ABSTRACT
An All-Embracing Structural transformation of the last fifty years has been the ascendance of corporate power and corresponding decline of government authority over key areas of national economic, political, and social life. In increasingly central spheres of communication and information, the shift from state to private power is especially marked and observable. Today, the power of huge, private, economic enterprises is extended across national and international boundaries, influencing and directing economic resource decisions, political choices, and the production and dissemination of messages and images. Corporate speech has become a dominant discourse, nationally and internationally. Deregulation, privatization, and the expansion of market relationships have affected all corners of the economy. While commercialization and privatization of information have been steadily encroaching on public’s information supply, the information policies of the National Security State have exacted a still heavier toll on the public’s access to the vital information over most of the twentieth century, especially the last fifty years of the Cold War.
