Toward a critique of the information age: Herbert Marcuses contribution to information science's conceptions

Introduction. Just as we have created them, the new social media technologies have shaped every aspect of our societies. Meanwhile, information science has hardly addressed the ways in which these information technologies have shaped humans, and vice-versa. The major reason is the tendency and pressure to adjust (the needs of) humans to the ever changing (information) digital devices. The second, and perhaps most compelling, reason is the dominance of the cognitive viewpoint in information science, whereby machine user-centeredness becomes the end product of research. It follows that the information age outweighs our reason to the extent that we do not quite know where we are heading nor where humans are centered. Method. This paper proposes Marcuse’s conception of modern technology to bring to light the irrationalities of the information age. The goal is to allow humans to be more thinkers and makers of their own destiny than optimal consumers of new information technologies and mediated interactions. A case illustration and ensuing consequences are provided. Conclusions. Marcuse’s conception allows humans to be more thinkers and makers of Page 1 of 18 Toward a critique of the information age: Herbert Marcuse's contribution to information s... 11/12/2013 http://informationr.net/ir/18-3/colis/paperC30.html their own destiny than optimal consumers of new information technologies and mediated interactions. Marcuse’s conception can serve as a connection point of information science with the field of information and communication technologies for development.