The information society is it. Computer science and information society

Are there internationally accepted definitions of the information society?

1. The question is posed very correctly, since in domestic literature there are many non-conceptual uses of this term, everyday or purely author's interpretations that are not related to the established tradition of using the term in Western literature, where it was formulated.

In 1973, the famous American scientist D. Bell in the work “The Coming Post-Industrial Society. The experience of social forecasting ”put forward the concept of the transition of Western society, characterized as an“ industrial society ”, into the post-industrial stage, which is called the post-industrial society. Although Bell considered many of its features, which actually appeared after two decades, the term itself has not been deciphered. Just as the term "pre-industrial society" requires disclosure of its content (agrarian, traditional), post-industrial society is required to disclose its essence. The prefix "post" only indicates that this is a society that comes after the industrial, after it.

Back in 1972, the Japanese set the task of information development of their society, declared the need to make it informational. Before Bell's concept, this was simply a characteristic of a program to increase the role of information in society. But taken together, they formed the concept of an "information society", which defines the essence of a post-industrial society as a society in which information, rather than industry, plays a decisive role. It is a society whose productivity is determined by the information sector more than by the manufacturing and service sectors. J. Nesbit named the transition to the information society as one of the ten most important trends in the transformation of the West, and later the world as a whole. M. Kassel in the work “Information Society. Economy, Society, Culture ”examined the essence of the information revolution.

Currently, the importance of knowledge in the information sector is highlighted, which has led to the spread of the terms "knowledge society", "knowledge economy". In accordance with these changes, the West, as a post-industrial society, has concentrated on the production of product models, and their material embodiment has largely moved to non-Western industrial countries, many of which are trying to master high technologies, including information and knowledge application technologies. However, they remain industrial societies. It must be clearly understood that the term "information society" is fully applicable only to Western societies.

Doctor of Philosophy, Prof., Head. Sector of Social Philosophy, IP RAS

V.G. Fedotova

2. There are many definitions of the information society, which are quite actively referred to by authors in different countries.

After the publication in 1983 of the book by I. Masuda, one of the authors of the "Plan for the Information Society", developed in Japan in the early 70s of the XX century, the early interpretations of the information society proposed by the Japanese became the subject of attention of the world scientific community. The invention of the term "information society" is attributed to professor at the Tokyo Institute of Technology Yuri Hayashi. The contours of the information society were outlined in reports presented to the Japanese government in the late 1960s and early 1970s by organizations such as the Economic Planning Agency, the Institute for the Development and Use of Computers, and the Industrial Structure Council. The titles of the reports are indicative: "The Japanese Information Society: Topics and Approaches" (1969), "Plan for the Information Society" (1971), "Contours of a Policy to Promote the Informatization of Japanese Society" (1969). The information society was defined here as one where the process of computerization will give people access to reliable sources of information, relieve them of routine work, and provide a high level of production automation. At the same time, the production itself will also change - its product will become more "information-intensive", which means an increase in the share of innovation, design work and marketing in its value; the production of an information product, and not a material product, will be the driving force behind the education and development of society.

It should be noted that even earlier, in the 40s, the Australian economist A. Clarke wrote about the perspective of the information and services society, and in the 50s the American economist F. Mahlup spoke about the onset of the information economy.

The Japanese version of the concept of the information society was developed primarily to solve the problems of economic development in Japan. This circumstance led to it in a sense, limited and applied. However, in the 70s, the idea of \u200b\u200ban information society became popular in the United States and Western Europe and acquired the features of a universalist ideology.

American sociologist D. Bell, the author of the famous concept of postindustrial society, presented a version of the convergence of the ideas of postindustrialism and the information society in his 1980 book "The Social Framework of the Information Society". Bell's expression "information society" is a new name for post-industrial society, emphasizing not its position in the sequence of stages of social development - after an industrial society, but the basis for determining its social structure - information. Here, as in the book "The Coming Post-Industrial Society", the primary importance is attached to the information included in the functioning of scientific knowledge and obtained through such knowledge. The information society in Bell's interpretation has all the main characteristics of a post-industrial society (economy of services, the central role of theoretical knowledge, focus on the future and the resulting technology management, development of new intellectual technology). However, if in the "Coming Post-Industrial Society" electronic computing technology was considered as one of the high-tech industries and as a necessary tool for solving complex problems (using systems analysis and game theory), then in the "Social Framework of the Information Society" great importance is attached to the convergence of electronic computers with communication technology. "In the coming century," D. Bell asserts here, "the formation of a new social order based on telecommunications will acquire a decisive importance for economic and social life, for the methods of production of knowledge, as well as for the nature of human labor activity."

From the end of the 60s of the XX century to the present day, many interpretations of what an information society is have been proposed. With all the diversity of accents, the degree of attention paid to one or another technological, economic or social process, the information society is considered within the framework of the basic concepts as having at least the following characteristics. First of all, it is a high level of development of computer technology, information and telecommunication technologies, the presence of a powerful information infrastructure. Hence - such an important feature of the information society as an increase in the possibilities of access to information for an ever wider range of people. Finally, practically all concepts and programs for the development of the information society proceed from the fact that information and knowledge become in the information age a strategic resource of society, comparable in importance to natural, human and financial resources.

Within the framework of the ideology of the information society, already in the 70s, various directions and tendencies emerged, focusing attention on certain aspects of relations existing in society regarding information and technical and technological means of its transmission, storage and processing, considering various social perspectives as possible , desirable or negative.

In the book by S. Nora and A. Mink “Computerization of society. Report to the President of France ”, the information society was characterized as a complex society, in whose culture serious problems arise. The authors are confident that it is impossible to understand these problems in line with Bell's post-industrial approach (it is noteworthy that the English translation of the book was published with a foreword by D. Bell). Such an approach, they argue, allows us to see in the future only a “tranquilized” post-industrial society, where the abundance and convergence of living standards will unite the nation around a huge culturally homogeneous middle class and overcome social contradictions. The postindustrial approach is productive when it comes to the information that guides the behavior of producers and buyers, but it is useless when faced with problems outside the realm of business and dependent on the cultural model. The title of one of the chapters of the book by S. Nora and A. Mink is "Will a computerized society be a society of cultural conflicts?" Assuming that the information society will be less clearly socially structured and more polymorphic than an industrial society, the authors predict that one of the factors of polymorphism will be the attitude of various groups to the trend of language simplification, associated, not least, with the economy of databases and various forms of electronic -mediated communication. The information society, they predicted, will be a society of struggle for language between different groups.

The most influential sociological concepts, put forward in the initial period of the formation of the ideology of the information society, emphasized the value of scientific, theoretical knowledge and / or reliable information, predicted an increase in their role in society with the development of computer and telecommunication technologies. Subsequently, tendencies that emphasize the importance of unscientific information and connect the prospects for the formation of an information society with the “loss of scientific discourse of its privileged status” are intensifying. The position of M. Poster, an American sociologist who belongs to the French intellectual tradition of structuralism and poststructuralism, is indicative in this respect. From the point of view of this author, an adequate sociology of electronically-mediated communications is possible only if science is viewed as one of the types of discourse on an equal basis with others. Posters consider it wrong to interpret information as an economic entity and provide a theoretical basis for the distribution of commodity relations in the information sphere. The poster emphasizes that the ease of copying and distributing information destroys the legal system, the foundations of which were formed to protect private property in material things. He insists that in the era of convergence of computing and communications technology, it is impossible to adequately understand social relationships without taking into account the changes in the structure of communication experience. It is noteworthy that M. Poster wrote about the possibilities of information modeling as “modeling oneself” in the late 1980s, when the Internet was not yet a daily routine for millions of people. In the nineties and zero, new cultural phenomena generated by the rapid development of information and communication technologies became the object of attention of many authors.

To use for the benefit of people the opportunities provided by modern information and communication technologies is the main pathos of official strategies and programs for the development of the information society, adopted by the governments of different countries, interstate associations, and regional authorities. The Okinawa Charter for the Global Information Society, adopted by the G8 leaders in the summer of 2000, states: “The information society, as we see it, allows people to better use their potential and realize their aspirations. To this end, we must ensure that IT [Information and Communication Technology] serves the complementary goals of sustainable economic growth, social welfare, fostering social cohesion and realizing their full potential in promoting democracy, transparent and responsible governance of international peace and stability. Achieving these goals and addressing emerging challenges will require the development of effective national and international strategies. ”

In the Declaration adopted by the participants in the World Summit on the Information Society in Geneva in 2003, the first section is titled “Our Common Vision for the Information Society”. It begins with these words: “We, the peoples of the world, gathered in Geneva on December 10-12, 2003 to host the first phase of the World Summit on the Information Society, declare our shared commitment and determination to build a people-centered, inclusive for all and a development-oriented information society in which everyone can create, access, use and share information and knowledge in order to enable individuals, communities and peoples to realize their full potential while contributing to their sustainable development and by enhancing the quality of their lives based on the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations and fully respecting and supporting the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. "

The "Strategy for the Development of the Information Society in the Russian Federation" proclaims the goal of the formation and development of the information society "to improve the quality of life of citizens, to ensure the competitiveness of Russia, to develop the economic, socio-political, cultural and spiritual spheres of society, to improve the system of public administration through the use of information and telecommunication technologies ".

The quantitative indicators provided by such documents characterize the technological and economic aspects of the information sphere. "Strategies for the Development of the Information Society in the Russian Federation" provides for a number of benchmarks for the development of the information society, which must be achieved by 2015, including the level of accessibility of basic services in the field of information and telecommunication technologies for the population (100%), the level of use broadband access lines per 100 population (15 lines by 2010 and 35 by 2015), the number of households with personal computers (at least 70% of the total number of households), the share of library collections converted to electronic form in the total volume of collections of public libraries (at least 50%), the share of domestic goods and services in the volume of the internal market of information and telecommunication technologies (more than 50%); growth of investments in the use of information and telecommunication technologies in the national economy (not less than 2.5 times compared to 2007). Obviously, such indicators make it possible to judge, first of all, about the success in creating a modern information and telecommunication infrastructure and the corresponding level of accessibility of information and technologies for the population.

One of the important indicators provided by the "Strategy" is Russia's place in international rankings of information society development - among the twenty leading countries of the world by 2015. It should be emphasized that these rankings are based primarily on technology diffusion data. So the index of the International Telecommunication Union takes into account 11 indicators. These include those that characterize access to information and communication technologies (including mobile communications and landline telephones), the prevalence of broadband, the number of Internet users and their literacy, and the number of households with computers. Data for 2002-2007 indicate that, despite all efforts in developing countries, the digital divide between developed and lagging countries has not been bridged. The index of development of information and communication technologies is also called the index of the development of the information society. Obviously, in such cases, the information society is understood as the corresponding components of the technosphere and market segments.

Against this background, the desire to oppose the knowledge society to the information society seems quite understandable. The UNESCO report states: “The concept of the information society is based on advances in technology. Knowledge societies imply broader social, ethical and political dimensions. ” It is noteworthy that the first chapter of the report is called "From the information society to knowledge societies", and the formation of the global information society is assigned the role of a means of creating "real knowledge societies." At the same time, many of the problems that are considered in this report as characteristic of have long been discussed in the context of the information society. The foregoing fully applies to the problem of the "cognitive gap", which is recognized today as one of the most important problems of the formation of knowledge societies. The concept of the "cognitive gap" is directly related to such concepts as the "digital divide" and "information inequality".

In the literature, one can find different interpretations of the relationship between the concept of an information society and the concepts of a knowledge society and a post-industrial society. It is sometimes said that a post-industrial society is replacing an industrial one (as can be seen from the name), after a while the post-industrial society becomes an information society (i.e. an information society is a stage in the development of a post-industrial society), and the information society is followed by a knowledge society. This way of "ordering" can be explained, apparently, by the fact that the corresponding ideas acquired wide popularity in this sequence. However, all these ideas were put forward almost simultaneously, and the social, technological and economic processes interpreted with their help are closely intertwined.

From the outside, it looks surprising the carefree attitude of people engaged in such topics to the issues of conceptual consistency, terminological certainty, variability of meanings and the appropriateness of introducing new concepts, author's priority and commensurability of descriptions. Nevertheless, the main points of attraction of research interest, and the general content in various characteristics of the emerging order, and repeated methods of correlating the present with the past and future, which allow making forecasts and creating plans, are quite clearly visible here.

Material prepared by leading researcher IP RAS I.Yu. Alekseeva based on the work of Alekseeva I.Yu. What is a Knowledge Society? M .: Kogito-Center, 2009.

Masuda Y. The Information Society as Postindustrial Society. Wash .: World Future Soc., 1983

Masuda Y. The Information Society as Postindustrial Society. Wash .: World Future Soc. 1983, p. 29.

Clark C. The Conditions of Economic Progress. L., 1957

Machlup F. The Production and Distribution of Knowledge in the United States. Princeton, 1962

Bell D. The Social Framework of the Information Society. Oxford, 1980. In Russian. lang .: Bell D. Social framework of the information society. Abbreviated. transl. Yu. V. Nikulicheva // New technocratic wave in the West. Ed. P. S. Gurevich. M., 1988

Bell D. The Coming of Post-Industrial Society. A Venture in Social Forcasting. N.Y., Basic Books, Inc., 1973. Russian translation of this book, edited by V.L. Inozemtsev, was published in 1999.

Bell D. Social framework of the information society. Abbreviated. transl. Yu. V. Nikulicheva // New technocratic wave in the West. Ed. P. S. Gurevich. M., 1988, p. 330

Thus, the “Concept of Moscow's Movement to an Information Society” states: “There is no generally accepted definition of an information society, but most experts agree that several interrelated processes determine its essence.” The following are noted as such processes: "information and knowledge are becoming an important resource and a truly driving force for socio-economic, technological and cultural development"; "A market for information and knowledge is being formed as a factor of production on a par with the markets for natural resources, labor and capital"; "The share of industries providing the creation, transmission and use of information is growing rapidly"; “A developed information infrastructure is turning into a condition that determines national and regional competitiveness no less than, for example, transport communications”; "The development and active implementation of new information and communication technologies (ICT) in all spheres of activity significantly changes the models of education, labor, social life and recreation" (See: "The concept of Moscow's movement towards an information society // Information society. International information and analytical journal. No. 3, 2001, p. 7). The Strategy for the Development of the Information Society in the Russian Federation indicates freedom and equality in access to information and knowledge as one of the basic principles, and ensuring a high level of accessibility of information and technologies for the population (See: Strategy for the Development of Information society in the Russian Federation of February 7, 2008 N Pr-212 // Russian newspaper. Federal issue No. 4591 of February 16, 2008).

See: Poster M. The Mode of Information: Poststructuralism and Social Context. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1990

United Nations
UNESCO. World Summit on the Information Society (Geneva, 2003). Building the Information Society - A Global Challenge in the New Millennium: Declaration of Principles (Document WSIS-03 / GENEVA / DOC / 4-R, 12 December 2003)

Strategy for the development of the information society in the Russian Federation of February 7, 2008 N Pr-212 // Rossiyskaya Gazeta. Federal issue No. 4591 dated February 16, 2008)

To knowledge societies. UNESCO World Report. Paris: UNESCO Publishing, 2005, p. 19

stage in the development of mankind, when physical labor as the basis of industrial society gives way to information and knowledge [I.I. Philosophy: Textbook. - Simferopol: Business-Inform, 2002. - S. 328].

Excellent definition

Incomplete definition ↓

INFORMATION SOCIETY

a term used to designate the current state of industrially developed countries associated with the new role of information in all aspects of their life, a qualitatively new level (scope) of production, processing and dissemination of information.

In the last third of the twentieth century, a new technological revolution, universal computerization, informatization of society, intellectualization of the economy create a fundamentally new social situation.

The rethinking of social changes, approaches to changing the methodological paradigm in the theory of society began to be observed in the late 60s - early 70s. Information society theories are divided into two groups. One group includes theories that are adjacent to the concepts of post-industrialism and directly emerge from them. The names of D. Bell, A. Turen and others are associated with these theories. They represent, as it were, the first stage in the development of the information society theory.

The second group is the conceptual schemes of O. Toffler, R. Darendorf, F. Ferraroti, as well as the adjusted theory of D. Bell.

The concept of the information society notes that such a society is a special stage in historical development. There are two approaches that interpret the historical place of the information society in different ways. The first approach, expressed by J. Habermas, E. Giddens, considers the information society as a phase of the industrial society. The second approach, voiced by D.Bell and O. Toffler, fixes the information society as a completely new stage following the industrial society (the second wave, according to Toffler).

In connection with the expansion of the sphere of information activities, professional qualifications, the educational structure of society, and the nature of work are changing. The role and functions of the most important element of the productive forces — man — change, and intellectual and creative labor displaces the labor of an individual who is directly involved in the production process. In the information society, the production of services comes out on top.

In the service market, the main thing is labor aimed at obtaining, processing, storing, transforming and using information. Creativity is gaining paramount importance in motivating work. This is a huge army of labor: the proportion of those whose activities are related to creative work approaches half of the entire labor force in industrialized countries. The USA and Japan have advanced even more in these indicators. If in Africa 2/3 of the population is engaged in agricultural production, then in the USA less than 3% of the active population is engaged in this. US industrial production employs 17% and information technology 80%.

If Parsons considered society as a network of interchange of four main subsystems - economic, political, legal, moral and ideological (the subsystem of maintaining the model), then in the information society two important and independent subsystems are added to them - telecommunication and educational.

The telecommunications subsystem cannot be regarded only as a technical component of the economy; it goes far beyond role and significance in technology. Telecommunication technology strengthens the breakthrough in democratic social order, since it allows a person to have the status of a "direct member" of society without any kind of intermediaries in the face of any groups, ideologies or symbolic cultural systems.

Also, education is becoming an important, moreover, the dominant subsystem of society. This is a strategic resource in the modern conditions of functioning of state and political structures.

The "information explosion" caused changes in the field of spiritual production and culture. Information becomes a product and one of the main values \u200b\u200bof society. This could not but affect the changes in property relations. American scientists R. Coase and A. Alchyan, founders of the new theory of property rights, investigated the phenomenon of complication of property relations. Property relations are interpreted not as a relationship between a person and a thing, but as a relationship between people with their rights to use a certain type of resource. In a classical firm, this resource is capital; in new areas of entrepreneurial activity, the one who has the right to use information enjoys the greatest influence; in the field of innovation and professional services, the right to intelligence.

In a modern economy characterized by science intensity, continuous structural changes, high dynamism, the role of intellectual property in social development is increasing.

Incomplete definition ↓

The history of the concept

The term "information society" owes its name to the professor of the Tokyo Institute of Technology Y. Hayashi, whose term was used in the works of F. Machlup (1962) and T. Umesao (1963) that appeared almost simultaneously - in Japan and the United States. The theory of the "information society" was developed by such famous authors as M. Porat, J. Massouda, T. Stoner, R. Karz and others; to one degree or another, it received support from those researchers who focused not so much on the progress of information technology itself, but on the formation of a technological, or technetronic (technetronic - from the Greek techne), society, or denoted a modern society, starting from the increased or growing role of knowledge as “the knowledgeable society”, “knowledge society” or “knowledge-value society”. Today, there are dozens of concepts proposed to designate individual, sometimes even completely insignificant features of modern society, for one reason or another, nevertheless, are called based on its characteristics. Thus, in contrast to the first approach to terminological designations, the second leads, in fact, to the rejection of generalizing concepts and limits the researchers professing it to study on particular issues.

Beginning in 1992, Western countries began to use the term, for example, the concept of "national global information infrastructure" was introduced in the United States after the famous conference of the National Science Foundation and the famous report of B. Clinton and A. Gore. The concept of “information society” originated in the work of the European Commission's Expert Group on Information Society Programs, led by Martin Bangemann, one of Europe's most respected experts on the information society; information highways and superhighways - in Canadian, British and American publications.

At the end of the XX century. the terms information society and informatization have firmly taken their place, and not only in the lexicon of specialists in the field of information, but also in the lexicon of politicians, economists, teachers and scientists. In most cases, this concept was associated with the development of information technologies and telecommunication means, allowing on the platform of civil society (or at least its declared principles) to make a new evolutionary leap and worthily enter the next, 21st century as an information society or its initial stage.

It should be noted that a number of Western and domestic political scientists and political economists are inclined to draw a sharp line separating the concept of the information society from post-industrialism. However, although the concept of the information society is intended to replace the theory of post-industrial society, its supporters repeat and further develop a number of the most important provisions of technocratism and traditional futurology.

It is symptomatic that a number of leading researchers who have formulated the theory of postindustrial society, such as D. Bell, are now advocating the concept of the information society. For Bell himself, the concept of the information society became a kind of new stage in the development of the theory of post-industrial society. As Bell stated, "A revolution in the organization and processing of information and knowledge, in which the computer plays a central role, is developing in the context of what I have called postindustrial society."

According to Professor W. Martin, the information society is understood as a "developed post-industrial society" that arose primarily in the West. In his opinion, it is not accidental that the information society is being established primarily in those countries - Japan, the USA and Western Europe - in which a post-industrial society was formed in the 60s - 70s.

W. Martin made an attempt to identify and formulate the main characteristics of the information society according to the following criteria.

• Technological: the key factor is information technologies, which are widely used in production, institutions, the education system and in everyday life.
• Social: information acts as an important stimulator of changes in the quality of life, "information consciousness" is formed and established with wide access to information.
• Economic: Information is a key factor in the economy as a resource, service, commodity, value added and employment.
• Political: freedom of information leading to a political process characterized by growing participation and consensus between different classes and social strata of the population.
• Cultural: recognizing the cultural value of information by promoting the affirmation of information values \u200b\u200bfor the development of the individual and society as a whole.

In doing so, Martin emphasizes the idea that communication is “a key element of the information society”.

Martin notes that speaking about the information society, it should not be taken in a literal sense, but considered as a guideline, a tendency of changes in modern Western society. According to him, in general, this model is oriented towards the future, but in the developed capitalist countries already now it is possible to name a number of changes caused by information technologies that confirm the concept of the information society.

Among these changes, Martin lists the following:

• structural changes in the economy, especially in the distribution of labor; increased awareness of the importance of information and information technology;
• growing awareness of the need for computer literacy;
• widespread use of computers and information technology;
• development of computerization and informatization of society and education;
• government support for the development of computer microelectronic technology and telecommunications.
• widespread - computer viruses and malware around the world.

In light of these changes, Martin argues, “the information society can be defined as a society in which the quality of life, as well as the prospects for social change and economic development, are increasingly dependent on information and its exploitation. In such a society, living standards, forms of work and leisure, the education system and the market are significantly influenced by advances in information and knowledge. "

In an expanded and detailed form, the concept of the information society (taking into account the fact that it almost fully includes the theory of post-industrial society developed by him in the late 60s - early 70s) is proposed by D. Bell. As Bell argues, “in the coming century, the emergence of a new order based on telecommunications is of decisive importance for economic and social life, for the methods of production of knowledge, as well as for the nature of human labor. The revolution in the organization and processing of information and knowledge, in which the computer plays a central role, is unfolding simultaneously with the formation of a post-industrial society. " Moreover, Bell believes, three aspects of postindustrial society are especially important for understanding this revolution. This refers to the transition from an industrial society to a service society, the decisive importance of codified scientific knowledge for the implementation of technological innovations and the transformation of a new "intelligent technology" into a key tool for systems analysis and decision theory.

A qualitatively new moment has become the ability to manage large complexes of organizations and the production of systems, requiring the coordination of the activities of hundreds of thousands and even millions of people. The rapid development of new scientific directions, such as information theory, computer science, cybernetics, decision theory, game theory, etc., went on and continues, that is, directions related specifically to the problems of organizational sets.

One of the extremely unpleasant aspects of informatization of society is the loss of stability by the information society. Because of the increasing role of information, small groups can have a significant impact on all people. Such influence, for example, can be exercised through terror, actively covered by the media. Modern terrorism is one of the consequences of a decrease in the stability of society as it is informatized.

Bringing back the sustainability of the information society can be accomplished through strengthening accounting policies. Biometrics is one of the new areas of strengthening policies for accounting for people. Biometrics is developing automata capable of independently recognizing people. After the events of September 11, 2001, at the initiative of the United States, the active use of international passports with biometric identification of people by automatic machines when crossing state borders began.

The second most important area of \u200b\u200benhancing accounting policies in the information society is the massive use of cryptography. An example is a SIM card in a cell phone, it contains cryptographic protection of the accounting of payment by subscribers of the digital communication channel leased from the operator. Cell phones are digital, it was the transition to digital that made it possible to provide everyone with communication channels, but without cryptography in SIM cards, cellular communication could not become mass. Mobile operators would not be able to reliably control the fact of the presence of money on the subscriber's account and operations to withdraw money for using the communication channel.

Russia

Several stages can be distinguished in the activities of the authorities in the development and implementation of state policy in the field of information society development in Russia. At the first stage (1991-1994), the foundations in the field of informatization were formed. The second stage (1994-1998) was characterized by a change in priorities from informatization to the development of an information policy. The third stage, which continues to this day, is the stage of policy formation in the field of building the information society. In 2002, the Government of the Russian Federation adopted the Federal Target Program "Electronic Russia 2002-2010." , which gave a powerful impetus to the development of the information society in the Russian regions.

In order to ensure the confidentiality and anonymity of personal biometric data, Russia was the first developed country to start creating a special package of national standards: GOST R 52633.0-2006 (put into effect); GOST R 52633.1-2009 (put into effect), GOST R 52633.2 (public discussion took place); GOST R 52633.3 GOST R 52633.4 (developed, preparing for public discussion); GOST R 52633.5 (developed, preparing for public discussion).

Since other countries do not yet have national standards for converting a person's biometrics into his personal cryptographic key, presumably the standards of the GOST R 52633.xx package will be used in the future as the basis for the corresponding international standards. In this regard, it is interesting to note that the already existing international biometric standards were originally created as US national standards.

Belarus

In 2010, the Council of Ministers of the Republic of Belarus approved the Strategy for the Development of the Information Society in Belarus until 2015 and the plan of priority measures for its implementation for 2010 (the development of the information society is one of the national priorities and is a national task). The formation of the foundations of the information society has been completed, the legal basis for informatization has been laid. In the period until 2015 in the Republic of Belarus, according to the Strategy for the Development of the Information Society in the Republic of Belarus until 2015, work should be completed on the creation and development of the basic components of the information and communication infrastructure for the development of the state system for the provision of electronic services (electronic government). It will include a nationwide information system that integrates government information resources to provide electronic services; a single secure environment for information interaction; the state public key management system; a system for identifying individuals and legal entities, as well as a payment gateway integrated with a single settlement information space, through which payment transactions will be carried out. According to the plan of informatization of the Republic of Belarus for the period up to 2015, it can be assumed that by 2015, each university will have broadband access to the Internet. The strategy for the development of the information society in the country provides for the growth of broadband Internet access ports to 3 million by 2015 (about 530,000 today), the number of mobile Internet users will reach 7 million (about 1.6 million today). Today, over 87% of Belarusian schools have some form of Internet access, and over 21% have broadband access.

CIS countries

In the CIS countries, the information society is implemented on the basis of an interstate network of information and marketing centers (IMC network), which is a project similar to the Digital Agenda for Europe, presented by the European Commission as a strategy for ensuring the growth of the EU economy in the digital age and the spread of digital technologies to all walks of life.

Literature

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Notes

F. Webster, Information Society Theories, Moscow: Aspect Press, 2004, 400

see also

• Council under the President of the Russian Federation for the Development of the Information Society in the Russian Federation

Links

• , 2000
• Basil Lvoff Media and information society
• A. V. Kostina Trends in the development of information society culture: analysis of modern information and post-industrial concepts // Electronic magazine “Knowledge. Understanding. Skill "... - 2009. - № 4 - Culturology.
• Pogorskiy E.K. The role of youth in the formation of the information society // Informational humanitarian portal “Knowledge. Understanding. Skill "... - 2012. - No. 2 (March - April) (archived in WebCite).
• Pogorskiy E.K. Formation of the Information Society in the Russian Federation: Dialogue between Citizens and Local Self-Government Bodies // Scientific works of the Moscow University for the Humanities. - 2011.
• Skorodumova O.B. Domestic approaches to the interpretation of the information society: postindustrialist, synergetic and postmodernist paradigms // Electronic journal "

Information Society - the concept of a post-industrial society; a new historical phase in the development of civilization, in which information and knowledge are the main products of production.

The concept of the information society is a kind of the theory of post-industrial society, the basis of which was laid by Z. Brzezinski, E. Toffler and other Western futurologists. Thus, the information society is, first of all, a sociological and futurological concept, which considers the production and use of scientific, technical and other information as the main factor of social development.

“Postindustrial society, - says Z. Brzezinski, becomes a technotronic society - a society that is culturally, psychologically, socially and economically formed under the influence of technology and electronics, especially developed in the field of computers and communications” [Cit. by 3]. The technocratism of the development of our civilization affects the nature of the perception of reality by an individual, it destroys traditional ties in the family and between generations; public life, despite the growing trend towards global integration, is increasingly fragmented. It is this paradox, according to Z. Brzezinski, that contributes to the collapse of the old foundations for the community of people and forms a new global vision of the world.

Considering social development as a “change of stages”, supporters of the information society theory associate its formation with the dominance of the “fourth”, information sector of the economy, following agriculture, industry and the service economy. At the same time, it is argued that capital and labor as the basis of an industrial society are giving way to information and knowledge in the information society. The revolutionary action of information technology leads to the fact that in the information society, classes are replaced by socially undifferentiated "information communities" (J. Masuda).

The authors of the concept of “informational (postindustrial) society” have not yet come to a consensus that the spiritual or material sphere is primary. For example, K. Jaspers and E. Toffler believed that the moment of the onset of a new “wave” was the changed human being and his environment. M. McLuhan paid more attention to the mass media and considered Gutenberg's printing as a starting point. “Only in the conditions of mass distribution of the printed word become possible both private property entrepreneurship and the democratization of society on the basis of electoral law, since it is the printed word, and not oral and not even written, that forms the initial element, and the central agent of such a social structure is an atomized, isolated human individuality.

However, with the diversity of views of various authors on the course of historical development, they all note that:

• 1. History is divided into three main global stages, which can be conventionally called "agricultural", "industrial" and "post-industrial";
• 2. The distinction between the stages is carried out on the basis of industrial relations or human interaction with nature (through tools, through machines or technology, through information);
• 3. The transition to the next stage is carried out by means of a scientific and technological revolution, during which the living environment changes, which, in turn, entails transformations in the consciousness of people;
• 4. The final historical stage, which, in the opinion of some philosophers, has already begun, and, in the opinion of others, will come in the near future, is the "information society", and for culture the era of postmodernity is coming.

Unfortunately, the authors of the concepts of the “information society” (with the exception, perhaps, of E. Toffler) did not devote enough space to consider the question of what consequences its onset would bring for the cultural life of mankind. A.I. Rakitov divided the process of formation of the information society into five stages (information revolutions):

The first is the spread of the language.

The second is the emergence of writing.

The third is mass printing.

The fourth - the information revolution - consists in the use of electrical communications (telephone, telegraph, radio and television), which immediately develops into the fifth.

The fifth stage is distinguished by the use of computers, the use of databases, local and global computer networks. At this stage, technological changes accompanying information revolutions are integrated. In this regard, A.I. Rakitov emphasizes that in the near future this will have a huge impact on all civilizational and cultural processes on a global scale. J.-F. Lyotard believes that "as society enters the era called post-industrial, and culture - in the era of postmodernity, the status of knowledge changes -" knowledge is and will be the most important, and perhaps the most significant stake in the world rivalry for power. "

The hallmarks of the information society are:

• · Increasing the role of information and knowledge in society;
• · An increase in the share of information communications, products and services in the gross domestic product;
• Creation of a global information space that provides:
• o effective information interaction of people,
• o their access to world information resources and
• o meeting their needs for information products and services.

Criteria for the transition of society to the post-industrial and informational stages of its development (according to I.V. Sokolova):

• 1.social and economic (criteria for employment of the population);
• 2. technical;
• 3. space.

The socio-economic criterion estimates the percentage of the population employed in the service sector:

• · If in the society more than 50% of the population is employed in the service sector, the post-industrial phase of its development has begun;
• · If in a society more than 50% of the population is employed in the field of information and intellectual services, the society becomes informational.

According to this criterion, the United States entered the post-industrial period of its development in 1956-1960. (the state of California - "silicon or silicon valley" - overcame this milestone in 1910), and became the information society of the United States in 1974. According to this criterion, Russia, like the world community as a whole, is at the industrial stage of development.

The technical criterion evaluates the information security.

The early phase of informatization of society begins when the specific information armament is reached, which corresponds to the deployment of a fairly reliable long-distance telephone network. The final phase corresponds to the achievement of problem-free satisfaction of any information needs of each person at any time of the day and at any point in space.

According to this criterion, Russia is in the initial phase of informatization and, according to forecasts, will reach the final phase in the 30s - 40s. XXI century, while the United States is already making a transition to the final phase of informatization.

The cosmic criterion makes it possible to note the possibilities of real observation of mankind from space, since informatization has led to the fact that the levels of radio emission from the Sun and the Earth in certain parts of the radio range have approached.

Additional criteria (A.I. Rakitov) for the transition of a society to the informational stage of its development: a society is considered informational if:

• · Any individual, group of persons or organization anywhere in the country and at any time can receive for a fee or free of charge on the basis of automated access any information and knowledge necessary for their life;
• · Modern information technology is produced in society and is available to any individual, group or organization;
• · There are well-developed infrastructures that ensure the creation of national information resources in an amount corresponding to the constantly accelerating scientific, technological and socio-historical progress;
• · There is a process of accelerated automation and robotization of all spheres and branches of production and management;
• · There are radical changes in social structures, resulting in the expansion of the scope of information activities and services.

The information society differs from a society dominated by traditional industry and services in that information, knowledge, information services, and all industries associated with their production (telecommunications, computer, television) are growing at a faster pace and are a source of new jobs. That is, the information industry dominates economic development.

There is no single definition of the information industry. However, developed countries have accumulated some experience in the statistical measurement of the information industry. For example, Canada has proposed a new classification under the heading Information Technology and Telecommunications (ITT), which combines telecommunications, mass broadcasting and computer services.

Regardless of the statistics indicators, it is clear that the dynamism of technological modernization of modern society poses two main questions for society:

First. will people be able to adapt to change?

Second. Will new technologies generate new differentiation of society?

The most significant threat of the transition period to the information society is the division of people into those who have information, who know how to handle information technologies, and those who do not have such skills. If new information technologies remain at the disposal of a small social group, the stratification of society is inevitable.

Despite the dangers of information technology:

• · Expand the rights of citizens by providing instant access to a variety of information;
• · Increase the ability of people to participate in political decision-making and follow the actions of governments;
• · Provide an opportunity to actively produce information, and not just consume it;
• · Provide a means of protecting the privacy and anonymity of personal messages and communications.

The development of information technology affects all aspects of society: the economy; politics, science, culture, education. However, the most important impact occurs on civil society and government systems. The potential for citizens to directly influence governments raises the question of transforming existing democratic structures. With the help of new communication technologies, it becomes possible to implement a “reference democracy. Democracy carried out through a referendum. Referendum (from lat. referendum - what should be communicated) or plebiscite - in state law, the electoral body makes decisions on constitutional, legislative or other internal and foreign policy issues. "

On the other hand, the penetration of information technology into the privacy of people can threaten the privacy of citizens. The price for convenience, speed of transmission and reception of information, various information services - a person must constantly report personal data about himself to information systems - loss of anonymity.

Due to the special sensitivity to the collection of personal information, the documents of the European Community (Building the European Information Society for Us All. First Reflections of the High Level Group of Experts. Interim Report, January 1996) offer the following recommendations:

• · Collection and storage of identifiable information should be minimal;
• · The decision to open or close the information must be provided by the people themselves;
• · When designing information systems, it is necessary to take into account the need to protect personal information;
• · Citizens should have access to the latest technologies to protect personal secrets;
• · The protection of personal information and privacy should become the central point of policy ensuring the right to anonymity of citizens in information systems.

Intensive introduction of information technologies into state bodies makes it possible to:

• · Bring them closer to citizens, improve and expand services, population;
• · Improve internal efficiency and reduce public sector costs;
• · Stimulate the creation of new information equipment, products and services by the private sector through adequate public policy.

The following principles should be applied regarding access to public information:

• · Information should be open to everyone;
• · Basic information should be free. A reasonable price should be charged if additional processing is required, bearing in mind the cost of preparing and transmitting information, plus a small margin;
• · Continuity: information must be provided continuously and must be of the same quality.

As a rule, the reason for failures in the implementation of projects for the introduction of information technology both at the level of enterprises and the state is the inability to combine technological innovations with organizational ones.

it is a society that is being formed in the post-industrial phase of civilization development, which is characterized by the comprehensive informatization of social structures and is replacing the post-industrial one.

In the "social framework of the information society" by D. Bell, the development of the concept of I. o. expresses the transition from the post-industrial predominance of the service sector over the production sector to the dominance of the information services sector. In this sense, the concept of I. o. reflects new aspects of the development of post-industrial society, is its additional characteristic (see "Post-industrial society").

On the other hand, I. about. can be understood as an independent stage in the historical development of civilization, following the post-industrial society and characterized primarily by the production of information, the level of awareness of the population and the development of education. In addition, the post-industrial society itself can be understood as the first stage of I. o. In this sense, an analysis of the problems of information about. connected with the consideration of postindustrial society as the first in the history of I. about.

To study possible ways of development of I. about. in Western socio-philosophical theories, the concept of a post-information society is introduced (Hunt's work "The Post-Information Society"), that is, a theoretical consideration of the problems of information society. has its further development in the concept of a post-information society: information-formation, information, post-information society. The establishment of the similarity between the genetic information system of DNA, the genetic structures of the biosphere and the information structures of the social organization of the noosphere allowed Baudrillard to develop the concept of a post-information society, the "virtual era" of which is replacing the bygone "oral", "written" and "printing societies" of McLuhan. The concept of a post-informational society reflects such a change in the sphere of information services as the determining basis of informational education, on which the former rational mechanism of information production is replaced by the probabilistic chaos of redundant social information. In informational "virtual reality", the formation of "redundant" social and informational structures of social information occurs: in it, the redundancy of social information means only a lack of information about which part of it is redundant. As the ideology or hegemony of information structures, Baudrillard's "virtual reality" becomes the reality of the IO. In this regard, the concept of I. o. reflects, on the one hand, the way of dissemination of information structures and, on the other hand, the level of informatization and computerization of society.

The emergence of the concept of I. o. closely related to the development of informatics and cybernetics in the works of N. Wiener, information management theory and information theory of value. The value of human activity and its results is determined not only and not so much by labor costs as by embodied information, which becomes a source of added value. In this sense, the concept of I. o. expresses the rethinking of information and its role as a quantitative characteristic for the qualitative analysis of social development. A certain level of social information, in addition to quantitative characteristics, allows one to reflect certain qualitative aspects of the development of society. The information theory of value characterizes not only the amount of information embodied in the results of production activities, but also the level of development of information production as the basis for the development of information technology. - a certain stage of development of society.

The concept of I. o. in a certain way characterizes the changes in the worldview associated with a departure from the classical picture of the world. In this aspect of the concept of I. o. reflects a consistent change in the basis of society - from the natural world of traditional society to the artificial, created world (industrial - see "Industrial Society" - and post-industrial society) and to the world of social information and information about. Cyberspace, in which only intellectual programmers now work, is becoming an information space for the socio-cultural and, consequently, socio-economic development of the Internet. This is the basis for the production of information, which is the backbone of the structures of the information system, in contrast to the industrial production of an industrial society. Education and science determine the level of information production and the degree of development of informational education.

Problems of functioning of structures of I. o. close to the problems of artificial intelligence (for example, Intel microprocessors or the development of text editors that correct human errors in a computer set). The concept of intellectual and informational capital, introduced by Bourdieu, is important for the concept of I. o. For example, the intellectual property of Bill Gates - the creator and ideological inspirer of Microsoft (the leader in the world software market for the computer industry), whose property is estimated at many billions of dollars - largely contributed to the creation of a new type of property and copyright for software products, the formation of international intellectual property copyright systems.

Informational interchange permeates the structure of the spiritual culture of society, which is based not so much on the classical mass media of the "Gutenberg Era" in McLuhan's understanding as on innovative electronic media. The latter can rightfully be attributed to the "Internet": both in terms of the number of its audience around the globe and in terms of the volume of information services, the Internet is a global mass media.

The role of information as a strategic resource is increasing with the development of electronic media that manipulate the masses and public opinion. With the development of audiovisual technology, global computer networks (such as "Rare" or "Internet" - with a multimillion audience in all developed countries, with e-mail, various magazines, conferences, message boards, etc. within the information network "Internet"), accumulating information, access to it characterizes the possibilities of its use in a complex power structure. An example of how a global information structure is formed can be the system of interconnections within UNESCO, global media such as Eurovision, or the US National Information Infrastructure.

The social characteristics of the development of I. o. are the awareness of its various social groups, the availability of information, the efficiency of the mass media services and their feedback capabilities, the level of education, the intellectual capabilities of society, primarily in information production.

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