Ways into the digital society

Perceptions, modes of use and socio-economic consequences of computer use until the advent of the PC. The spread of the computer is one of the most important changes in recent history. As early as the mid-1950s, first large companies and public authorities, then also the military and security services increasingly used computers. Contemporaries intensively discussed the effects of computer use and assessed it as a profound change. Nevertheless, contemporary history research has so far hardly dealt with the beginning of the digital age. The authors of this volume examine the connections between technological and social change as an evolutionary process that rarely proceeded in a straight line. Classic topics of contemporary history research, such as the history of internal security, the welfare state and banking, the world of work, administration, but also of protest and subcultures are looked at anew in this way. The extent to which computers changed the structures of control, operation and power is shown. The Federal Republic is in the foreground, but with diverse side glances at cross-border interconnections.