James R. Beniger's 1986 book The Control Revolution: Technological and Economic Origins of American Society (Harvard University Press) was selected to receive the 2007 ICA Fellows Book Award. The award recognizes those books that have made a substantial contribution to the scholarship of the communication field, as well as the broader rubric of the social sciences, and have stood some test of time. Any book nominated must have been available for at least the immediate past five years prior to the conference at which the award is presented.
"This book was the first significant scholarly book that came out of the communication field pertinent to the information society," said the ICA Fellows Nominating Committee. On the leading edge of a revolution in information technology, this book was instrumental in turning scholarly attention in communication toward questions of information and control.
"The Control Revolution is a true classic with a long history of influence in our field and beyond," the Committee added. "The year it was published the book received the Association of American Publishers Award for the Most Outstanding Book in the Social and Behavioral Sciences. There are numerous academic reviews of the book all praising it extensively, including reviews in Science. The New York Times Book Review selected this book as a 'Notable Paperback of the Year.'
"Twenty years later it is still widely read, sited, and used in journal articles and courses in the field of communication and beyond. This book has been, and continues to be, widely used in graduate theory courses in departments of communication, media studies, sociology, information science, and history, among others."
Beniger wrote The Control Revolution as an analytical history of the contemporary "information society." This society, he argued, developed out of the Industrial Revolution, whose enormous leaps forward in the speed and volume of manufacturing and production brought with them a decreasing ability to control those industrial processes. That lack of control would then bring about problems such as the loss of product shipments and inability of manufacturer and retailer to maintain an efficient relationship. Thus, wrote Beniger, the information revolution was really a "control revolution," one that was necessary in order to balance out the runaway technology of industry.
At the time of its publication, The Control Revolution was acclaimed both for its scholarship and for the skill and strength of its argument. "This book is designed to be the synthetic work on the 'Information Society' and its origins," said the interdisciplinary journal Critical Review, "and by all rights it will be."
Beniger was a professor at the Annenberg School for Communication, University of Southern California, for 19 years, retiring in 2004. He holds two master's degrees and a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of California at Berkeley.
He was presented with the Award on May 26, 2007 during ICA's 57th Annual International Conference in San Francisco, California, USA.
