ABSTRACT

The exponential expansion of computer networks and the increasing range of applications of digital technologies over the past two decades has important connections with the larger processes of globalisation. The networked society and the information revolution parallel and are entailed in the changes over a period of time from the older vertically organised economies of the first industrial nations, to the horizontally organised globally distributed production economies of today. The changes associated with globalised economics are closely associated with neoliberalism, which promotes a free market philosophy, privatisation and deregulation in opposition to social market economics that emphasise the role of government in planning and regulation. Economic globalisation can also be seen as the latest stage of multinational capitalism. Lev Manovich notes that twentieth-century media systems, such as Hollywood film and television followed the industrial logic of standardisation, while new media runs ahead of the mode of the new postindustrial economies through its logic of customisation (Manovich 2001:30). The wider concept of globalisation is also an emphasis upon the interconnectedness of people, countries, regions and economies on a world scale. The information superhighway is part of this globalisation process that has produced greater sharing and com munication, but at the same time it maintains the divide between information rich and poor parts of the world. The Internet is both a continuation of a media and cultural imperialism in which a torrent of cultural traffic flows from powerful centres out to a periphery and a new form of many-to-many communication, which has created new social movements on a variety of scales.