A new method to measure the information society in China

We are entering an age of global information society (IS), which built on digital communication networks and information technologies. More and more organizations (governments, regions and cities) are using reliable data and comparable indicators of information and communication technologies (ICT) to measure information society. Considering some new ICT indicators in this digital society, we establish a hierarchical structure with four domain dimensions and 14 sub-criteria. In order to distinguish the preference of the selected indicators, the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) method is utilized to calculate the indicators weights. Based on multiplying the indicator weight with normalized performance data, the scores of information society index can be calculated over time. The present research focuses on the vertical analysis of China as a whole, which can discovery the IS development with polynomial function pattern.