Detailed Outline of Chapter 3

Global Economy and International Telecommunications Networks

- Global communication and global economy are inseparably intertwined.
- Economy requires communication to coordinate and control global division.

1. Premodern World

a. Product accessibility
b. Goods production

2. Division of Labor

a. Increase productivity via specialization
b. The slow down of production process but could be handled on a face-to-face level
c. Delocalization for lower costs, easier access to raw materials, availability of skilled labor, lower real estate costs
d. Telecommunication technologies

3. Imperialism

a. The world multipolar: multiple centers of power, decentralized trade circuits.
b. The western powers transformed the world into a monopolar one: Britain alone controlled about a quarter of the world’s landmass
c. The economic relationship between the imperial powers and the subject territories was that of exploitation
d. Reasons for imperialisme. The global telegraph network
f. In a center-periphery relationship, the center encourages centralized relationships and discourages lateral ones (Structural Imperialism)

4. Electronics Imperialism

a. Global Media Flows

- The end of imperialism
- The source of power of the US was economic and cultural
- The global political structures of imperialism
- The developing countries are concerned about the cultural influence of films(cultural invasion)
- Global communication flows from the US
- The New World Information Order (NWIO)

b. Transborder Data Flow

- Computer-to-computer communication across national boundaries.
- Products are internationally traded-
Modern communication and information technologies
- U.S. as the command and control
- U.S. favors both free trade and free flow of information
- US as vehicle for foreign influence
- Imperialism and electronic imperialism

1. Similarity: exhibition of a strong center to periphery relationship with few connections among periphery.
2. Difference: center uses more subtle means to dominate that the brute force used in the past.

5. Emerging Networks Structures

- The cost of program production and transmission of television
- Internet as an uncontrolled and as a democratic medium

6. Toward A New World System?

- Center to periphery change