CONCEPT
Mythinformation
Winner's term for the cluster of assumptions surrounding computerization that render political critique of technology socially unacceptable — the equation of information access with power distribution.
Coined by Winner in the eponymous chapter of The Whale and the Reactor, mythinformation names the collection of unexamined premises that make democratic scrutiny of information technology seem quaint or obstructionist. Its central tenet: the distribution of information is the distribution of power. Winner dismantled the syllogism — information is power, computers distribute information, therefore computers distribute power, therefore computers are democratic — by showing that access to information does not, by itself, constitute political power. A citizen with access to all government data does not thereby gain the power to shape government policy. A worker with access to the company's financial statements does not thereby gain the power to determine her own wages. What is also required is the institutional capacity to convert information into influence — the organizations, legal frameworks, governance structures, and collective bargaining mechanisms that translate individual access into collective power.
In The You On AI Field Guide
The chapter was written in the mid-1980s, when personal computers were entering homes and workplaces and