Introduction

Abstract

It was to be expected that a new millennium should bring with it a flurry of observers claiming that we stand on the threshold of a new society. We have not been disappointed. The media excitement at the fantastic financial speculation on the high-tech and internet stock market is but one instance cited to support this claim. This new society is labelled variously the information society, the knowledge society, the knowledge economy or, as this book chooses for no particular reason, the ‘information age’. The contributors to this book examine various features of today’s world, and find little evidence of a new information society.