How relevant are Schiller’s concerns about commodification of information and class inequality in today’s world?

Abstract

In his book, ‘Information Inequality’ (1996) Herbert Schiller argues that, by the mid-1990s, information had become another commodity of the newly global political system of market capitalism and this development was instrumental in widening the gap between the poorest and the best off in American society. This paper reviews Schiller’s claims and examines its bearing on society in the decade and half since the publication of his book.