The Nature of Knowledge Power in Communicative Information Society

Abstract

Development of communicative information society is described as a process of spreading the applied scientific knowledge converted into information all over the fields of sociality. The idea of “power shift” in the process of development of communicative information sociality is important conceptually. This idea includes disintegration of the existing power structures and rising the new ones, drastic change in the balance of social forces in the power structure, redistribution of power. Development of communicative information sociality is shown to be connected with transformation of knowledge: knowledge converted into information (applied knowledge) gets the ability to transform the socio-cultural ontology. It becomes the most important power resource, transforming the structure of power relations. The key feature of the proposed approach is the intent to study the phenomenon of knowledge transformation under social and philosophical context of society, where the knowledge converted into information gets ontological status of the phenomenon that changes the system of power relations within the framework of communicative sociality also. The positive feedback is shown to be formed during the functioning of such a society: the need for spreading the knowledge stimulates the development of communication system, which in its turn opens the new ways to distribute the knowledge. As a result this society operates as a self-developing system, where communications manifest themselves as the ontology of culture. Communication development acts as a culture-forming factor, generating processes of social and cultural transformations.