The Comparative Study On American And Japanese Information Society Construction And Development

From the perspective of productivity, the forms of human society can be divided into agricultural society, industrial society and information society. The social formation evolution from agricultural society to industrial society started from technological revolution. It was the industrial technological revolution marked by invention and application of steamer that made social form evolve quickly from the long agricultural society into industrial society. The social formation evolution from industrial society to information society also started from technological revolution. It was the information technological revolution marked by invention and application of electronic computer that made social form evolve fast from industrial society into information society. During the dynamic process into the information society, human society's production tool, production mode, trading method, industrial structure, living pattern, habitat characteristic as well as the organizational structure have changed significantly. This social formation evolution in itself means not only the progress of productive forces, but also implies a profound, comprehensive social change, and will eventually determine new international order. As a social form of human society, the construction and development of information society should be a worldwide phenomenon. However, as countries around the world do not keep in step from agricultural society into industrial society, they can not step into information society in the same time. There must be competition in the new social formation evolution. In this competition, the stronger country's capacities of information acquisition, processing, transmission are, the sooner its pace of building the information society is, the higher its level of developing the information society is, the more it is able to achieve information superiority, even as the famous American futurologist Alvin Toffler has predicted, dominate the others through grasping the information and controlling the network.In this competition of social formation evolution, there are two countries with outstanding performance. The first one is United States. As the cradle of information technology revolution, U.S. is not only the first one researched on information society and evolved towards information society, but also the one has achieved the highest level of information society development so far. The second one is Japan, which put forward concept of information society in 1960s. Although Japan fell behind U.S. in practice quite substantially in the last century, for the Japanese government has clearly recognized the consequence caused by the gap and promulgated a series of strategic measures to speed up information society developing, it has leap to an Information developed society in a short time. The above two countries, one is the information society pioneer country, and not only is the pioneer, but also achieve the highest level, its evolution path in itself may represent the optimal evolution path; the other is a relative latecomer, which has developed with amazing speed even thought have not achieved the highest level yet, its development path has some important reference value to the other information society latecomers.China is still in the process of industrial society currently. Industrial society as an indispensable social form of human society can not be leapt over. So our country can not leap over the heavy chemical industry phase of industrial society into information society. However, the productivity elements of information society are involved in industrial society. Information technology as a general technology through acting on traditional industries can promote the renovation of these industries and accelerate industrial structure supererogation. Therefore, through developing the information productivity elements, our country can accelerate the social formation evolution from industrial society to information society, and achieve the goal that the Fifth Plenary Session of the Fifth Central Committee of the Communist Party of China proposed "promote Industrialization by Informationization, give full play to follow-up advantages, and carry out great-leap-forward development". Information society is the social form that under the request of the informationized productive forces, information technology becomes the main technical force even the technical base of national economy, information industry turns into the pillar industry in the industrial structure, production mode and lifestyle rely on the application of information technology more and more, and framework of social structure presents networking and flat characteristics. The evolution towards it not only contains many aspects, such as the development of Information technology and information industry, the management and exploitation of information resources, the construction of information network represented by Internet, the construction of information personnel and the improvement of information system environment. The evolution involves so many contents, so its construction absolutely needs to pay a lot of economic costs and even social costs. How to minimize the cost, and achieve this ambitious social formation evolution, is an indispensable issue should be deeply concerned by the academia, industrial circles and political circles in China which both are a developing country and an information society latecomer. Studying on the comparison of American and Japanese Information society construction, through comparing the two typical advanced information society's similarities and differences in the development of its information society, in the current stage of development, can help our country explore the general rules of information society construction, sum up experiences and lessons from it, enrich and develop our own system of information theory, to guide the practice of informationization and choose a social evolution path which costs the lowest social costs with high efficiency. Therefore, I chose "the comparative study on American and Japanese information society construction and development" as the theme to carry out systematic research.My doctoral dissertation follows this train of thought:on the basis of study on the connotation of information society, analyze the main aspects of American and Japanese information society construction systematically, research on the laws which they followed, indicate their differences with their own internal and external condition factors, to make clear whether the differences between them accord with information society's inherent requirements, which way or mode that they took is closer to the optimal evolution path, and eventually draw the enlightenment for our country's information society construction. The concrete study in my dissertation starts from holism, through circular causation perspective, takes deductive inference and empirical analysis research methods, on the basis of extensive collection of domestic and international research results and data, integrate theoretical analysis with empirical analysis, detailed analysis with comprehensive analysis, vertical analysis with horizontal analysis, studies American and Japanese information society systematically, and make every effort to attain cognition at the level of laws.The entire dissertation consists of ten chapters, and the content of each is introduced as follows. Chapter 1 discussed and analyzed the background and purposes of the study, defined related concepts and range of study, reviewed and commented on domestic and international related research results, and established research methods and the basic research framework. Chapter 2 on the basis of analyzing the development of American and Japanese information supporting technology, information systems technology, and information applied technology, probed into the similarities and differences of the two countries' information technology development, and analyzed the inducements behind them. Chapter 3 on the basis of presenting American and Japanese information industry's development background, history and IT outsourcing, probed into the similarities and differences of the two countries' information industry, and analyzed the main inducements behind them. Chapter 4 based on looking into the main aspects of American and Japanese information technology application-enterprise informatization, electronic commerce, government informatization, family and personal life informatization, education informatization and agriculture informatization respectively, studied the similarities and differences of the two countries information technology development, and analyzed the main inducements behind them. Chapter 5 on the basis of investigating into American and Japanese information resources management and exploitation respectively, probed into the similarities and differences of the two countries'information resources management and exploitation, and researched on the main inducements behind them. Chapter 6 based on analyzing American and Japanese information network construction, discussed the similarities and differences of the two countries' information network construction, and explored the main inducements behind them. Chapter 7 based on analyzing the three main aspects of American and Japanese IT personnel construction-IT education and training, IT professionals' introduction, and incentive mechanism, summarized the similarities and differences of the two countries'IT personnel construction, and studied the main inducements behind them. Chapter 8 on the basis of presenting American and Japanese information system environment, researched on the similarities and differences of the two countries' information system environment's construction and improvement, and discussed the main inducements behind them. Chapter 9 drew the research conclusion of this paper, summarized the basic experience from the American and Japanese information society construction and development, and drew the enlightenment for our country's information society construction. Chapter 10 on the basis of the above-mentioned studies, expanded the theoretical thinking on the definition and basic characteristics of information society, the basic factors of information society construction and development and the mutual relations between them, the difference between information society and industrial society, and the mechanism of information technology revolution acting on economic growth.After two years'insistent effort, I have attempted to establish the systematic analysis framework of information society comparative study, been the first to do the systematic study on American and Japanese information society construction, and sought to bring forth new ideas on the basis of predecessors' studies. There are three main innovations in my dissertation. Firstly, on basis of analyzing information technology revolution, information industry development and informanization, I have conducted a comprehensive comparative study on American and Japanese information society constrction and development, and made an innovation on research perspective, research content and research system. Secondly, as a result of this study, I have drawn six conclusions, made a relative comprehensive summary of American and Japanese information society constrction and development, drawn enlightenment for our country's information society construction, and put forward ten directed policy recommendations. Thirdly, as the theoretical reflection of this study, I put forward new opinions systematically on the definition of information society, the basic factors of information society construction and development and the mutual relations between them, and the distinction between informanization and industrialization.Information society is a new form of society, and its development has just begun. People's understandings of it are still going forward in exploration, and many understandings need to be deepened with information society development to winnow truth from falsehood. Although I have done my utmost to study it, due to limitations in capability, and information society as a social form of human society, the construction of it refers to extensive contents, there are undoubtedly shortcomings in my thesis. My study is not comprehensive and in-depth enough, theoretical considerations are not profound and mature. From the specific content of the new information civilization, post information social form's existence, to the optimal evolution path of the existing information society and the connotation of high level information society construction, I have not been able to form a clear idea and proposed an explicit treatise. These are the limitations of my dissertation as well as my next research topics to pursue.