The Chronoscopic Society: Globalization, Time and Knowledge in the Network Economy

by Robert Hassan

In this groundbreaking book, media and time theorist Robert Hassan looks at the effects of the nexus between neoliberal globalization and the information technology revolution upon the production and dissemination of knowledge in technologically advanced societies. This nexus has created what Hassan calls an «information ecology», an environment that affects the individual, culture and society in the same dialectical ways as the natural and built environment. Significantly, this information ecology generates its own temporality, that of «network time», a digitally compressed and accelerated time that has «sped up» society dramatically since the late 1970s. Network time has changed the mechanics and institutions of knowledge production in society to an unprecedented degree and extent. How we think, what we think, and what we consider to be «useful» and «legitimate» knowledge is changing in ways (and at a rate) that poses serious problems for mass culture and civil society.

Paperback

First published August 28, 2003

About the author

Robert Hassan is Professor of Media and Communication at the University of Melbourne. He is the author of The Condition of Digitality, The Age of Distraction, and other books.