Concepts of information society and the social function of information

Gotthard Bechmann

pp. 37-51

in: Gerhard Banse, Petr Machleidt, Dagmar Uhl, Christian J. Langenbach (eds), Towards the information society, Berlin, Springer, 2000

Abstract

At no point in time was society able to forecast radical structural change or even to observe such a change comprehensively. The invention of writing, the alphabet or the printing press were hardly noticed and their impact on the reconstruction was not assessed anywhere near correctly. At any rate, contemporaries were unable to diagnose the significance of the event concerned correctly or to forecast the implications of a structural revolution of society as a whole.