From Mathematical Theory of Communication to Network Society: a Sociological Transformation

Abstract

An increasing pace of innovation in telecommunications, information technology has facilitated our society’s transition into what is called the “Information Age”. This work is intended to offer a means of understanding current directions in digital innovation. In 1948, the general theory for electronic communications (Shannon 1948), contributed to a substantial reorganization of our society; some fifty years later, Castells attempts to grasp the relationships between emerging technical, economic, political and cultural trends and helps us understand the processes of change triggered by the convergence of information and communication technologies (ICTs). In this work, starting from the interdisciplinary literature, the main theoretical and practical contributions leading to technological convergence are investigated in order to open a window on the contemporary landscape in semantic web, algorithmic reasoning and social intelligence (Esposito 2022). The resulting framework, although due to the dynamism of the phenomena under consideration, is not meant to be an exhaustive analysis of the relationship between digital tools and society, it rigorously summarizes many of the major technical and social issues open today and, in view of the future expansion of the ICT ecosystem, underscores the urgent need for conscious citizen participation in the information society.