to find rewarding employment in the technological revolution. This results in new class lines being drawn, based in part on skills and education in new technologies, and can influence political participation and voting preferences, attitudes toward technology, and other factors of modern life.
The shift to an information-based society has also enhanced cross-border workplaces. As your authors finished chapters for this book, they were sent to India for typesetting in the evening; due to the time change with India being 9 hours and 30 minutes ahead of the U.S. East Coast, chapters were returned to the United States by the next morning. Technology, the efficiency of overnight delivery, and the lower cost of production have led many publishing companies to turn to businesses halfway around the world for much of the book production process. As India and other developing countries increase their trained, skilled labor force, they are being called on by national and multinational companies to carry out global manufacturing processes. India has some of the world’s best technical training institutes and modern technology—the practical application of tools, skills, and knowledge to meet human needs and extend human abilities. Although many people in India live in poverty, a relatively new middle class is rapidly emerging in major business centers around the country.
▲ This Buddhist monk uses modern technology, including a laptop that can connect him with colleagues on the other side of the globe.
© Reuters/Mike Segar
After World War II, starting in the 1950s, the transition from industrial to postindustrial society began in the United States, Western Europe, and Japan. This shift was characterized by movement from human labor to automated production and from a predominance of manufacturing jobs to a growth in service jobs, such as computer operators, bankers, scientists, teachers, public relations workers, stockbrokers, and salespeople. More than two thirds of all jobs in the United States now reside in organizations that produce and transmit information, thus the reference to an information age. Daniel Bell describes this transformation of work, information, and communication as the third technological revolution after industrialization based on steam (the first technological revolution) and the invention of electricity (the second technological revolution) (Bell 1973). According to Bell, the third technological revolution was the development of the computer, which has led to this postindustrial era or information age. To examine this transformation, see Table 3.2 in the Engaging Sociology feature on the opposite page.
Engaging Sociology
Demographics of Internet Users
The following is the percentage of each group of U.S. adults who use the Internet, according to the Pew Internet/Broadband Fact Sheet. For instance, 88% of women and 89% of men use the Internet.
▼ Table 3.2
Source: The Pew Research Center’s Internet/Broadband Fact Sheet 2018.
Note: Surveys conducted 2000–2018. Data for each year based on a pooled analysis of all surveys conducted during that year. Data for Hispanics includes only surveys that included Spanish-language interviews.
Engaging Sociology
Interview 10 people you know to find out about their Internet use, keeping records on the gender, age, race or ethnicity, educational attainment, and income bracket of each. Then compare your figures with those in Table 3.2. Are they similar? If not, what possible geographic, social class, or other factors might cause your figures to be different from those in this national survey?
Postindustrial societies rely on new sources of power such as atomic, wind, thermal, and solar energy and new uses of computer automation. Former sources of power such as coal, oil, and gas are in less demand as renewable energy sources grow in affordability and accessibility. Computer-controlled robots have taken over many jobs once carried out by humans. The control of information and the ability to develop technologies or provide services have become key sources of money and power.
Values of 21st-century postindustrial societies favor scientific and creative approaches to problem-solving, research, and development, along with attitudes that support the globalization of world economies. Satellites, cell phones, fiber optics, and especially the Internet continue to transform postindustrial societies of the information age, linking people from societies around the world. Globalization is a force that cannot be stopped.
In a study of postmodern communities, sociologist Richard Florida links creativity to the local cultural climate and to economic prosperity. His research has important practical applications and is useful to policymakers in local communities. As his research in the next Sociologists in Action makes clear, the organization of society and the means of providing the necessities of life have a profound impact on values, beliefs, lifestyle, and other aspects of culture.
Sociologists in Action
Richard Florida The Creativity Class and Successful Communities
Like the transformations of societies from the hunter-gatherer to the horticultural stage or from the agricultural to the industrial stage, our own current transformation seems to have created a good deal of “cultural wobble” within society. How does one identify the elements or the defining features of a new age while the transformation is still in progress? This was one of the questions that intrigued sociologist Richard Florida, who studied U.S. communities.
Professor Florida visited especially prosperous communities that seemed to be on the cutting edge of change in U.S. society. In these communities, he did individual interviews and focus-group interviews. Focus-group interviews are semistructured group interviews with seven or eight people where ideas can be generated from the group by asking open-ended questions. He also used existing (secondary) data collected by various U.S. government agencies, especially the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Census Bureau. The collected data helped Professor Florida identify the factors that attracted creative people to certain areas.
Currently, more than one third of the jobs in the United States—and almost all the extremely well-paid professional positions—require creative thinking. These include not just the creative arts but scientific research; computer and mathematical occupations; education and library science positions; and many media, legal, and managerial careers. People in this “creative class” have an enormous amount of autonomy in their work; they are given problems to solve and the freedom to figure out how to do so. Florida found that modern businesses flourish when they hire highly creative people.
Florida’s research led him to collaborate with Gary Gates, a scholar who was doing research on communities hospitable to gays and lesbians. Gates and Florida were amazed to find that their lists were nearly identical. Florida found that creative people thrive on diversity—ethnic, gender, religious, and otherwise—for when creative people are around others who think differently, it tends to spawn new avenues of thinking and problem-solving. Tolerance of difference and even the enjoyment of individual idiosyncrasies are hallmarks of thriving communities.
Florida is now very much in demand as a consultant to mayors and urban-planning teams, and his books have become required reading for city council members. Some elected officials have decided that fostering an environment that attracts creative people leads to prosperity because business will follow. Key elements of creative communities include local music and art festivals, organic food grocery stores, legislation that encourages interesting mom-and-pop stores (and keeps out large “box stores” that crush such small and unique endeavors),
