HU520:
A Review of Deibert's Chapter 6
- Deibert, Ronald J. (1997). Parchment, Printing, and Hypermedia:
- Communication in World Order Transformation, New York: Columbia
U. P., pp. 137-176.
Hypermedia & the Modern to Postmodern World Order Transfomation:
Distibutional Changes.
What are the Medium's Multiple Messages?
- 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