Dan Schiller

An update on China in the political economy of information and communications

In prior research I have attempted to bring out the salience of two converging political‐economic trends. One originates in the communications and information sector, which throughout prior decades has evolved into the lead zone of business investment and profit‐making. The second stems from China, whose reinsertion into global capitalism has generated a powerful economic surge: in 2007, International Monetary Fund projects, for the first time, China will contribute more to global economic growth than any other nation. How, I asked, are these two vectors of change related? What connections exist between capitalisms most dynamic industry and its most expansionary growth zone? The present article constitutes a progress report on these issues, which continue to be fundamental.

The hidden history of US public service telecommunications, 1919‐1956

Purpose – The aim of this article is to show that US public‐service telecommunications, developing through a complex historical process, both engendered and depended on policies that compelled major changes in system development.Design/methodology/approach – The article contributes to the historiography of US telecommunications, and draws on archival sources and secondary scholarship.Findings – The article shows that public service policies for telecommunications gradually became dominant, as widespread opposition to AT&Ts corporate power gained political traction beginning in the 1930s. Although substantially limited, public service policies came to encompass expansion of service, labor relations, and corporate patents.Originality/value – The article demonstrates that political conflict and crisis, not consensus, drove policy formation. It also shows that public service principles went far beyond the preferences of AT&T executives.

Geopolitical-economic conflict and network infrastructures

This article explicates three basic aspects of the conflicted history of transnational communications networks: How extraterritorial communications have functioned since the nineteenth century as a primary axis of expansion for a transnationalizing capitalism; how geopolitical pressures and rivalries have helped break down and reconstitute network infrastructures; and how contemporary US–China relations in respect to the Internet may be set within this historical framework. The longstanding dominance of the United States over extraterritorial networks was itself a historical outcome, and today it faces escalating – but still far from successful – challenges.

Systems of Information: The Long View

In response to the perceived (by some) onset of an information society, historians have begun to study its roots and antecedents. The past is replete with the rise, fall, and transformation of systems of information, which are not to be confused with the narrower computer-mediated world of information systems. The history of systems of information—which for digestibility can be labeled information history—lacks neither scale nor scope. Systems of information have played a critical role in the transition to, and subsequent development of, capitalism; the growth of the state, especially the modern, nation-state; the rise of modernity, science, and the public sphere; imperialism; and geopolitics. In the context of these epochal shifts and episodes in human thinking and social organization, this essay presents a critical bibliographic survey of histories—outside the well-trodden paths of library and information-science history—that have foregrounded, or made reference to, a wide variety of systems of information.

Making public‐service telecommunications: past and present challenges for networked information infrastructures

Purpose – To lay out the basis for the special symposium on public service telecommunications.Design/methodology/approach – Conceptual outline of some key issues.Findings – The opportunity to revisit the subject of public service telecommunications is both timely and important.Originality/value – The subject of public service telecommunications has been unduly neglected; this symposium constitutes a fresh and well‐informed scholarly engagement.

History in the iSchools

Although scholars have continually thought to focus on what information may be, questions about how and why information comes to us have been neglected and remain poorly understood. Our session seeks to address this lacuna by exploring historical conceptions of information and by developing the idea of “systems of information provision.” The conversation will engage in such questions as: What is to be gained by considering history in explorations of big data, data analytics, and informational systems? On the other hand, what hazards lie in a study of information that does not account for the forces of history? How does the current “data-driven” moment shed light on the past? How might iSchools enrich their programs by offering historical perspectives on the study of data, documents, information, libraries, archives, networks, and technologies? And are there dangers in information histories taking an instrumental cue from present-day information requirements and issues?