How to Think about Information. Dan Schiller, Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2007.
It is a tribute to the power of this book’s insights that when reading it you find yourself reverting to your dog-eared copies of other important books: Empire and Communications by Harold Innis; Communication as Culture by James W. Carey; and The Political Economy of Media by Robert W. McChesney. And to works by Herb Schiller, this author’s father.
However, Dan Schiller, located like several of the above scholars, at the University of Illinois, has a paper trail of his own to be proud of. His previous works include: Digital Capitalism: Networking the Global Market System; Theorizing Communication: A Historical Reckoning; Telematics and Government; and Objectivity and the News: The Public and the Rise of Commercial Journalism.
So we embark on this culture and information technology journey guided by previous scholarship in the United States and abroad; Raymond William and Stuart Hall appear regularly in Schiller’s writings. We are asked here to reflect on ‘how to think about information’ – is it a resource for individual and global development or a product, a commodity to enrich corporate profits? Much of the book deals with examining commodification:
… it is helpful to focus not on the commodity in itself but rather on the commodification process. An uneven but ongoing process of commodification is foundational to capitalist development; its historical generalization throughout the informational sphere constitutes a landmark of the contemporary political economy. (p. 21)
The Preface notes that “in this work, ‘information’ operates as a kind of shorthand to include the converging fields of culture, media, and telecommunications.” Chapter 1 is a slightly revised version of Schiller’s essay in The Political Economy of Information, ed. Vincent Mosco and Janet Wasko (1988). Here he frames contemporary thinking about information in the context of political economy. “… we suggest that the Information commodity has become the prime site of contemporary expansion – such as it is – within and for the world market system”. (pp. 16-17)
Schiller examines the overlaps and differences between information and culture in Chapter 2. He emphasizes that “often supported by telecommunications infrastructures, Information has become an increasingly significant factor of production across all economic sectors, including agriculture and manufacturing as well as high-tech services”. (p. 24) Moving beyond Daniel Bell and the postindustrial theorists, the author notes that “information-commodity theorists begin with capitalism… where “a commodity is a resource that is produced for the market by wage labor”. He calls upon Ithiel de Sola Pool, Raymond Williams and Stuart Hall to enrich his analysis of the relations of cultural and informational production.
Chapter 3 tracks the expansion of information and communication technologies (ICTs).
During the 1980s and especially the 1990s, the largest and fastest reorganization of productive assets in world business history took place, loosely synchronized to make-over what had been a (typically inadequate) public service into a corporate-commercial function. (p. 41)
Schiller concludes: “The digital divide is, most profoundly about the distribution of social power to make policy for the production and distribution of Information resources. Unless the power is broadly shared, democracy itself is threatened”. (p. 57)
Chapter 4 gives an informative and useful overview of U.S. telecommunication system development by business users, much of it for their own internal use. Colorful terms begin to appear such as “informationalized capitalism,” “broadbandits,” “cybernetic capitalism” and “Republic of information”.
Chapter 5 gives stark data about the telecommunications meltdown in 2001 and 2002, providing “a grim lesson in information-age economics”. (It would be interesting to compare these data with the reality of the global financial crisis almost a decade later.)
In Chapter 6 Schiller explores the commodification of the culture industry – books, music, films, blockbusters, star personalities, mass publicity, wide distribution and market tie-ins, for example. The battle is detailed between U.S. “cultural imperialism” and global struggles for diversity. Again, it would be interesting to have this story updated, especially in the light of a new President and administration and Federal Communication Commission in Washington.
Chapters 7 and 8 provide useful details about the impact of advertising and mobile telephone technology – with data that reach up to about 2005. Both fields have changed since those years, but the figures here are both informative and dramatic.
The final chapter of this valuable book focuses on “China, Information and the World Economy”. With China v. Google headlines greeting us today, it’s helpful to review recent data on China’s reintegration into global capitalism, with emphasis on the ICT sector.
Many of these chapters are updated reprints of Schiller’s work previously published elsewhere. However, it is valuable to have all these topics linked and integrated into this volume. Sixty pages of notes and an Index add to its value.