Making the Information Society: Experience, Consequences, and Possibilities

Table of contents

1. Copyright
   1. Dedication
2. Financial Times Prentice Hall
3. Preface
   1. How This Book Is Organized
   2. How This Book Came About
   3. Endnotes
4. 1. An Introduction to the Long Trip to the Information Age: From an Age of Paper to the Dawn of the Second Industrial Revolution, 1600–1875
   1. General Patterns of Information in American Life
   2. Birth and Evolution of the Information Age in America
   3. Events at Mid-Century
   4. Conclusions
   5. Endnotes
5. 2. The Long Trip to the Information Age: From the Gilded Age to the Dawn of the Computer Age, 1875–1950
   1. America’s Love Affair with Information Machines
   2. The Ubiquitous Typewriter
   3. Crunching Numbers: Adding and Calculating Machines
   4. Big Time Computing: Punched-Card Tabulators
   5. Hello!: Role of the Telephone
   6. The Radio in America
   7. Arrival of Electronic Entertainment: Television
   8. What Americans Thought of Information Just Before the Computer
   9. Conclusions
   10. Endnotes
6. 3. Big Gizmos, New Tools, and a Changing Way of Life, 1950–1995
   1. A Quick Course on How Computers Were Invented
   2. The Invention of Software
   3. Military Uses of Computers
   4. Business Uses of Computers
   5. Computers for Entertainment
   6. Consequences of the Computer
   7. Conclusions
   8. Endnotes
7. 4. America’s Love Affair with the Internet
   1. Creation of the Internet
   2. Digitizing America the Small Way
   3. The Special Role of Globalization
   4. Conclusions
   5. Endnotes
8. 5. How Information Is Playing a Bigger Role in American Work
   1. Some Realities About the American Economy
   2. Information Workers and Knowledge Management
   3. Book Publishing: As Source of Information
   4. Role of Newspapers and Magazines: American Information Landmarks
   5. Everyone an Information Technology Worker? A Peek at Our Future?
   6. Patterns in Work and Workplaces
   7. The Internet as a Source of Information
   8. Consequences and Implications for Worker Productivity
   9. Conclusions
   10. Endnotes
9. 6. Information and Leisure Activities
   1. Informationalizing Sports: Baseball, Football, and Basketball
   2. Reading and Collecting Books for Entertainment
   3. Information, Tourism, and the American Vacation
   4. Pursuing Education on One’s Own Initiative
   5. Playing on the Net
   6. Television: A Media in Transition
   7. Patterns and Consequences
   8. Conclusions
   9. Endnotes
10. 7. Information and Religion
    1. Patterns From the Age of Paper
    2. Origins of American Religious Practices
    3. The Special Role of the Bible
    4. Role of Radio and TV
    5. Cyber-Religion: Religious Life and the Internet
    6. Consequences and Possibilities
    7. Endnotes
11. 8. Public Policy and Information
    1. Origins of Policies and Infrastructures in the Age of Paper
    2. The Special Role of Book Banning
    3. The Special Role of the Press
    4. Expanding Access to Information
    5. Policies and Infrastructures in the Electrical Age
    6. V-Chips and Television
    7. Recent Trends in Regulatory Practices
    8. Uncle Sam, the Ultimate Venture Capitalist of Digital Technologies
    9. The Special Case of the Internet
    10. Conclusions
    11. Endnotes
12. 9. A Digital Democracy
    1. How Will e-Democracy Evolve?
    2. The Special Role of the Internet
    3. So What Are We to Do?
    4. Endnotes
13. 10. The Future of Information in America
    1. Does Technology Have a Will of Its Own?
    2. Some Basic Assumptions About the Future
    3. How Information Technology Is Affecting Our Future
    4. Effects of Further Economic Globalization on How Americans Use Information
    5. American Values, Beliefs, and Habits
    6. The Nature of American Information
    7. Conclusions
    8. Endnotes
14. 11. Leveraging Information for Fun and Profit
    1. Consequences and Possibilities for Workers and Managers
    2. Consequences and Possibilities for Players
    3. Consequences and Possibilities for the Religious
    4. Consequences and Possibilities for Public Officials and Citizens
    5. Some Final Thoughts
    6. Endnotes
15. 12. Learning More About Info-America
    1. Historical Background
    2. The Telephone
    3. The Computer
    4. Economics of the Information Age
    5. Work in the United States
    6. Sociological Views of Information in America
    7. Leisure in the United States
    8. Religion in the United States
    9. The Internet
    10. Public Policy and Information
    11. Future of Information in America