The Interaction between Information and Communication Technologies and the Network Society – a process of historical change

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Societies evolve and are transformed through a complex interaction of cultural, economic, political, and technological factors. In any given society, the available range of technological processes becomes organised into technological paradigms around a nucleus that enhances the performance of each individual one. Informationalism is the technological paradigm that currently provides the basis for a new type of social structure known as the network society. This social structure consists of information networks that are driven by information technologies and has become the dominant form of social organisation at the present time. Informational development is the result of both cultural and technological innovation and the process of innovation itself essentially depends on the existence of free, high quality university and research institutions within the context of a free society. Under informationalism, freedom, science, and power all come together and are interrelated in a “virtuous circle”