TREND REPORT:FROM `POST-INDUSTRIA LISM' TO `INFORMATION SOCIETY': A NEW SOCIAL TRANSFORMATION?

This article presents information on a new social transformation from past to present day. Among the concepts put forward to encapsulate what is going on, the "information society" is clearly a leading candidate. Given the newness of the technologies and the relatively recent realization of their potential to affect all areas of life, it would be surprising if sociological debate were already crystallizing around a single concept. But the growing number of references to the `information society' makes it a suitable focus for discussion of research on the social dimensions of the new technology and the specific question of whether we should revise one of our basic means of characterizing `society' today. The emergence of this concept within serious social analysis is explicable. Firstly, the social significance of information technology is rapidly being established as a phenomenon worthy of social investigation. Secondly, whereas "post-industrialism," the only previous potential usurper of `industrial society' concepts, was negatively and thus rather vaguely defined, `information society' promises concrete clues as to the dominant features of the burgeoning social formation. Thirdly, just as Sociologist Daniel Bell more than any other single contributor placed `post-industrialism' on the sociological agenda, so he has also put his weight behind the `information society' concept.