Notes of MassCommunication

Information superhighway

Global network or interconnected electronic pathways that will provide consumers with huge amounts of entertainment, information, data and personal communications channels.

Information society:

The Japanese were the first to apply the tag to this stage in the growth of the industrial era in which information is becoming the central and most significant "commodity". Yoneji Masuda, a Japanese writer, pioneered the use of the term "Information society" to explain a society in which production of information values becomes the formative force for the development of society. Daniel Bell chose the term 'Post industrial society" while Martin referred to it as 'the broadband society" Vincent Mosco of Canada termed it 'Pay-per society".

The term 'Information society itself seems to have originated in Japan (Ito, 1981), although a concept of "Postindustrial" society (Bell, 1973).was developed independently to describe a society in which the service sector had overtaken manufacturing as the main form of employment. In the information society, "Information work" predominates, and information is the most valuable resource, tending to displace capital in this respect.

Melody describes information society simply as those which have become "Dependent upon complex electronic information and communication and which allocate a major portion of their resources to information and communication activities.

Characteristic of information society is an increase in the production and flow of information of all kinds. Miniaturization (Smallness) and computerization have made enormous differences to the costs involved. The mass media are only one kind of information production, but they are increasingly integrated with other flows, especially by way of shared infrastructures.

Through the development of computers and associated electronic system, such aspects of national and international life as Class Relationship, government, economics and diplomacy are being visualized as functions of information transfer. Indeed we are at the point when information and wealth are practically one and the same thing. With the development of satellite surveillance it is now possible for a country highly advanced in informatics, to know more about the topography of, say a Third World country than that country's own government does.

Information is not only a commodity but a social and cultural resource raising questions of social allocation and control with such associated problems a privacy, access, commercial privilege and public interest.

The power game has moved into an information phase, argues Anthony Smith in the Geopolitics of information (UK, Faber, 1980) with the industrial nations "Tooling up for a vast process or rewiring society". A kind of scramble for media is under way. Smith writes, On a scale similar to the first arms race of the post-war era



Information Technology

Microelectronics plus computing plus telecommunications equals IT. Its former definition is framed as follows in UK department of Industry publication (1981) for information technology year (1982); "The acquisition, processing, storage and dissemination of vocal, pictorial, textual and numerical information by microelectronics based combination of computing and telecommunications". The booklet states that as many as 65% of our working population now earn their living in "What may be broadly classified as information occupations", from banking to education, from defense to police, from manufacturing to transport and space exploration. The possibilities of IT are endless if there is the cash to pay for the hardware, the software and the service. Laser beams carrying 30 channels of speech in digital from, cordless telephones, scanning devices which read the printed word out to the blind, for the deaf, voice recognition, type writers which read your typing back to you and programmers which translate one language into another.
Information revolution refers to change brought about in society, economy and technology over the decades of" 70s and 80s. Personal computers, telecommuting (Gathering, processing and storing information), growth of information-related industries (entertainment media, banking, insurance, hospitality, travel), erosion of division between home and factory marked the Information revolution. It proved to be non-polluting, capital intensive, and stressed service rather than production. Telecommunications, mass media and computing got integrated and produced possibilities of greater flexibility, efficiency and lower costs. They made information technology-mediated and in most cases digitalized.
It somewhat contrasted with the industrial Revolution that began in Great Britain duding 1700's and started spreading to other parts of Europe and to North America in Early 1800's. Factory system, division of labor, mass production, and mass distribution featured it.
Information society is not a break-away from an industrial society, Since Information society is-oriented free market capitalism it is actually a continuation of the industrial society, It use the information Superhighway, a word popularized by the US vice president AL Gore at the outset of the decade of 90's. The superhighway is nothing but a network o information and technology capable of delivering all kinds of electronic services such as audio, video, text and data to households and business.
New Media Technologies leads to the information Society that characterized by
• Predominance of information works
• Great volume of information flow
• Interactivity of relations
• Integration and convergence of activity.
• Growth and interconnection of networks.
• Globalizing tendencies
• Post Modern Culture

Understanding Information Process

Normally we don't think information in an abstract way; but just reflect for a moment on what you do when you, say write a report.

1st Step -Acquired: Collect notes and other relevant materials to draw facts, ideas and concepts-These materials are nothing more then set of symbols.

2nd Step -Decipher: Try to understand what these symbols stand for to make sense out of it.

3rd Step-Store: After making sense out of symbols, your ideas become clear, and then you write it down on paper or computer.
4th Step-Dissemination: When you finished writing then you give the report to someone else, your information taker, to read and, perhaps, to make use of in some way.

5th Step-Use: In the process of reading and thinking about your report, his or her psychological state is altered sometimes only slightly, sometimes, however quite profoundly. Your information taker is now changed.

This process is fundamental to all information work and used in an information life cycle. All of this takes place so that one mind can influence another.

Information and information technology Information superhighway

Global network or interconnected electronic pathways that will provide consumers with huge amounts of entertainment, information, data and personal communications channels.

Communication revolution

A- 1920-Radio
B- 1940-50 TV
C- 1990-IT


• Information-Desktop, laptop interactive TV, news on demand
• Chat with others
• Chose movies
• Banking
• Email
• Perhaps even vote-e-commerce shopping.
Internet. Advantage:
• Easy to research
• Email

Drawbacks:

• Overuse by private companies as well as individuals which result gridlock/traffic Jams
• Widen the gaps between Information haves/Information haves not.

Social Implications of information technology

• Surveillance(Supervision) system dismissed
• Irrelevant information (Junk-mail)
• Internet news not guaranteed
• Affect interpretation skills of the media
• Technology has outraced legislation
• Pornographic Materials