Continuity and Change in the History of the Information Society: From the Telegraph Network to the Internet

本研究项目的主要目标是确定我们作为信息时代的儿童是否确实属于一种“全新的”社会形式，正如那些经常使用“信息革命”一词的人所暗示的那样。该研究项目将审查连续性和变化在所谓信息社会的出现中的作用。今天，当代西方社会通常被称为知识或信息社会。信息已经成为这个时代最重要的原材料，经济和社会都围绕着它重新定义自己。这一崛起，信息主义（Castells 1996）被认为是信息革命的结果，这是一个始于20世纪60年代的相对突然和变革的过程。因此，革命尺度的突变似乎是信息社会出现的决定性因素。然而，本研究项目旨在审查连续性作为这一进程中的一个平衡因素的作用。从世纪以来全球通信网络的增长和结构中可以很容易地观察到连续性的例子，这种连续性有时表现出令人惊讶的路径依赖性。本研究将试图查明这一进程的其他领域，在这些领域中，连续性一直是主要的塑造力量。它将确定连续性和革命性的变化如何相互作用，带来今天的信息社会。最后，该研究项目力求确定导致今天信息社会的发展在过去150年中是否是持续和渐进的，或者是否确实发生了一场信息革命，打破了先前技术和社会经济演变的平衡。关键词：电报网络，信息时代，信息革命，电信的社会经济影响

It will be the main goal of this research project to establish whether we, as children of the information age, are, indeed, belonging to a ¿radically new¿ form of society as those who frequently use the term ¿information revolution¿ imply. The research project will examine the role of both continuity and change in the emergence of the so-called information society. Today contemporary Western societies are often styled as knowledge or information societies. Information has become the single most important raw material of the age around which both economy and society redefine themselves. This rise of ¿informationalism¿ (Castells 1996) is perceived as a consequence of the information revolution, a comparatively sudden and transformative process starting in the 1960s. Thus, abrupt change of revolutionary dimension seems to be the decisive factor in the emergence of the information society. This research project, however, seeks to examine the role of continuity as a balancing factor in that process. Examples of continuity can easily be observed in the growth and structure of the global communication network since the nineteenth century which showed an at times surprising adherence to path-dependencies. This study will try to identify other spheres of the process in which continuity has been the primary shaping force. It shall be established how continuity and revolutionary change interacted to bring about today¿s information society. Ultimately, the research project strives to establish whether the development leading to today¿s information society has been continuous and gradual for the last 150 years or whether there was indeed an information revolution punctuating the previous equilibrium of technological and socio-economic evolution. Keywords: telegraph network, information age, information revolution, socio-economic impact of telecommunication