"...left to its own devices, the Information Marketplace will increase the gap between rich and poor countries and between rich and poor people." M. Dertouzos, (1997: 241)
Many writers (often consultants who profit from the message) claim that the Internet does not just affect media producers, but is revolutionising the way all firms operate and how all kinds of business is conducted. Castells calls this the rise of the 'network economy' where firms network amongst themselves (using 'network' in a relational sense) through mixtures of collaboration and competition. Electronic commerce suggests 'networks' in the technical sense will become the medium through which business is conducted and markets function. Indeed the network (the Internet) can be seen as a gigantic global market. Some products and services lend themselves to this kind of trading more readily than others where the delivery channel is also the network (e.g. computer software, digital music) but many suggest all industries will be transformed. Where the product is itself information, different kinds of market features appear and different kinds of regulation are required, as Graham and Davies clearly show. Business Week suggests that the most successful businesses on the Net will be those where a sense of community is created amongst consumers, and sellers use the technology to meet consumers' needs.
In this seminar we will examine the issues surrounding the information economy, and the convergence of advertising, consumption, and delivery within a single network. We will consider whether network technology presents opportunities for profound economic changes to take place, and how these might impact on workers and consumers.
Core Reading
o Castells, Manuel 'The network enterprise: the culture, institutions
and organizations of the informational economy', Chapter 3 of Castells,
The Rise of the Network Society, Oxford: Blackwell, 1996
o Graham, Andrew and Davies, Gavyn Broadcasting, Society and Policy
in the Multimedia Age, Luton: University of Luton Press, 1997, chapters
III and IV
o Henwood, F. Miller, N. Senker, P and Wyatt, S. Technology and In/equality:
Questioning the Information Society. London: Routledge, 2000
o Goldhaber, Michael H. 'The Attention Economy and the Net',
FirstMonday 2 (1997) online at http://www.firstmonday.dk/issues/issue2_4/goldhaber/
.
See also Ghosh's rejoinder at http://firstmonday.org/issues/issue2_5/ghosh/index.html
Supplementary Reading
o Dertouzos, Michael. What Will Be: How the New World of Information
Will Change Our Lives, London: Piatkus, 1997, chapter 11: 'The value of
information'
o Shapiro, Carl and Varian, Hal Information Rules: A Strategic Guide
to the Network Economy, Harvard Business School Press, 1999. There
is an excellent website at http://www.inforules.com/
which contains PowerPoint lectures by the authors, examples from the press
of points argued in the book, and links to related topics.
o Hagel III, John and Armstrong Arthur G, Net Gain: Expanding Markets
Through Virtual Communities, Boston, Mass: Harvard Business School Press,
1997
o Tapscott, D. The Digital Economy: Promise and Peril in the Age of
Networked Intelligence, New York: McGraw-Hill, 1996
o Tapscott, D. Ticoll and A. Lowy, Digital Capital: Harnessing the
Power of Business Webs, London: Brealey, 2000
o Hammond, R. Digital Business: Surviving and Thriving in an On-Line
World, London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1996 (full text available online at
http://www.hammond.co.uk)
Publication Details
Page Created By: Kate O'Riordan
Email: k.s.o-riordan@sussex.ac.uk
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