Nödvändighetens väg Världsbildande gränsarbete i skildringar av informationssamhället

Sammanfattning: This dissertation aims at describing the worldview and the ontological boundary work that descriptions of the information society presuppose as well as understanding how these relate to technocratic descriptions of the world.

The theoretical point of origin of this work is that worldviews are communicated, and that when this transpires, three worlds are related to (the objective, the social, and the subjective) which contain ideological components that make them plausible.

The material that has been studied is public documents from 1994 2004. These materials have been analysed with the help of text analysis, where a reconstruction of the ideological components of the worldview is the objective.

The results of the analysis show that these descriptions, first of all, presuppose an objective world where an ontological boundary between technology and values is drawn. Technology is driven by one form of logic and values are driven by another. Technology does not in itself contain values, but when put to use, only certain types of value can be created. The subsequent theoretical consequences are that these values (for instance effectiveness) are presented as objective, independent of value conflicts in society.

Second, the analysis shows that descriptions partly presuppose a social world that is divided into a normative centre and a normative periphery, and partly a historicist description of historical development. These two ideological components provide a logical consequence, that in the social world, identifiable groups who live according to lifestyle patterns of the future can already be found today.

Third, results show that descriptions presuppose a subjective world that is possible to change and direct. Man is to be made responsive to certain aspects of his existence and unresponsive toward others. This requires causing him to be responsive to change and unresponsive to that which hinders change. The logical consequences become a description of a system integrated information society where the individual is to adapt himself to changes on the system level.

All in all, the three results of the study show that the world view which the descriptions presuppose have clear elements of technocracy and the art of social engineering.