ABSTRACT
Chapter 6 analyses how the global information economy was affected by the economic crisis in 2008. Economic data of 210 global information corporations for the fiscal years 2007 and 2008 was collected and assessed. Two ways of interpreting the crisis are discussed: approaches that see the new economic crisis as a form of regulation failure and approaches that consider crisis as an immanent feature of capitalism. Statistical empirical analysis of economic data shows that the finance sector was the economic realm that suffered the highest losses in 2008. The oil and gas sector was the industry that made the highest profits in 2008. The information economy – especially the media content industry – had high losses in 2008, whereas the telecommunications sector enlarged its hegemony.
