The document discusses the concept of post-industrial society, introduced by sociologist Daniel Bell, which emphasizes the significance of information technology and the service sector over industrial production. Characterized by the dominance of intellectual work and technological innovation starting in the 1970s, it highlights the transition towards an economy reliant on information and services. The rise of the internet and advanced communication technologies has transformed personal relationships, media dissemination, and the overall structure of society.

1. 1
THE INFORMATIONAL OR POST-INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION *
Fernando Alcoforado **
The post-industrial society is the proposed name for an economy that underwent a series
of specific changes after the industrialization process. The concept was introduced by
Harvard University sociologist and professor Daniel Bell in 1962 and detailed in his
work The Coming of Post Industrial Society: The Venture in Social Forecasting of
1976. The post-industrial society is marked by a rapid growth of the services, as
opposed to the industrial sector, and a rapid increase in information technology with
knowledge and creativity as the crucial raw materials of such economies. This is why
the post-industrial era is also known as the era of Information and Knowledge. It is
important to note that information can be found in a variety of inanimate objects, from a
book to a pendrive, while knowledge is only found in humans because they are able to
apply the information through their brain or their skilled hands. The information
becomes useless without the knowledge of the human being (BELL, Daniel. The
Coming of Post Industrial Society: A Venture in Social Forecasting available on the
website <https://www.os3.nl/_media/2011-2012/ Daniel_bell _-_ the_coming_of_post-
industrial_society.pdf>, 1976).
It can be said that post-industrial society was born after the 1970s. There was a type of
society that was no longer based on agricultural production, nor on industry, but on the
production of information, services, symbols (semiotics) and aesthetics. The post-
industrial society comes from a set of situations brought about by the advent of industry,
such as increasing the average life of the population, technological development, the
diffusion of schooling and the diffusion of the media. Post-industrial society differs
greatly from industrial society, and this is clearly seen in the service sector, which today
accounts for about 60% of the total labor force, rather than industry and agriculture
combined, since intellectual work is very more frequent than manual work and
creativity, more important than the simple execution of tasks.
The tertiary sector of the economy is the area of activity of human activities based on
the offer of services and the practice of commerce. By definition, this sector is regarded
as producing the so-called "intangible" or intangible goods (services), as well as the
final destination of goods produced by the primary and secondary sectors (trade).
Examples of intangible services offered in the context of society include banking, the
work of teachers and lawyers, vendors, insurance companies, technical advice, among
many other examples. Trade, on the other hand, constitutes one of the most important
economic activities. It is present at the global, regional and local level, involving small
exchanges and even complex transactions between multinational companies. With the
technological advances brought about by the successive industrial revolutions, this
sector has intensified in all scales and in all the localities of the world.
With the expansion of the capitalist system, the tertiary sector is the fastest growing in
the world. The concentration of labor in the area of commerce and mainly services is
due to numerous factors, the main one being the reduction in the supply of labor in
agriculture with mechanization of the field and in industry as a consequence of the use
of new technologies. These areas started to use an intensively smaller amount and at a
much more demanding level of qualification, contributing for the majority of the mass
of salaried employees to be destined for commerce and services. The growth of the
tertiary sector has become so intense and disorderly that what economists call sectoral
hypertrophy, which is nothing more than unsustainable growth in the area of trade and

2. 2
services. The main consequence of this phenomenon is the growth of informal activity,
also called "underground economy", like street vendors (BELL, 1976).
According to Daniel Bell (1976), the post-industrial society is formed by three distinct
spheres, social, political and cultural, where the main axis is the technology that has as
main activity the information processing based on telecommunications and computing
and has as a principle the value of "knowledge" as a counterpoint to the "labor" value of
the industrial age. The centrality of theoretical knowledge as well as technological
innovations and the expansion of the service sector make intellectual work more
frequent and important than the simple execution of tasks. According to Alvin Tofler,
these profound changes in work organization lead to profound structural changes in the
culture, politics, and economy of a society. At the economic level, post-industrial
societies are characterized by the growth of the services sector as the main economic
activity, which thus replaces importance in the production of goods. In terms of class
structure, this type of society would lead to an increase in the power of the technical
professions and the intellectual technological sectors [TOFLER, Alvin, O choque do
futuro (The Clash of the Future). Rio de Janeiro: Editora Artenova, 1973].
One of the main characteristics of the post-industrial society is the large-scale use of
information technology. The information or information revolution spread from the
1970s and 1980s, gaining intensity in the 1990s with the spread of the Internet, that is,
computer networking. Why call this process of revolution? Because computerization
penetrated into society just as electric energy, resulting from the Second Industrial
Revolution, reconfigured the life of cities. The computer, icon of the new revolution,
networked is changing the relationship of people with time and space. The computer
resuscitated the writing after the supremacy of the audiovisual media, mainly after the
empire of the televising communication. Information networks allow people to expand
his ability to think in an unimaginable way. The new technological revolution has
amplified human intelligence. We are talking about a technology that allows to increase
the storage, the processing and the analysis of information, to realize billions of
relations between thousands of data per second [CASTELLS, Manuel. A Sociedade em
Rede (The Network Society). São Paulo: Paz e Terra, 1999].
It should be noted that while the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th Agricultural Revolutions and the
1st, 2nd and 3rd Industrial Revolutions have amplified the physical capacity and
precision of human activities, the Informational or Post-Industrial Revolution amplifies
the mind. This revolution, precisely because it is based on intelligence technologies,
expands exponentially the differences in the capacity to treat information and turn it into
knowledge. The media, as political organizers of the facts, can be considered as
precursors of the information revolution. The emergence of the world-wide computer
network with the use of the Internet reformulated the concept of media. After the
internet, all the media had to be reshaped. It was the case of television that had to seek
new ways of disseminating information. Printed newspapers themselves have been
forced into the game, with their web pages updated every minute and new graphic
designs that satisfy the desires of readers of the 21st century.
The new digital age also enabled the instantaneous transmission of information. News
are transmitted in real time, with the possibility still of text, videos, images, links with
information related to that event, being transmitted in a global way. It is the so-called
"hypertext" concept that has changed the way we read and write. These are just a few of
the aspects that came to life with the rise of the Internet. Even human relations changed.

3. 3
Today we are daily connected with friends and acquaintances from the most distant
places. We can talk, see, read and even listen. Only body contact is missing. We are part
of communities, discussion groups with common affinities, among many other
examples. The consequences of this new phenomenon begin to be felt. It is the so-called
online life, the great 'addiction' of the 21st century.
* From Chapter 9 of Fernando Alcoforado's book As grandes revoluções científicas,
econômicas e sociais que mudaram o mundo (The great scientific, economic, and social
revolutions that changed the world) published in 2016 by Editora CRV from Curitiba /
Paraná.
* Fernando Alcoforado, member of the Bahia Academy of Education, engineer and doctor of Territorial
Planning and Regional Development from the University of Barcelona, a university professor and
consultant in strategic planning, business planning, regional planning and planning of energy systems, is
the author of Globalização (Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 1997), De Collor a FHC- O Brasil e a Nova
(Des)ordem Mundial (Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 1998), Um Projeto para o Brasil (Editora Nobel, São
Paulo, 2000), Os condicionantes do desenvolvimento do Estado da Bahia (Tese de doutorado.
Universidade de Barcelona, http://www.tesisenred.net/handle/10803/1944, 2003), Globalização e
Desenvolvimento (Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 2006), Bahia- Desenvolvimento do Século XVI ao Século XX
e Objetivos Estratégicos na Era Contemporânea (EGBA, Salvador, 2008), The Necessary Conditions of
the Economic and Social Development-The Case of the State of Bahia (VDM Verlag Dr. Muller
Aktiengesellschaft & Co. KG, Saarbrücken, Germany, 2010), Aquecimento Global e Catástrofe
Planetária (P&A Gráfica e Editora, Salvador, 2010), Amazônia Sustentável- Para o progresso do Brasil e
combate ao aquecimento global (Viena- Editora e Gráfica, Santa Cruz do Rio Pardo, São Paulo, 2011),
Os Fatores Condicionantes do Desenvolvimento Econômico e Social (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2012),
Energia no Mundo e no Brasil- Energia e Mudança Climática Catastrófica no Século XXI (Editora CRV,
Curitiba, 2015) and As Grandes Revoluções Científicas, Econômicas e Sociais que Mudaram o Mundo
(Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2016) .