The tension underlying interactive television (TV) systems stems from the clash between interactivity as a communication model and TV as an organizing platform. Conventional TV is a communication system with an information-producing-and-distributing center and an information-receiving periphery. Interactive communication, on the other hand, is a catalyst for a power shift away from the center as the media are reorganized into two-way communication systems. The telecommunications firms, however, organize interactive TV following the conventional TV model because it is a historically familiar and successful economic model and an exemplary control mechanism for the production, distribution, and consumption of information. Thereby interactivity in interactive TV is reduced to mechanical query-response/request-delivery processes. Since interactive TV does not unleash the new liberties of communicative action offered by new technologies, the supposedly new medium is not really a new medium.

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While it is quite natural for us to be drawn to the new potentialities wireless fidelity (Wi-Fi) represents, we should give pause and place it within its proper context and take a long-term view of the phenomenon. One of the repeated shortcomings of the research on new technologies has been that the researchers have time and again studied them in isolation. A new technology does not strike roots and grow on a virgin ground. Instead, it encounters a terrain marked by old technologies. The new technology's growth then is shaped not only by its own potentialities but also the opportunities and restraints created by the systems based on old technologies. In order to expand the perspective beyond Wi-Fi to those that preceded it, this paper draws on the framework provided by Infrastructure Development Model (IDM), which delineates eight stages through which infrastructure networks (railroads, telegraph, telephone, and others) typically go in their development, to study its emergence.

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Mobile is the new technology of the day. But we need to keep in mind that it is the latest new technology. In other words, there have been new technologies in the past and there will be more in the future. Mobile is certainly worthy of scholarly attention. However, the exercise will be more productive if we expand the frame within which we situate mobile.One of the disappointments of past new technology research has been that it has very often stayed at the descriptive level. The tendency seems to be getting amplified with each new technology because of the increasing opportunities to capture data. Consequently, researchers often let data gathering and analysis techniques drive their research rather than a substantive theoretical question. The research thus produced has an unfortunate market research feel to it, especially the numerous studies on the demographic and psychographic profiles of mobile users. What then is the hallmark of scholarship? The answer has to be theory development.Unfortunately, even studies that are situated within a theoretical framework often do not advance theory. For instance, with the arrival of each new technology, one can be assured of inevitable papers on its diffusion. They will be meticulous in form with an extensive literature review, a theoretical vocabulary, and a sophisticated methodology. Their main claim to fame will be that they were among the first to study the diffusion of a particular new technology. Furthermore, they will even get published in established journals for the very same reason. But it will be a pleasant surprise if they advance diffusion theory (Sawhney & Sandvig, 2006). 1 Do we need diffusion studies for every new technology? There should be a theoretical rationale for each new diffusion study. Otherwise, we are simply running Harmeet Sawhney (PhD, University of Texas-Austin) is a professor of telecommunications at

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The entrenched institutions have repeatedly failed to understand the ‘new configurational potentiality’ of a new communication technology that enables new social and organizational configurations. While the potential for radical innovation made possible by a new communication technology remains below the corporate radar, it is often experimentation by fringe groups outside the established institutional framework that facilitates its realization. This article examines the systemic qualities of the ‘arenas of innovation’ arising out of communities of technology enthusiasts brought together by the new technology that allow fringe groups to generate critical insights that escape corporate eyes. The analysis starts with an examination of the systemic properties of the arena of innovation within which radio’s new configurational potentiality, broadcasting, was identified. Thereafter, the analysis moves to our own times and looks at the arena of innovation that has emerged around the Internet. Finally, the article draws on the experience with radio and the Internet to identify and discuss the defining qualities of an archetypal arena of innovation.