ABSTRACT
In this chapter, we discuss geographies of the information society; how the development and use of ICTs and cyberspace effects socio-spatial and material relations.1 As detailed in Chapter 1, we view ICTs and cyberspace as transformative agents, undermining and reconfiguring the processes, spatial structures and institutions of modernist societies (Schroeder 1994). These transformations are contributing to a broader set of changes as we enter the twenty-first century, such as political reorganisation (e.g., the rise of global/continental political structures, the collapse of the former Soviet Union, and the Balkanisation of many areas) and the rise of an economy of signs (see ‘Real/virtual’, Chapter 1). This is not to say that we believe modernist structures and processes are being replaced. Instead, institutions (e.g., governments and multinationals) are utilising the transformations made possible by cyberspace to further reproduce, reinforce and enhance the mode of capital. As such, the restructuring that is occurring should be viewed as an evolutionary development, and not as a transition to some fundamentally different condition. Here, it is recognised that the development and promotion of ICTs and cyberspace is bound to capitalist modes of production – cyberspace is a commercial product to be economically exploited, used to open new markets of opportunity. As such, the dominant bases of the modernist agenda – enquiry, discovery, innovation, progress, internationalisation, self and economic development – are still principals that underpin Western society (Berman 1992).
