This Article Full Text (PDF) References Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Citation Map Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Saved Citations Download to citation manager Request Permissions Request Reprints Add to My Marked Citations Citing Articles Citing Articles via HighWire Citing Articles via Google Scholar Citing Articles via Scopus Google Scholar Articles by Golding, P. Search for Related Content Social Bookmarking                         What's this?

Forthcoming Features: Information and Communications Technologies and the Sociology of the Future

Department of Social Sciences, Loughborough University

This article explores the social impact of new information and communication technologies (ICTs). It argues that they are best understood, not as heralding a substantially new `information society', but as significant technologies emerging in but inherently part of late modernity. This argument is developed by examining themes from post-materialism, globalisation and information society theories. It is suggested there are two types of technology, those changing and extending existing processes and those facilitating wholly new activities, and that recent innovations in information and communication technology are rather better construed as the former. By examining empirically questions of identity, inequality, power and change the recent and future impact of ICTs is explored, and it is argued that current trends suggest increasing convergence (economic and organisational as much as technological), differentiation and deregulation.

Key Words: information society • mass media • modernity • new technologies

Sociology, Vol. 34, No. 1, 165-184 (2000)
DOI: 10.1177/S0038038500000110


CiteULike    Complore    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter    What's this?

This article has been cited by other articles:

				M. Nivala Simple answers for complex problems: education and ICT in Finnish information society strategies Media Culture Society, May 1, 2009; 31(3): 433 - 448. [PDF]

				C. Fuchs The Role of Income Inequality in a Multivariate Cross-National Analysis of the Digital Divide Social Science Computer Review, February 1, 2009; 27(1): 41 - 58. [Abstract] [PDF]

				L. Yu Understanding information inequality: Making sense of the literature of the information and digital divides Journal of Librarianship and Information Science, December 1, 2006; 38(4): 229 - 252. [Abstract] [PDF]

				P. Golding Looking Back and Looking Forward: The Risks and Prospects of a Not-So-Young Field International Communication Gazette, December 1, 2005; 67(6): 539 - 542. [PDF]

				P. M. Garrett Social work's 'electronic turn': notes on the deployment of information and communication technologies in social work with children and families Critical Social Policy, November 1, 2005; 25(4): 529 - 553. [Abstract] [PDF]

				N. Selwyn, S. Gorard, and J. Furlong Whose Internet is it Anyway?: Exploring Adults' (Non)Use of the Internet in Everyday Life European Journal of Communication, March 1, 2005; 20(1): 5 - 26. [Abstract] [PDF]

				N. Selwyn Reconsidering Political and Popular Understandings of the Digital Divide New Media Society, June 1, 2004; 6(3): 341 - 362. [Abstract] [PDF]

				S. Nettleton and R. Burrows E-Scaped Medicine? Information, Reflexivity and Health Critical Social Policy, May 1, 2003; 23(2): 165 - 185. [Abstract] [PDF]

				P. Saukko Connected? On Experience, Economy, Violence, and Care Cultural Studies <=> Critical Methodologies, February 1, 2002; 2(1): 131 - 147. [Abstract] [PDF]

				J. McGuigan Problems of Cultural Analysis and Policy in the Information Age Cultural Studies <=> Critical Methodologies, May 1, 2001; 1(2): 190 - 219. [Abstract] [PDF]