But where is the real evidence?

We can’t expect a five-minute film to give us any answers, but it is a good starting point for questions, and these questions can lead to deeper investigations. The producers of Cyberboss sought to outline some of the changes that have occurred in people’s everyday, working lives, and how new information and communication technology has played a role in those changes. They looked at two case studies of individuals (and their organisations) for whom ICTs seem to have quite dramatically changed conventional practice.

But if we really wanted evidence for these changes, across whole societies not just individuals, we would need to develop, for example, statistics on changing travel patterns, frequency of use of the Internet and phone and whether certain categories of worker worked increasingly from home. These are not easy things to ascertain, but social science surveys, questionnaires and observations may allow insights into how different people experience the ‘Information Society’.”

The Open University course Social Sciences In Action teaches the fundamentals of social science research, based around the topic of the Information Society.