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THE USE OF OFFICIAL STATISTICS IN SOCIOLOGY, by Barry Hindess UNDERSTANDING EVERYDAY LIFE, edited by Jack D. Douglas ETHNOMETHODOLOGY, edited by Roy Turner ON THE BEGINNING OF SOCIAL INQUIRY by P. McHugh, S. Raffel, D. C. Foss and A. F. Blum

The aim of the paper is to examine the influence of the information environment of a society or economy on public statistics, as well as demonstrating how official statistics can affect the quality of information environments of modern societies and economies in the context of global technologies and IT systems. In modern information societies and knowledge-based economies, the quality of information environments in which citizens, economic entities, public administration institutions and international organisations are functioning has a decisive influence on the political, social and economic order. These environments are shaped by interest groups which control information systems and processes at the local, national, international and global levels. The above-mentioned groups take advantage of the fundamental law of information, i.e. that poor quality information overrides good quality information, to eliminate any information that could make it more difficult for them to control the behavior of people, including social groups, and entities created by people, which participate in the political and economic processes. The paper examines the effects the contamination of the social information environment has on the political and social life and the economy. Attention has been drawn to the influence of the quality of information environment on official statistics and the perception of statistical data, as well as to using reliable statistical data to disinform and contaminate social and economic information environments by manipulating these data. The paper also shows how public statistics can influence information environments and its significance for the safety of the general public.