Digital Capitalism: Networking the Global Market System

By Dan Schiller

Book Overview

Schiller traces the transformation of the Internet from government, military, and educational tool to agent of "digital capitalism" through three critically important and interlinked realms. The networks that comprise cyberspace were originally created at the behest of government agencies, military contractors, and allied educational institutions. Over the past generation or so, however, a growing number of these networks began to serve primarily corporate users. Under the sway of an expansionary market logic, the Internet began a political-economic transition toward what Dan Schiller calls "digital capitalism." Schiller traces these metamorphoses through three critically important and interlinked realms. Parts I and II deal with the overwhelmingly "neoliberal" or market-driven policies that influence and govern the telecommunications system and their empowerment of transnational corporations while at the same time exacerbating exisiting social inequalities. Part III shows how cyberspace offers uniquely supple instruments with which to cultivate and deepen consumerism on a transnational scale, especially among privileged groups. Finally, Part IV shows how digital capitalism has already overtaken education, placing it at the mercy of a proprietary market logic.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0262692333
• ISBN13: 9780262692335
• Release Date: February 2000
• Publisher: Mit Pr
• Length: 320 Pages
• Weight: 1.18 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 1.5" x 6.0"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

A Good Read!

Dan Schiller's book is an exhaustive history and analysis of network deregulation, the Internet, and the emerging global economic order. In this academic work, Schiller examines the social and political issues of the Internet, the new economic landscape. He is, above all, a critic of the political realities that shaped the Internet. He laments its lack of social and "welfarist" features and argues that a system created by market forces to serve market forces can only exacerbate existing inequities. His dry, academic tone still reveals a little emotion, making it clear that Schiller is no cheerleader for the neo-liberal orientation he perceives on the Internet. Is there an overt political slant to the book? You might say that. We [...] recommend it to students of economics, social sciences, and communications, and to anyone else with a good political filter who wants to better understand the Internet's impact on the global economy, albeit from a U.S. perspective.