sphere. One aspect of this relates to the question of the time-economy associated with networks - i.e. the implications of these technologies for public time, too.