Hybrid Identities in the Information age: The Glocal in the World of Literature

Abstract

In his recent book Critique of Information, Scott Lash claims that contemporary times can better be understood as the information age rather than as postmodernism, the risk society, late capitalism, consumer society, etc. “Information society is, first, preferable to postmodernism”, he states, “in that the former says what the society principle is rather than saying merely what it comes after. Second, postmodernism deals largely with disorder, fragmentation, irrationality, whilst the notion of information accounts for both the (new) order and disorder that we experience.” He goes on to delineate the great difference that he sees between narrative and discourse, on the one hand, and information as it is presented by the media on the other. “Unlike, say, narrative or discourse or painting, the information in the papers comes in very short messages. It is compressed. Literally compressed. Narrative as in the novel works from a beginning, middle and end. The subjective intentions of the protagonist are the mo...