Telecommunications and the Changing Geographies of Knowledge Transmission in the Late 20th Century

Abstract

Sum m ary. R ecen t innovation s in telecom m unication s and com puting, enhanced by a glob al w aveof deregu lation and the em ergen ce of post-F ord ist prod uction regim es, have unleash ed profou nd transfo rm ations of variou s service sectors in the glob al econ om y. This paper ® rst review s the geograp hical repercu ssion s of the exp losion of inform ation services , including the birth of electron ic funds tran sfer system s, the grow th of global cities and the dispersal of back of® ces to low -w age sites across the glob e. Secon dly, it exp lores the political econ omy and spatiality of the largest of these system s, the Internet. Thirdly, it summ arises how the glob al division of labour has recen tly engen dered the birth of`new inform ation spaces' , places whose recent grow th is con tingent upon the introd uction of telecom munication s, citin g as exam ples Singap ore, H ungary and the D om inican R epublic.

Towards geographies of cyberspace

“…Langdale, 1989;Warf, 1995;Castells, 1988;, has been growing in strength. To some, knowledge and information are in the process of replacing labour and capital as the central variables of the western economy: the processes of production, consumption and management are becoming increasingly reliant on knowledge generation, information exchanges and information handling.…”

“…Accompanied by deregulatory changes, which introduced new competition, investment and a desire to expand to capture a larger market share, cyberspatial technologies are seen to be facilitating the internationalization of production (Langdale, 1989), international networking, crosscultural contacts, the internationalization of financial markets, and increased international co-operation, joint ventures, strategic alliances and mergers (Robinson, 1991). Here, informational technologies are being used to increase the scale of production, as driven by the logic of accumulation, and to increase the scale of consumption, as driven by the logic of commodification (Waters, 1995). Transnational companies thus take on a new, greater power through the effective management of their structure, using information transfer to gain competitive advantage over smaller operations.…”

“…The teleport is essentially a high-tech office park offering advanced telecommunications links via satellite and fibreoptic connections (Warf, 1995). By centralizing the facilities, teleports provide significant scales of economy to small users who cannot afford private intranet connections.…”

Competitive Cities in the Global Economy

“…The increased share of multinational companies in the world economy has increased the need for global command and control. Warf (1995) points to the potential of ICTs to widen the span of control of companies enormously. They can therefore become larger than before, and from a central point drive and steer many more activities over far greater distances.…”

Political Institutions and the Development of Telecomunications

“…On firm level, telecommunications are believed to allow for more flexible and geographically disperse organizations that benefit from regional comparative advantages (Wellenius, 1977;Yilmaz, Haynes and Dinc, 2002). Thus, telecommunications investment has been treated as a growing source of productivity gains for firms that have to deal with the increasingly information-intensive nature of production (Warf, 1995) and those that actively use outsourcing and multiple locations. At the same time, investment in telecommunications infrastructure is found to exhibit negative spillover effects, becoming a competitive tool for attracting factors of production (Yilmaz et al, 2002).…”