Information technology and services industry

В© HarperCollins Publishers 2000 Information technology The divide between information and communication technologies has now been virtually eroded they are now common technologies of communication.Д¬ollins Dictionary of Sociology, 3rd ed. The main development in information technology in recent years has been the digital integration of information and telecommunications technologies, such as fax machines and electronic mail and currently between cell phones and вЂpalm topвЂ™ computers. вЂreal timeвЂ™ computer systems), and of smaller computers (minis and micros) coupled with вЂoff the shelf programs (generally known as вЂsoftware packagesвЂ™), information technology has spread throughout industry, and has now extended into people's homes and leisure activity. However, with the development of more powerful interactive (i.e. At this point, the technology was limited to routine activities, involving the computation of data rather than the communication of information. By the late 1950s computers had been introduced into the major British banks, and were being used within accounts departments a little later (Mumford and Banks, 1967).

Information technology can be said to have begun in 1943, with the building of the Colossus computing machine in the UK in order to break the German Enigma code. The increasing reliance on computer-based information systems has also given rise to concerns over the electronic power of the state (Lyons, 1988) and the possibility that information technology turns work organizations into the new panopticans in which everyone is under continual surveillance and control, an interpretation that draws directly on the work of FOUCAULT. information systems) within and between organizations and societies giving rise to increasing dependency on global networks including the Internet ( CASTELLS, 1996). Information technology underpins the flow of information (i.e. This development has stimulated much sociological research and commentary on the issues of DESKILLING and PROLETARIANIZATION as well as the feminization of clerical work (Crompton and Jones, 1984 Webster, 1996). Office automation is the most widely implemented form of information technology and has had major implications for the organization and experience of clerical work. It can be viewed as a broad sub-type of NEW TECHNOLOGY.

information technology (IT) a general term applied to all computer-based technologies of human communication. McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Scientific & Technical Terms, 6E, Copyright В© 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

Information technology and services industry