[Air-L] digital society instead of info soc?

[Petr Lupac]

Hello, thx for your appreciation and question

Let me clarify what I meant by saying that the term "digital society" is
"theoretically disembedded".

As I see it> When compared to its use during 70s and 80s, the semantic field
of the original term "information society" transformed during 90s. There
were many other terms (and respective authors) fighting for their place in
the sun of understanding what society are we heading to - postindustrial and
digital being the main competitors when taking seriously technology
development as a part of/element in macro-social change. However,
"postindustrial" was understood as a thing of the past (even Bell jumped out
of the train) and "digital" had no strong author in academia to fight for it
(Negroponte? tss..). It was Manuel Castells and his influential work (both
textually and institutionally) that brought the term "information society"
to the top of political agendas and professional disputes (see his citation
index and influence). So, according to me, in the nineties, the term
"digital society" had its meaning partly fixed in the debates about the
appropriateness of the term "information society" and because the term
"information society" won the race, something like "digital society" have
got disembedded from being theoretically rooted - free to use for anyone
willing to pick it up (in spite of the fact Manuel Castells' using of the
term frequently in Communication Power 2009 - but with no reasoning). At
least I do not see any author creating theoretical framework for the term
and defending it against other terms :)


I hope I explained understandably why I used the term and I hope that the
discussion will pick up the thread of my first question and not this answer 

Excuse my weak English,


- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 
Petr Lupac M.A.
Department of Sociology, Faculty of Arts, Charles University in Prague
Celetná 20, Praha 1, 116 42, the Czech Republic 

Tel> (00420)736163866
e-mail> petr.lupac--at--gmail.com

Office hours Mo 12:30-14:00, Celetná 20, room nr. 114, or by appointment.






-----Original Message-----
From: Charles Ess [mailto:charles.ess at gmail.com] 
Sent: Saturday, March 19, 2011 2:20 PM
To: Petr Lupac; Air list
Subject: Re: [Air-L] digital society instead of info soc?

great questions, and i'll be eager to see responses - but can't resist
commenting on:


On 3/19/11 12:36 PM, "Petr Lupac" <petr.lupac at gmail.com> wrote:

> Or is it just using the new, theoretically disembedded term so
> they can defend themselves by broad scope of interpretation possibilities?

Both as a cynic (in the popular sense) and something of a philosopher - is
there such a thing as a theoretically disembedded term?
I'm not trying to be snide here - but just genuinely curious.

Thanks!
- charles ess
Institut for Informations- og Medievidenskab
Helsingforsgade 14
8200 Aarhus N.
Denmark
mail: <imvce at hum.au.dk>
tel: (+45) 8942 9250

Professor, Philosophy and Religion
Drury University, Springfield, Missouri 65802 USA

Exemplary persons seek harmony, not sameness. -- Analects 13.23