History of the Info Revolution

From the information society advocates' neglect of nation state and idealistic freedom and social order, to the critics' distrust in information society’s self adjustment, this week’s readings become more and more interesting. Robins and Webster’s article is the most insightful of all. The idea that technological progress is closely related to social control and social management has been explored in Winner’s piece, but no with such sufficient evidence and powerful arguments. This idea directly refutes Masuda and Dyson et al;s Utopian outlook of information society from social and historical perspectives. It seems that the critics are more realistic and see more problems through the prosperous technology development (especially at that time – 1996 & 1998) than the advocates do.

In my own opinion, I agree with the critics that it is totally unrealistic to sit there and wait for the technology itself to solve social problems. Technology is not the panacea – I think many people would agree with that. However, technology is a powerful tool for human to change their situation. Yeah, it can be tools for the nation state to perform social control, too. But this is not to say that people cannot use it for better democracy, social equity, better environment, and all. How can one deny that human is gaining more and more “freedom” (physically, economically, and emotionally) in the process of history. The greatest driving force is not only human mind, but also, I believe, technology development.