Rating the revolution: Silicon Valley in normative perspective

ABSTRACT

Silicon Valley, California – home of Apple, Facebook, Twitter, Google, and so on – is widely regarded as the epicentre of the information revolution. However, it is not just a technical or economic phenomenon; it has also made a social revolution. The article evaluates Silicon Valley from a normative perspective, seeking to identify its real societal impact, negative as well as positive. A select review of significant literature is followed by exposition of primary data, based on in situ face-to-face interviews with Valley occupants; these range from the chief technology officer of a global brand to a homeless, unemployed Vietnam War veteran. The article organises its findings under three headings: the nature of information revolution; iCapitalism as a new technoeconomic synthesis; and the normative crisis of the information society. It concludes with a warning about ongoing attempts to clone Silicon Valley around the world.

KEYWORDS:

• ICTs
• political economy
• social theory
• surveillance/privacy
• Silicon Valley
• information society

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Funding

I am grateful to the Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland for a research grant towards the funding of the fieldwork for this article (grant no. 31607).

Notes on contributor

Alistair S. Duff is professor of information policy at Edinburgh Napier University. With a background in political philosophy and information science, he is the author of Information society studies (Routledge 2000) and more recently A normative theory of the information society (Routledge 2012), as well as articles in journals, encyclopedias and newspapers. He is currently principal investigator on the Arts and Humanities Research Council-funded project, Informing the Good Society: New Directions in Information Policy. [email: [email protected]]

Additional information

Funding

I am grateful to the Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland for a research grant towards the funding of the fieldwork for this article (grant no. 31607).