DEFINITION

In sociology, the post-industrial society is the stage of society's development when the service sector generates more
wealth than the manufacturing sector of the economy.

HISTORY

The term was originated by Alain Touraine and is closely related to similar sociological theoretical constructs such as
post-Fordism, information society, knowledge economy, post-industrial economy, liquid modernity, and network
society. They all can be used in economics or social science disciplines as a general theoretical backdrop in research
design.

 The economy undergoes a transition from the production of goods to the provision of services.
 Knowledge becomes a valued form of capital; see Human capital.
 Producing ideas is the main way to grow the economy.
 Through processes of globalization and automation, the value and importance to the economy of blue-collar,
unionized work, including manual labor (e.g., assembly-line work) decline, and those of professional workers
(e.g., scientists, creative-industry professionals, and IT professionals) grow in value and prevalence.
 Behavioral and information sciences and technologies are developed and implemented. (e.g., behavioral
economics, information architecture, cybernetics, game theory and information theory.)

What Are Post-Industrial Societies?

A post-industrial society is a stage in a society's development during which the economy transitions from one that primarily
provides goods to one that primarily provides services. In other words, the service sector, made up of people such as nurses,
teachers, researchers, social workers, and lawyers, among others, accounts for more of the economic growth and wealth than
the manufacturing sector, which is made up of people such as construction workers, textile mill workers, food manufacturers,
and production workers. The economic transformation associated with a post-industrial society subsequently transforms society
as a whole.
Information, services, and advanced technology are more important in post-industrial societies than manufacturing tangible
goods. As the name suggests, a post-industrial society follows an industrialized society, which focused on mass producing
goods with the aide of machinery. Post-industrialization can easily be seen in places like Europe and the United States, which
were affected by the Industrial Revolution before other places around the world. The United States was the first country to have
more than fifty percent of its workers employed in service sector jobs.

Characteristics of Post-Industrial Societies

The term post-industrial was first popularized by American sociologist Daniel Bell when he wrote The Coming of Post-Industrial
Society: A Venture in Social Forecasting in 1973. In this book, Bell describes six changes that are associated with post-industrial
societies.

1. There is a shift away from producing goods to creating services. Production of goods (like clothing and shoes) declines
while the production of services (like fast food and fitness coaching) increases. Direct manufacturers of goods are few.
2. Blue-collar, manual labor jobs (like assembly line worker and welder) are replaced with professional and technical jobs
(like doctor and computer analyst).
3. There is a transition to a focus on theoretical knowledge over practical know-how. Theoretical knowledge leads to the
creation of new, innovative solutions, like how knowledge created by doctors has led to new, effective models of patient
care.
4. There is an increased focus on the implications of new technologies, when and how they should be used, and when and
how to control them.
5. The need increases for the creation of new scientific disciplines like cybernetics and information technology to assess
the impact of the new technologies.
6. There is a critical need for higher education institutions like universities to create graduates who can develop and
control the next wave of technological advances.

Characteristics of Post-Industrial Societies

Sociologist Daniel Bell made the term "post-industrial" popular in 1973 after discussing the concept in
his book "The Coming of Post-Industrial Society: A Venture in Social Forecasting." He described the
following shifts associated with post-industrial societies:

 Production of goods (like clothing) declines and the production of services (like
restaurants) goes up.
 Manual labor jobs and blue collar jobs are replaced with technical and professional jobs.
  Society experiences a shift from focusing on practical knowledge to theoretical knowledge. The
latter involves the creation of new, invention solutions.
 There is a focus on new technologies, how to create and utilize them as well as harness them.
 New technologies foster the need for new scientific approaches like IT and cybersecurity.
 Society needs more college graduates with advanced knowledge who can help develop and
advance technological change.

Post-Industrial Societal Shifts in the U.S.

1. About 15 percent of the labor force (only 18.8 million Americans out of a workforce of 126
million) now works in manufacturing compared to 26 percent 25 years ago.
2. Traditionally, people earned status and gained and privilege in their society through
inheritance which could be a family farm or business. Today education is the currency for
social mobility, particularly with the proliferation of professional and technical
jobs. Entrepreneurship, which is highly valued, generally requires a more advanced education.
3. The concept of capital was, until fairly recently, considered mainly to be financial capital
gained through money or land. Human capital is now the more important element in
determining the strength of a society. Today, that's evolved into the concept of social capital --
the extent to which people have access to social networks and subsequent opportunities.
4. Intellectual technology (based on math and linguistics) is at the forefront, utilizing algorithms,
software programming, simulations and models to run new "high technology."

1. The infrastructure of a post-industrial society is based on communication whereas the

infrastructure of industrial society was transportation.
2. An industrial society features a labor theory based on value, and industry develops proceeds
with the creation of labor-saving devices which substitute capital for labor. In a post-industrial
society, knowledge is the basis for invention and innovation. It creates added value, increases
returns and saves capital.

, which is the next step after an industrialized society, is one in which the service sector dominates the manufacturing
sector. Post-industrial societies focus on theoretical knowledge, creating new scientific disciplines and technological
advances. Some of the effects of post-industrialization are outsourcing manufacturing jobs to other countries, working
from home, global communities, and global networking. So, now you should know all about post-industrialized societies!

emergence of a new stage of technological development - the post-industrial technological mode of production. Based
on content analysis of industrial technologies and technologies of the new wave there is proposed criterion which can
differ post-industrial technological mode of production from industrial. It is shown that a new wave of technologies:
Renewable energy, nanotechnology, biotechnology, information and communication technologies - Build the core of the
post-industrial technological mode of production. Being at the beginning of its formation, it can only be desсribed by
some economic and environmental features. Attention is drawn to the success of post-industrial technologies in ecology
and their possible adverse effects on the environment and human, the need for their thorough investigation. There are
given the facts of the development of post-industrial business technologies, the formation of a new structure of energy
and production. It is proved that there is no reason to consider contemporary social problems as problems of post-
industrial society, they are peculiar to the modern super industrial society.

Industry 4.0

Here we are…the fourth revolution is unfolding before our eyes. Its genesis is situated at the dawn of the third
millennium with the emergence of the Internet. This is the first industrial revolution rooted in a new technological
phenomenon—digitalization—rather than in the emergence of a new type of energy. This digitalization enables us to
build a new virtual world from which we can steer the physical world.

The industry of today and tomorrow aim to connect all production means to enable their interaction in real
time. Factories 4.0 make communication among the different players and connected objects in a production line
possible thanks to technology such as Cloud, Big Data Analytics and the Industrial Internet of Things.

The applications for the industrial sector are already enormous: predictive maintenance, improved decision-making in
real time, anticipating inventory based on production, improved coordination among jobs, etc. Day after day, all these
improvements are gradually optimizing production tools and revealing endless possibilities for the future of industry 4.0,
the crossroads for an interconnected global system.

However, this fourth industrial revolution could be the first to deviate from the energy-greed trend—in terms of
nonrenewable resources—because we have been integrating more and more possibilities to power our production
processes with alternative resources. Tomorrow, factories 4.0 will be embedded in smart cities and powered by wind,
sun and geothermal energy.

Within this context of profound technological and societal changes—because the two always go hand in hand during
industrial revolutions—which is taking us towards global digitalization, industrial cybersecurity will become a leading
sector. Positioned at the heart of this sector, Sentryo is proud to be seen as pioneers.

ring political and especially cultural phenomenon more to the center of analysis

science and technology: (Information Age)

 based largely on the provision of services and an increased dependence on scientific and technical knowledge,
brought with it an explosion of opportunities for professional psychology 
 Sophisticated, independent minded and highly trained workers require modes of participation within
organisations if the benefits of their initiative and imagination are to be realised.
 The American sociologist Daniel Bell wrote a seminal work on the information society, which he first called the
‘post-industrial society’ (Bell 1999). He said information would be the key economic resource in this new era—
not raw materials, or financial capital as in earlier agricultural and industrial societies.
 The most significant trend towards an information society was the shift in the majority of the labor force from
agriculture (the primary sector) and manufacturing (the secondary sector) to services (the tertiary sector),
largely through the growth of ‘information work,’ defined to include a broad array of jobs related to the
creation, transmission, and processing of information, ranging from programmers and software engineers, to
teachers and researchers. Another trend has been the increasing importance of knowledge and its codification
to the management of social and economic institutions. A third set of information society trends involved power
shifts, particularly the growing prominence of a knowledge elite, which forms a professional and managerial
class who understand and know how to work with data, knowledge, information systems, simulation, and
related analytical techniques.
 What is new is how you get access to information, but also to people, to services, and to technology itself

Information Society is a term for a society in which the creation, distribution, and
manipulation of information has become the most significant economic and cultural
activity. An Information Society may be contrasted with societies in which the economic
underpinning is primarily Industrial or Agrarian. The machine tools of the Information
Society are computers and telecommunications, rather than lathes or ploughs. The idea of
'post-industrial society' and a constellation of related terms, such as 'service society', 'knowledge society' and
'information society', 

Postindustrial Society
Information societies, sometimes known as postindustrial or digital societies, are a recent
development. Unlike industrial societies that are rooted in the production of material goods,
information societies are based on the production of information and services.

Digital technology is the steam engine of information societies, and computer moguls such as Steve
Jobs and Bill Gates are its John D. Rockefellers and Cornelius Vanderbilts. Since the economy of
information societies is driven by knowledge and not material goods, power lies with those in charge
of storing and distributing information. Members of a postindustrial society are likely to be employed
as sellers of services—software programmers or business consultants, for example—instead of
producers of goods. Social classes are divided by access to education, since without technical skills,
people in an information society lack the means for success.
The information society has brought many opportunities to a wider social group than ever before. A
large proportion of the world’s population, especially those in the western world, have access to
information sources and technologies that can enable them to engage online in a plethora of
activities, be they economic, social, political or educational. We can take control of our own learning
through engagement in free courses such as this one; we can start up an online business without the
need for lots of capital (for example, selling crafts on Etsy); and we can broadcast our views and
opinions to a global audience, while socialising across geographical boundaries.

Science and technology is a topic that encompasses science, technology, and the interactions between the
two. Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of explanations and
predictions about nature and the universe. Technology is the collection of techniques, methods or processes
used in the production of goods or services or in the accomplishment of objectives, such as scientific
investigation, or any other consumer demands.

Science may drive technological development, by generating demand for new instruments to address a
scientific question, or by illustrating technical possibilities previously unconsidered. In turn, technology may
drive scientific investigation, by creating demand for technological improvements that can only be produced
through research, and by raising questions about the underlying principles that a new technology relies on.

Digital society and the information age

Digital technologies have permeated our everyday tasks and interactions in the 21st
century. They have changed the way we learn, work and socialise. This reliance on
the use of technology in the modern world has led to much consideration of the
consequences for society regarding how we engage and interact with each other
and how we make use of these digital tools and communications channels.

When thinking about digital society we first need to consider the information society; which
is very much linked to the advancement of digital information and communication
technologies, not least the internet. Information society refers to societies in which the
creation, dissemination, use and manipulation of information has become significant to
political, economic, social and cultural endeavours. So what does this mean for the
everyday citizen?

The information society has brought many opportunities to a wider social group than ever
before. A large proportion of the world’s population, especially those in the western world,
have access to information sources and technologies that can enable them to engage
online in a plethora of activities, be they economic, social, political or educational. We can
take control of our own learning through engagement in free courses such as this one; we
can start up an online business without the need for lots of capital (for example, selling
crafts on Etsy); and we can broadcast our views and opinions to a global audience, while
socialising across geographical boundaries.

What do we mean by digital citizenship?

We have suggested that the ‘digital citizen’ is a person who develops the skills and
knowledge to effectively use the internet and digital technologies; who uses digital
technologies and the internet in appropriate and responsible ways in order to engage and
participate in society and politics. When we interrogate this definition of digital citizenship
we need to think about levels of complexity: on a simplistic level we might take digital
citizenship as the ability to access digital technologies and stay safe. Indeed, you can see
from the aims of this course that these are some of the ideas that are used to structure our
discussions and activities. However, we also need to consider and understand
the complexities of citizenship as we start to become a digital citizen, using digital media
to actively participate in society and political life.

If we look a little closer at the field of ‘citizenship studies’ this will help us to understand
what this may mean in a digital society. A citizen is defined as an individual character who
is viewed as a member of a society; of the state. Citizenship considers an individual’s
behaviour in terms of rights, obligations and functions of said citizen. The obligations (or, if
your prefer, duties), of the citizen include work, taxation and obedience of laws. Rights
include civil rights such as freedom of expression and speech, and rights to a private life;
political rights, like the right to vote or stand for office; and social rights to health care and
welfare. In this course we will be considering these rights as we look at the multiple layers
of what it means to be a citizen in the modern world and how legislation and the
government shape our ability to be democratic citizens.

What does this all mean then in the digital age?

We have said that being a digital citizen requires active participation online, not just
access and use. In their book “Being Digital Citizens” (2015) Isin and Ruppert suggest that
if we constitute ourselves as digital citizens, we have become subjects of power in
cyberspace. We are enacting ourselves on the internet, considering and understanding
the opportunities presented by this medium, such as anonymity, communication, and
influence. In short we can use digital technologies to engage and participate on many
levels in society and political life.