SOME ISSUES OF "INFORMATION SOCIETY"

"Noravank" Foundation
21 July 08

Gagik Ter-Harutyunyan

The terms "information society" or "society of knowledge" are more
and more often used in the Armenian mass media or by social-political
figures. This tendency has come to prove the fact that at the present
stage of development in our society are again forming positive attitude
to information and its main component – knowledge. At the same time,
practical introduction of the mentioned ideas in our reality supposes
system-defined changes of society. In other words, the main task of
"information society" and many other questions related to it need
expert discussions and realization of corresponding projects.

However, all this is more expedient to begin with a brief historical
review relating to the terminology in use.

"Information society." This term was first put in use by a professor
of Tokyo Technological University Ayashi: basing on the state order
in 1969 he studied the influence of the developing by that time
computer technologies on society. According to Ayashi’s research,
computer is a reliable source of information which frees people from
everyday routine work, provides high level of autoimmunization of
production. It was supposed that the production process itself would
also be changed: the result of this process – product – is to become
"inf ormatively more bulky," in other words such components are to
grow in its price formation as innovation, design and marketing. As a
result it was to be formed a society, which was called by the Japan
professor "informational." This approach was developed by another
Japanese – Masuda. According to his theory "the driving force of
a society’s development is to be the creation of not material but
information product."

To the founders of the conception "information society" is inherent
certain utopism: according to them, in such a society there wouldn’t
be any classes or contradictions, there would be peace and harmony,
the big state machinery would not be necessary any more etc. At the
same time the influence of "high" and "information" technologies on
society was a reality and the ideas of the Japanese were developed in
the work of Danielle Belle published in 1973 "Attack of post-industrial
society: an attempt of social forecast."

"Post-industrial society." According to Danielle Belle, the history
of human society may be divided into agrarian, industrial and
post-industrial epochs. The latter one is the result of changes
effected in the social structure in the middle of the 20th century:
post-industrialization will be a defining social form in the 21st
century, and first of all in the US, Japan, Russia and Western
Europ e. To post-industrial epoch it is inherent transformation from
production of goods to production of services in the spheres of health
care, education, scientific researches and management. In its turn it
brings to specific gravity increase of intellectuals and professionals
in society. In the process of making decisions theoretical knowledge
acquires great importance: preference is more given to theories than
to empiricism.

It should be specially accentuated Belle’s broadcast, according to
which in "post-industrial society" the main decisions in economics
and other spheres is to be made by the government, however, these
decisions are to be grounded by scientific researches, draftings
and analysis financed by the very government. Today the decisions
in the spheres of home and foreign policy in developed countries
(in particular in the US) are mainly made on the basis of projects
worked out in "think tanks."

Later on Danielle Belle developed his theory and combined the ideas
of "post-industrial" and "information" societies. According to this
approach, "information society" is the new name of "post-industrial
society" interpreted not as succession of society’s development
(post-industrial and only than information) but stressing up the main
social core of post-industrial society – information.

The scientific community continues studying the influence of
up-to-date20 "permanent information revolution" on world society. In
this context some standpoints of Hayashi and Belle may at present seem
naïve. However, the roles of information factor in all the spheres
of the humanity’s vital activity only grow, and thus the main classic
tenets of the idea "information society" don’t lose their actuality.

Knowledge and politics. It is obvious that one of the main indices
of the development level and compatibility of any society or state
is the extent and quality of information (scientific, technological)
resources, as well as organizational capacity and their application
in practice. The latest circumstance is extremely important, that’s
why organization resources are often presented as components of
information resources. It is also obvious that the mentioned factors
could not but undergo politicization. It is noteworthy that one of
the authoritative representatives of the American system of national
security, General Washington Plett, considered the most important
objective of strategic intelligence acquisition of information about
scientific potential and the carriers of the enemy’s knowledge.

The American elite, which has such conceptual approaches, takes
special interest in its own intellectual resources and is equally
attentive to suchlike resources of its rivals. In particular, the
victory of Americans in the Cold War was definitely conditioned by
their advantage over 8 0Soviets" in the sphere of knowledge, especially
in the humanitarian field and the ability to use fundamental results
of natural science in practice.

According to some researchers, in the period following the Cold War,
one of the main tasks of the US was braking up the quite powerful
Soviet scientific system. It should be admitted that the Americans
succeeded in carrying out this program1, and if Russia (today
Kazakhstan is following its example) spears no efforts to improve
the situation by means of its great resources, one can’t say the same
about the other Post-Soviet Republics, including Armenia2.

On the Republic of Armenia’s scientific-educational field. It
is known that Armenia was taking a leading place in the Soviet
scientific-technical system. It is to be accepted that by that time
our society had more reason to be called "information." It should also
be mentioned that at equal starting conditions Armenia’s privilege in
the scientific-educational field was exceptionally conditioned by our
traditional approaches to knowledge and our national specificity on the
whole in comparison with other republics. The latest circumstance is
extremely important and today is the pledge of the fact that "social
knowledge" of the RA may be restored, however a number of objective
and subjective factors have come to hinder it.

At the same time it is considered that in the countries where=2 0the
income per head makes lower than $20.000 (in Armenia this income makes
$3000-$60003), it is difficult to speak about "information society",
and it is an objective reality. At the same time it is obvious that
in Armenia short of material resources accelerated development and
reaching the necessary economic level is possible only thanks to
technologies inherent to "information society." In such a dead-end
situation are required non-standard organization approaches, and such
"think tanks" where these non-standard ideas and corresponding projects
may be born.

At the same time, before making any conceptual decisions one should
aspire at least not to worsen the distressing situation in the field
of knowledge.

For example, at present quite a big extent of organization resources
(as well as material) are spent on so called "commercialization."

However, this process requires developed research-and-productive
infrastructures, which don’t exist today. From the theory of scientific
management it is also known that if fundamental research requires
one conventional unit of material expenses, than the creation of
pilot technologies on the basis of its results requires 10 units,
and commercial investment – 100 units of material resources. It is
obvious that today there are not any preconditions for such an activity
in Armenia and accumulation of "suggestions of such character" from
still wo rking scientific institutions in the fundamental field is
at least of artificial and imitation character.

Let’s mention that such ineffective measures in the scientific field
are single, at that, on this level of development, it is perhaps
expedient to stabilize the situation and make an attempt to preserve
the extremely depleted rows of the knowledge carriers and it is
difficult to imagine any growth without them.

Aspiration to form in Armenia "information/ knowledge society" is more
then actual and has no alternatives: other scenarios of development
are obvious to be blind. At the same time, this intention is to
be realized on the account of creation of different projects and
for working them out it is necessary to involve the whole creative
potential of the Armenian people.

1Experts with clandestine inclinations even say the name of this
program – Silver Key.

2Belorussia and Baltic countries managed to avoid braking up of the
scientific system. Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia are considered to
be the allies of West against Russia, and in Belorussia extremely
conservative and, at the same time, flexible policy of the president
Lukashenko was not of little importance.

3Such a difference in figures is conditioned by differences in
calculating methods used by different organizations.

Other issues of author INFORMATION WARFARE AND NAGORNO-KARABAKH
REPUBLIC [23.06.2008] THE WORLD-SPREAD ARMENIANS’ O RGANIZATION
ISSUES Information-network-centric system [06.06.2008] ON THE
ARMENIANS’ ORGANIZATION PROBLEM [28.04.2008] ON THE ISSUES OF THE RA
INFORMATION POLICY [28.02.2008] ON RA SECURITY ISSUES [24.01.2008]
NEW GEOPOLITICAL REALITIES [26.12.2007] ON SOME ISSUES RELATING TO
ARMENIANS [20.11.2007]

–Boundary_(ID_wz92Oop9b7Fxlmj/RM6Pm w)–