354 JÜRGEN DANYEL AND ANNETTE SCHUHMANN
one umbrella. Originally, “information society” was used to refl ect the
growing role of information processing (and, above all, electronic data
processing) in conjunction with the increasing tertiarization of the econ-
omy (service society), which was tied to the need for diff erent professional
qualifi cations. Defi ned in such a narrow way, this term can certainly be
used to analyze the social transformations that were tied to computer-
ization in both East and West Germany. Yet, “information society” has
come to be used in a much broader sense to describe a type of society in
which information and communication technology has infi ltrated every
nook and cranny. As a relatively open concept, it also off ers a way to think
about the technological and cultural transition of computer society into
the era of the Internet, whereby the Internet becomes the main media
within a network and knowledge-based society. However, this term needs
to be critically resituated within its own specifi c historical context on a
regular basis in order to truly evaluate its half-life.
Consequently, the history of computerization since the mid-1980s can
no longer be written as simply a history of technology as has been possible
for 1960s and 1970s, but rather it must be embedded within a narrative
of social history in the Information Age. The political, social, and cultural
modes of computerization can only be explained within the context of the
crisis management of Western industrialized societies, the functional dif-
ferentiation of these societies as modern societies of consumption and lei-
sure, and the accompanying individualization and pluralization processes.
The era of digital modernity can be broken down into several phases,
marked by defi ning moments. The fi rst phase began at the end of the
1950s with the use of the fi rst mainframe computers in banks, govern-
ment administrations, companies, large research facilities, and especially
the military. The development and use of computer technologically was
limited to a few sectors in society and strongly embedded within the po-
litical logic of the Cold War. It largely fell under the rubric of social en-
gineering because it was designed to eff ectively manage processes and
avoid confl ict situations through the aggregation of mass data and its
electronic processing. Massive state-sponsored programs were the pri-
mary motors behind the advancement of computers.^13 Huge mainframe
computers that initially still relied on tube and relay technology were the
dominant form of technology during this phase.
The second phase began in the early or perhaps mid-1980s. Personal
computers and microprocessors were the technical icons of this period.
In terms of social and cultural aspects, this phase was defi ned by the ex-
tensive rationalization of work and the spread of computers in private life
that had been fostered initially by the commercial success of computer
games (at least in the West). The personal computer, be it in the form