Abstract

This paper explores the techno-scientific imaginaries and ideologies of the "mobile information society" through demo videos and PowerPoint presentations from the 1990s. Theoretical starting point is organizational memetics (e.g., O’Mahoney, 2007; Price 2012; Schlaile et al., 2019) suggesting that there are complex dynamics between the conceptual vehicle transferring memes and memes themselves. Memes, originating from historical conditions, manifest in various forms such as cultures, organizations, and techniques.

In the 1990s, business conferences like the World Economic Forum and GSM World Congresses played a significant role in shaping digital economy imaginaries, influencing new business contexts. Memes have a layered ontology, with internal dynamics (genotype) and external manifestations (phenotype). The idea of universal connectivity has persisted through different technological eras, from railroads to the Internet.

In the 1990s, the consumer appeared to be the recipient of the techno market and information (‘super highways’). In the data capitalism of the 2020s, we are message senders, content producers and distributors. When we visit a website, download a search service, plan an itinerary, or watch a pay-TV channel, we accumulate network intelligence from data giants. We are sensory organs of the global data nervous system (Lammi, Pantzar, 2019).

The distinction between replicators (memes) and integrators (vehicles) can help theorize these developments. Catchwords like "mobile information society" act as integrators, uniting different people and organizations around a common idea. Catchwords have a limited lifespan and a focused, stable nature compared to other integrators.

Any media carrying and protecting a meme could be called an integrator. Catchwords differ from other integrators. First, the life(cycle) of a catchword such as mobile information society seems to be very limited with a logic of hype cycle. Secondly, catchwords' focus seems to be more stable/fixed and restricted than, for instance, that of a specific journal. Thirdly, a single catch word tends to combine a seemingly coherent collection of ideas (memeplex) inside a seemingly specific concept. Fourthly, catchwords’ and memes’ self-propagation requires links to other types of integrators. As a fitting example of managerialist mediation, reducing the complex world into simple, persuasive facts in a PowerPoint presentation has emerged as a ubiquitously effective argumentation technique, which is also prevalent in the forums this paper focuses on.

References:

Lammi, M.,and Pantzar M. (2019). "The data economy: How technological change has altered the role of the citizen-consumer." Technology in Society (2019): 101157.

Pantzar, M. (2003). Tools or toys. Inventing the need for domestic appliances in postwar and postmodern Finland. Journal of Advertising 32(1): 81-91
Price, I. (2012). The selfish signifier: meaning, virulence and transmissibility in a management fashion. International Journal of Organizational Analysis, 20(3), 337-348. doi:10.1108/19348831211243848.

O’Mahoney, J. (2007). The diffusion of management innovations: The possibilities and limitations of memetics. Journal of Management Studies, 44(8), 1324-1348. doi:10.1111/j.1467-6486.2007.00734.x.

Schlaile, M. P., Bogner, K., & Mülder, L. (2021). It’s more than complicated! Using organizational memetics to capture the complexity of organizational culture. Journal of Business Research, 129, 801-812. doi:10.1016/j.jbusres.2019.09.035.