Informatization

Computerization generally refers to a social process of production and use of information in order to generate more information from it can.

The essence of computerization is to transfer information as an ideational itself, the activity of certain subjects attributable moment in a material object of cooperative human activity.

Usually the term is used in a more specific meaning: penetration of all spheres of society with information and communication technologies, particularly the computer and the Internet.

Term

The term was coined in 1979 by computerization Simon Nora ( 1921-2006 ) and Alain Minc.

The term was initially rejected by computer scientists and social scientists alike, sat down, however, in the 1980s in scientific discourse through. In the 1990s, A. Baukrowitz, A. Boes and R. wrought developed a general concept of computerization, including the advance of computer and internet as a special case.

Often computerization with a profound restructuring of society to the information society to the knowledge society, for informational capitalism is so associated.

History

The history of computerization begins long before the first computer and is closely connected with the history of the organizations. Milestones of the systematic use of information to produce further information about the double-entry bookkeeping or the spread of the construction drawing and the parts list. In particular, in economic organizations ( companies), there were already at the beginning of the 20th century, a significant amount of information systematically used materialized. It allowed, for example, General Motors to control the production processes, " purely by the numbers" (Alfred P. Sloan ).

Another milestone of computerization is the introduction of the computer, the first is still in the logic of the existing information systems and is used for the automatic processing of highly standardized mass data. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s to reflect the most important aspects of real economic processes on the level of information is possible. A model for this phase of computerization is about the computer - integrated manufacturing (CIM ). Such models are still in the tradition of perfection of Fordism and Taylorism. However, in the episode takes computerization another development. An incision is the emergence of the Internet.

The internet makes the already computerized structures of organizations potentially able to tie the information used in the ( private ) life world and vice versa. In association with the spread of personal computers in the population creates a global uniform medium that can integrate information processing throughout different areas of society. The new information systems allow and encourage fundamentally a dialogical and reflexive handling of information. This is a tendency for the abolition of rigid hierarchical relationships (such as between planning and execution ) and the formation of networks associated.