GLOBALIZATION: INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE WITHIN THE SPACE ECONOMY OF LATE CAPITALISM

This article analyses the process of globalization from the perspective of a 'political economy of space' where the interactions of the processes of capitalist accumulation within contexts of geographic and social space has profound shaping effects upon the nature of politics, economics and society more generally. The argument will show that contemporary globalization has two dimensions: outward into geographic space, and inward into culture and society. The focus then moves to culture and information technology within the space economy of late capitalism and argues that a crisis of finite geographic space has led to the deepening of the commodificationary processes of capitalist accumulation into the 'identity-spaces' of culture and society. For hugely popular 'cyber-gurus' such as Howard Rheingold and Myron W . Krueger, the development of information technologies such as the Internet-derived 'virtual communities' are spaces where new forms of democracy and 'being' can emerge. This article argues that 'cyberspace' and 'virtual communities' are deeply dystopic and alienated spaces, and cyber-Utopian dreams of other, possible worlds made virtual through information technology are at best naive, when it is realised that the information revolution that evolved from the processes of a particular type of globalization, has conceived and developed technologies with primarily profit, productivity, surveillance labour-saving and escapism in mind.     

THE ROLE OF TEMPORALITY IN MEDIATED COMMUNICATION AND TECHNOLOGY CONVERGENCE

This article examines two components of temporality that have implications for electronically mediated communication. One is the dichotomy of simultaneous/non-simultaneous communication and then the varying degrees of non-simultaneity that are possible. The other is the fundamental difference between timed and untimed communication. Timed communication is temporally based and sequential, while untimed communication, such as print and still image content, is spatially based. The article argues that there are two fundamental types of mediated communication: communication mediated across time and communication mediated across space. The implications of temporality for both forms of mediated communication are examined in detail. The implications of temporality and mediated communication for multimedia, technology convergence, and research are discussed.     

INFORMATION AND THE LIFE CYCLE CONSUMPTION OF HAZARDOUS GOODS

Safety is a major area of public concern. The fact that people take risky occupations, smoke or fail to use seat belts often provokes a regulatory response designed to either protect people from the risks directly or to provide them with more information on the hazards involved. Such policy is often based on the view that risk-taking behavior is irrational or ill-advised. This paper develops life cycle models of the decision to consume hazardous goods. A particular focus of the analysis is to consider the rational response to information about hazards. Rational consumption of a hazardous good is shown to depend on such factors as the nature of the hazard, age, life expectancy, age at which information on the hazard was received and, of course, the underlying value of the good itself.     

TECHNOLOGY AND THE FUTURE OF THE UNIVERSITY: A SOBER VIEW

Technology has had considerable impact on education and the university, but the Internet - today's newest technology - will not lead to the death of the university. While there is clearly a role for virtual education over the Internet, the conventional university will survive since students are well served by a real, physical, educational experience.     

THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF TIME IN THE INTERNET ERA: FEMINIST PERSPECTIVES AND CHALLENGES

This paper examines the gender matrix of time, arguing for cross-disciplinary consideration of political economy, globalization and technology to achieve a detailed understanding of gendered hierarchies of time and the ways in which public/private identifications of social space and time have variously constructed and maintained them. It is argued that women are alienated from their own time, which is identified as most legitimately allocated to the service of others both in the home and at work. The inter-relationship of technologies and gendered identities is explored in relation to public/private divisions and the political-economic and scientific-technological knowledge processes that contribute to upholding them. ICTs reflect these historically established gendered patterns, but international projects such as 'Women on the Net' also demonstrate the capacities of these technologies for disrupting the gender matrix of time through their use by women for women.     

INFORMATION, CAPITALISM AND UNCERTAINTY

This article argues that the changes characterized by many commentators as announcing the 'information age' are better seen, not as heralding a new type of society, but as the continuation, consolidation and extension of capitalism - something which is accompanied by constant upheaval and innovation. The shift from conceiving the 'information society' as a result of technological breakthroughs to one which lays emphasis on the primacy of 'information' itself is observed. The importance especially of informational labour's 'flexibility' is regarded, not as indicative of a new age but of the requirements of globalized capitalism which engenders change the better to consolidate its practices. The instability of life today is ascribed, not to the upheavals resulting from the 'information revolution', but rather to the insatiable dynamic that has long been a distinguishing feature of capitalist enterprise. These processes are examined in terms of the shift from public to private provision of information and in the heightened uncertainty of existence today.     

THE INFORMATION SOCIETY AS MEGA-MACHINE

Too often the history of information and communication technologies (ICTs) is wrenched out of the history of technology and presented as something altogether separate and therefore different, rendering previous analyses irrelevant. However, there are sufficient analytical tools to hand without the continual invention of new paradigms to understand the current stage of technological advance. To support this contention, in this article, the continuing relevance of Lewis Mumford is explored. Mumford's discussion of the megalopolis and the emergence of the invisible city as its most developed state make a direct link with the networked information society, establishing a link between the information society and Mumford'sanalysis of the previous history of technology.At the centre of Mumford'sdiscussion of this history is the dialectic interaction of authoritarian and democratic technics. Mumford's notion of technics stresses that technologies can not be divided from the social relations in which they appear. In the information society,this dialectical pair map onto the twin dynamics of enclosure and disclosure. The former dynamic represents the control of information through commodification and marketization, the latter the recognition of the empowering and emancipatory qualities of ICTs. Up until now,discussions of the information society have regarded only one or other dynamic as normal, whereas utilizing Mumford'sinsight, the contradictory character of the information society can be theorized without rendering the second dynamic abnormal. Thus, the article concludes that recourse to Mumford's ideas, to re-embed ICTs in the history of technology, allows a more nuanced and fruitful treatment of current developments in information society.     

DEMOCRACY IN THE INFORMATION AGE: THE ROLE OF THE FOURTH ESTATE IN CYBERSPACE

Journalism faces attack from two areas. From one direction it has to repel the pressures from its new owners, the media conglomerates, that have exacerbated the traditional problems of professional news. From another, new forms of political and government communication with the public are emerging. The Internet is displacing the journalistic role of providing information and interpretation for the citizen. This article assesses the future for journalism within the public sphere and asks whether journalism can perform its normative functions in the digital age.     

INFORMATION WARFARE AND THE FUTURE OF THE SPY

This article examines the impact of the new ICTs on the collection of covert intelligence and covert political actions undertaken by national intelligence agencies. It is argued that there exist two distinct doctrines in the literatures of intelligence and information warfare concerning the future relative importance of information from human sources ('agents') and technical methods (signal interception, overhead imagery and the emerging field of clandestine penetration of networked information systems). The arguments in favour of human and technical methods are examined in the context of information warfare techniques and technologies, as are covert action methods such as disinformation, disruptive action and 'cyber-sabotage'. Certain civil liberties implications of ICT-based strong encryption are also examined. The article concludes that what is required is a greater emphasis on integrating human and technical methods into a unified whole, especially where human methods can provide opportunities which can be further exploited by technical methods.     

'INFORMATION SOCIETY' AS THEORY OR IDEOLOGY: A CRITICAL PERSPECTIVE IN TECHNOLOGY, EDUCATION AND EMPLOYMENT IN THE INFORMATION AGE

This paper argues that the concept of Information Society fails as theory because it is internally incoherent and unsupported by evidence. Its current popularity within policy discourse can only be understood ideologically. In particular it is argued that one of the drivers of current policy towards higher education is based upon the supposed growth of knowledge work linked to a theory of human capital formation as crucial to international competitiveness and to an explanation of unemployment in terms of a skills gap. The paper goes on to argue that current labour market indicators and research into the skills gap do not support this policy thrust and that a better explanation of the current push towards the creation of virtual universities is the desire to cut educational labour costs rather than to upgrade the economic status of so-called knowledge workers.     

ORIENTALISM RECONSIDERED: ISRAELI MEDIA AND THE ARTICULATION OF RESISTANCE

Questions of the relation between race and nationality are at the centre of Israel' defence narrative and its violence, its deployment of blood and domination of land and bodies. Usually, the discourse of violence in a nation' logic involves images of penetration to borders and land. However, this essay is about internal violence, about the reproduction of the state not through land, but through bodies, and babies, narratives and memory, knowledge and censorship. To understand this case is to reconsider questions of how Orientalism, as a practice of knowledge and of violence works. The author revisits the concept of Orientalism thereby relocating the different ways in which it internally works within the Israeli nation state. To illustrate her claim, she finds it useful to locate parallel features in the discourse of the Gulf War and the image of Saddam Hussein, created by Western media, and the discourse of the kidnapped Yemenite babies scandal and the image of Rabbi Uzi Meshulam, created by Israeli media. Both cases involve questions of violence, resistance and Western domination. In the author' analysis, she focuses on the complexity in which Orientalism functions when the state demarcates people and identities rather then land and borders. It will be shown how concepts of violence, race and nationalism are reproduced through the media discourse of the kidnapped Yemenite babies at the junction of social conflict and resistance. A sample of newspaper reports on the Yemenite babies affair during the resistance of Rabbi Meshulam are examined, known in Israel as the ‘The Fortification in Yahud’. The author' analysis is also based on her experience as an investigative reporter covering the Yemenite babies affair, and first hand observation of the resistance of Rabbi Meshulam.¹     

THE CONSTITUTIONAL CONTEXT: UNIVERSITIES, NEW INFORMATION TECHNOLOGIES AND THE US SUPREME COURT

The legal context in which universities operate is among the forces shaping the ways in which new information technologies are taken up and used. In the USA, constitutional law - that law which addresses how society is to be structured and what types of processes should be permitted within it - is particularly important in determining what institutions can do. The ultimate arbiter of constitutional law is the US Supreme Court, the decisions of which establish basic principles for the US legal system. This article reviews the entire body of US Supreme Court decisions that deal with higher education and mines them for their implications for the use of new information technologies by universities.     

FEMINISM, TECHNOLOGY AND THE INFORMATION SOCIETY Learning from the past, imagining the future

This article examines second wave and post-second wave feminist writing about the possibilities of (contemporaneously) new information and communication technologies. A number of texts by key authors, including Shulamith Firestone, Valerie Solanas, Cynthia Cockburn, Donna Haraway and Sadie Plant, are examined in light of the social and political context of their time of writing as well as in relation to 'mainstream' information society theorists such as Daniel Bell and Manuel Castells. The main focus is on how these authors understand the transformative potential of technologies, and attention is drawn to the swings between optimism and pessimism about the role of technology for a feminist political agenda. The role and nature of manifestos are also explored, and the question of whether it is time for another feminist technology manifesto is raised. The article concludes by posing some methodological and theoretical challenges of developing an anti-essentialist (in relation to both gender and technology), politically engaged and relevant feminist research agenda that takes seriously both lived experience and structures of power. The footnotes are an experiment in autobiographical writing in which I make explicit my own connection to this literature and the politics of these debates.     

DEMOCRACY AND INFORMATION : A CASE STUDY OF NEW LOCAL GOVERNACE STRUCTURES IN BANGALORE

The phenomenon of rapid urbanization is posing challenges to planners in developing countries. As it becomes harder and harder for planners to disentangle the global from the local, it is increasingly recognized that without a solid local base, city governments will not have the strength that is needed to navigate global circuits. This social integration requires democratized political mechanisms based on administrative decentralization and the participation of citizens in municipal management. Our paper focuses on the role of information in the democratic process looking at a case study of new local governance structures in Bangalore. The city has become a focal point for software development regionally and globally.Such regional and global interconnections are taking place simultaneously with a number of local level initiatives aimed at encouraging democratic decisionmaking via legislation and by introducing new local governance structures.     

REGULATION AND CONTROL OF SUBJECTIVITY AND PRIVATE LIFE IN THE CONTEXT OF ARMED CONFLICT IN COLOMBIA1

A qualitative study was carried out in four municipalities in four different conflict zones in Colombia. Intrafamilial violence and gender violence are studied through the testimonies of the people interviewed. The impact was analysed in terms of the exercise of control over the civilian population by paramilitaries in relation to subjectivity, the family, social networks and the prevailing moral order. In effect, the strengthening of barriers between traditional gender identities has enabled a de-structuring of traditional masculinity through moral co-optation, the reinforcement of traditional feminine identity and the objectification of the sexuality of young women, at the same time as they are manipulated sexually and emotionally. In general, strong legitimation of the model of the armed fighter as a paradigm of masculinity is found in children. In addition, the de-structuring of the family and its manipulation as a means of influence over civil society is one of the strategies employed for the installation of a regime of terror that fractures social networks. It does this through the erosion of confidence and the legitimation and mystification of the power of an actor whose mediation in inter-family and micro-social conflicts has been legitimated, instrumentalizing and scaling up traditional violence, taking advantage of the power vacuum and moral weaknesses in local culture.     

ON 'MAELSTROMS LARGE AND SMALL,METAPHORICAL AND ACTUAL': 'GRAY ZONES' IN THE WRITINGS OF PRIMO LEVI

This article examines the work of Primo Levi, with a focus on the tensions between ‘witness’ and ‘public intellectual’ in Levi's work. It analyses the notion of ‘gray zones’ in Levi's writings, where it functions as a way of indicating transformations in political action and public discourse in the wake of Auschwitz: most importantly, the Nazi genocide undermined the position of ‘spectator’ crucial to liberal discourse by implicating the spectator as a ‘bystander’. The study goes on to discuss the concepts of ‘work’, ‘science’ and ‘intellect’ in Levi's writing, showing how these categories reflect Levi's ultimately unsuccessful struggle to uncover a mode of political thought and public intervention adequate to the changes in political space of which the ‘gray zone’ is symptomatic, i.e. a condition of universal complicity and powerlessness. It concludes that implicit (and undeveloped) in Levi's thought is a set of ‘aesthetico-political’ presuppositions concerned with the articulation of founding, legitimacy and judgement. These presuppositions challenge the reliance of emancipatory discourses upon subjectivity and the logic of self-determination, indicating the need for a politics based on ‘pedagogical accountability’. Resisting the postmodern logic of ‘testimony’, which emerges in the gap between universal claims and their performance and hence dismantles the ‘outside’ as a space of judgement, i.e. the determination of the legitimacy of actions, the politics of pedagogical accountability grounds such an outside in the conjoining of power, responsibility for the world and boundary thinking. This space ‘outside’ ideology and the circulation of subjectivities emerges via resistance to the specifically ‘anti-political’ violence pervasive in late capitalism, and through the clarification of the distinction between this mode of violence and that (‘pre-political’) violence aimed at ‘subjects’.     

THE IRRUPTION OF TRANCE IN CONTEMPORARY YORUBA THEATRE: THEATRE,WITCHCRAFT, AND SOCIAL FRAGMENTATION IN LAGOS,NIGERIA

The golden age of Yoruba folk opera, Yoruba travelling theatre, and Yoruba theatre is over and the brightly coloured trucks carrying the companies that cruised the Nigerian Federation up to the middle of the 1980s have certainly long since been dismantled. Although many actors, musicians, and directors have indeed moved from theatre to the flourishing home-video industry, a community of actors continues to present live performances that can be categorized as “neotraditional.” This genre of Yoruba theatre is undergoing a crisis in the context of an unrelenting economic recession in Nigeria that began in the early 1980s. This situation has released tensions that lead to a real and sadly all-too-justifiable sense of insecurity and to proliferating accounts of witchcraft attacks. The outcome has been a rise in violence manifested in the unleashing of the powers of witchcraft and enflaming relations between small rival groups hitherto unified under the sway of a salaried and—at least until the beginning of the 1980s—optimistic middle class. Yoruba neotraditional theatre that represents deities on stage that belong to “an invisible world” is playing with fire and, by conjuring up the powers of witchcraft, has in turn itself been bewitched.