Deibert Review

Deibert, Ronald J. (1997). Parchment, Printing, and Hypermedia: Communication in World Order Transformation, New York: Columbia U. P., pp. 137-176.

Chapter summary: social forces and the "fit" with hpermedial environments (137-8).
Transnational production: from sovereign-territorial organ. to international in nature (via international trade volume increasing over last 100 years (1835-present) but also "a qulitatively differnt level not just a change in volume. Hypermedia E. (HE) produces strong incentives for those going global=>a 'cascading effect that encourages other firms to go global. Various company "nets" come online. (139-40)
"segmentation of different components of the production chain ... to "mulitple national locations" (141).
HE promotes transnationalization of firms and between firms: computing related, chemicals, industrial equipment, aerospace, (most important development: global defense industry (seems oximoronic? p. 143)

Teleconferencing: just-in-time delivery of parts and services, just-in-time interacitons (synchronicity).
HE promotes: flexible production keyed to vagaries of local consumer tastes.
Global localization = trans. corps. adjust to local markets (Localization in Hackos)
Local Globalization = 'cyberspace bazaar' small locally baed firms to reach a golobal audience/markets (146-7)
web-like corporate organ. (Heckscher, C. (1994). Defining the post-bureaucratic type. In C. Heckscher & A. Donnellon (Eds.), The post-bureaucratic organization: New perspectives on organizational change. (pp. 14-62). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. )
Power differentials (147) are substantial between 1st ,2nd, 3rd world countries, & North/South hemisphers? (Selfe, CCCC talk, Selfe/Moran).
HE promotes global financial structures: transnational banks, financial innovations (Eurodollar, global stocks; 'a gigantic pool of quasi-stateless mobile capital, not suject to political authority or accountability' because it moves so fast? (150); casino capitalism;

Who looses when this bubble bursts, when these folks can't see past daily profits?

Global financial services => most advanced hypermedia networks in the world (site for study!!!!)
Knot of techno-financial articulation: "each advanced application of HE in te financial sector furters and deepens the global integration of capital markets in a planetary web of complex speculative financial flows" (152). Cool terms: world cities; nomadic states operating 24/7; virtual banks (no physical presence in Cayman Islands, 154)

Implications for Political Authority

1) more complex global stystems for production and finance => increasingly difficut to define a "state". (155)
2) deregulation and liberalization of finances and trade (156)
3) "overlapping layers of autority designed to respond to and govern globalizing economic forces" (IMF, G-7, Trilateral Commission, World Trade Organization, NATA, European commission, Asia-acific Economic Council, World Bank, Bank for International Settlements.

Social Movements:

"Global civil society" => Global village?
NGOs, most listed are liberal efforts but I've heard that most online groups are quite conservative and many reactionary, environientalists, human rights, women's rights, indigenous peoples, gay and lesbian, neo nazi, (160-163)--they lack "the structural power of global moarket forces" (163) but "their sheer density and complexity . . . these movements together presnt a fundamental challenge to the modern world order paradigm" (164).

Electronic Panopticon

Foucault (_Discipline and Punish_): real-states = "a monopoly of violence and coercive capabilities and its concentration in the hands of a distinct organization", hierarcical, closure from outside world--motivated by self sufficiency and autonomy; negarchies = "balance and separation and mixture serve to limit, check and constrain power" (165)
HE works against easy monitoring and tracking. (recent Chinese efforts to constrain internet access and transfer of email addresses); foreign investment good => HE systems => information flow of political type (bad!) => lost centralized control over forms of communication (bad!) (169). States caught in "gaze." (yea, by underfunded NGOs)
Dispersed centers of seurveillance: "Big Brother is watching you." "Big Brother is you, watching." (170)
Dispersed availability of high res. images, EOS (earth observing systems, weather), LEO