Friday, 21 October 2016

Fuchs and the idea of information capitalist societies

One of the most intriguing components of Christian Fuchs' article, Capitalism or Information Society? The Fundamental Question of the Present Structure of Society, was his question of whether or not we are living in, as Theodor Adorno states: a capitalist society or an industrialist society? Or in the format he created, slightly altering the question to seem slightly more quotidian: are we living in a capitalist society of an information society? This puts question on what we consider to be an information society. Is the interconnectivity and the so-called 'shrinking' of the world - because of global systems that help connect the world from Northern to Southern hemisphere, or more notoriously the 'Global North' to the 'Global South' - in essence relinquishing a demand for information and connectivity. Is the Internet the answer to all of our problems? Fuchs states that, “…the informational forces of production (knowledge labour, information technology, science, theoretical knowledge) and the capitalist class relations should not be seen as polar opposites and that the discussion about the existence or non-existence of an information society should not be reduced to the level of the productive forces nor to the level of the relations of production” Both means of production, through information and knowledge labour or through physical labour, still situate the capitalist at the helm of the production ship, nevertheless, altercations must pursue for prosperity to develop, therefore, the shifting methods ought not to be abolished but rather acknowledged.
I found this advertisement/promotion for AT&T to be quite fascinating and relevant to the concept of an information society. Their gears and tactics towards promotion are all looking to meet the demands of the public who have a major say in the continuation and discontinuation of world inputs and outputs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPADvqV1r8Y

1 comment:

  1. Great points! I agree, I believe that we are living in a combination of a capitalist and information society. This is because we are constantly being forced to absorb new information. Due to the Internet Age, information is being circulated all around us. However, it is arguable that this information being fed to us is derived from capitalism and its ideologies. It is also true that we need information to maintain a capitalist society. The internet provides us with "information" such as capitalist advertisements. Thus, a combination of both make up the society that we currently live in.

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