Jessie P.H. Poon

Hierarchical Tendencies of Capital Markets Among International Financial Centers

Abstract The dramatic evolution of global finance in the last three decades has seen intensified competition among the worlds major cities to become prominent control centers of global financial flows. This paper examines the spatial organization and evolution of capital markets in forty-three world cities from 1980 to 1998. It finds evidence of the strengthening of hierarchical tendencies among world financial and capital cities as they search for ways to differentiate between themselves through financial concentration and productivity. The results also indicate a trend towards the dominance of London and New York in this financial hierarchy, and that top tier cities tend to be characterized by significantly lower levels of market and share concentrations, share trading value, and risks. Finally, important differences in ownership patterns between the capital markets are detected for the top cities of the hierarchy. Copyright 2003 Gatton College of Business and Economics, University of Kentucky..

The Internet Highway and Religious Communities: Mapping and Contesting Spaces in Religion-Online

We examine “religion-online,” an underrepresented area of research in new media, communication, and geography, with a multilevel study of the online representation and (re)presentation of Protestant Christian organizations in Singapore, which has one of the highest Internet penetration rates in the world and also believers affiliated with all the major world religions. We first critically discuss and empirically examine how online technologies are employed for religious community building in novel and diverse ways. Then we investigate the role religious leaders play through their mental representations of the spatial practices and scales through which their religious communities are imagined and practiced online. We show how churches use the multimodality of the Internet to assemble multiple forms of visible data and maps to extend geographic sensibilities of sacred space and create new social practices of communication.

Weaving Webs of Faith: Examining Internet Use and Religious Communication Among Chinese Protestant Transmigrants

Abstract This paper examines the relationship between new media use and international communication that addresses religiosity and affirms users’ standpoints occupied by transmigrants that are marginalized in dominant societal structures. Drawing from focus group interviews among recent Chinese Protestant immigrants in Toronto, we argue that new media “use” is broadened by users’ cultural appropriation in situational contexts to include proxy internet access as accommodative communication given the political and legal constraints in their home country. Chinese transmigrants not only reinterpret and alter semantic associations that spiritualize the internet, they also engage in innovative strategies that involve the intertwining of offline and online communicative modes. These include deploying complementary media forms or communicating in codes that are mutually understood among participating members to facilitate intragroup networking among Chinese religious communities. Implications are discussed with regard to the importance of cultural norms and situational context in shaping mediated international communication.

WWW.FAITH.ORG (Re)structuring communication and the social capital of religious organizations

This paper examines the relationships between Internet and social capital building within religious organizations, which are relatively understudied foci. Building upon theoretical insights provided by new institutionalism and recent research on the Internet, social capital and religion, this article explores the ways in which religious organizations have (re)structured their norms, values, and practices of religious community in light of the incorporation of the Internet into their congregational life. Drawing from interviews conducted with Christian and Buddhist religious leaders in Toronto, this article discusses three major relationships in which the effects of the Internet on social capital may be understood, that is, complementary, transformative, and perverse relationships. Religious organizations are traditionally associated with relatively high stocks of social capital, yet findings here suggest that their communicative norms, values, and practices are changing to a varying extent. The results also indicate that the relationship between the Internet and social capital building is largely complementary; however, the Internet is perceived by some to be a ‘mixed blessing’, facilitating the potential transformation of organizational practices that affect community norms while leading to the dispersion of religious ties that could undermine community solidarity. Thus, contrary to earlier studies that have documented no evidence of innovations involving the reconfiguration of organizational practices and the adjustment of mission or services, findings here illustrate how some religious organizations have expanded the scope of their calling and restructured their communicative practices to spur administrative and operational effectiveness. Like other organizations, religious organizations are not insulated from technological changes including those associated with the Internet. This study clarifies and identifies key ways in which the distinct spirituality, cultural values, and institutional practices and norms of religious organizations influence communication processes that constitute bridging and bonding forms of social capital in this dot.org era of faith.

Cultivating online and offline pathways to enlightenment: Religious authority and strategic arbitration in wired Buddhist organization

In light of expanding epistemic resources online, the mediatization of religion poses questions about the possible changes, decline and reconstruction of clergy authority. Distinct from virtual Buddhism or cybersangha research which relies primarily on online observational data, this paper examines Buddhist clergy communication within the context of established religious organizations with an integrationist perspective on interpersonal communication and new and old media connections. Drawing on in-depth interviews with Buddhist leaders in Singapore, this paper illustrates ways in which priests are expanding their communicative competency, which we label ‘strategic arbitration’ to maintain their authority by restructuring multimodal representations and communicative influence. This study expands upon previous research by Cheong et al. (in press, Journal of Communication) and finds that constituting Buddhist religious epistemic authority in wired organizational contexts rests on coordinating online–offline communicative acts. Such concatenative coordination involves normalizing the aforementioned modality of authority through interpersonal acts that positively influences epistemic dependence. Communicative acts that privilege face-to-face mentoring and corporeal rituals are optimized in the presence of monks within perceived sacred spaces in temple grounds, thereby enabling clergy to perform ultimate arbitration. However, Buddhist leaders also increase bargaining power when heightened web presence and branding practices are enacted. The paper concludes with limitations and recommendations for future research in religious authority.

Objectivity, Subjectivity, and Intersubjectivity in Economic Geography: Evidence from the Internet and Blogosphere

Prevailing attempts to reconcile paradigmatic differences in human and economic geography have tended to occur at the methodological level. Methodological concerns, however, do not adequately address the chasm that divides constructivist and positivist geographers in their understanding of the first-person subject and third-person object. Separability of the first- and third-person positions perpetuates a Cartesian world of subjects and objects. A relational economic geography coordinates subjective and objective relations intersubjectively through the second-person position. This intersubjective approach highlights knowledge construction as an interrelated phenomenon arising from the social interactions and communication of economic agents. Subjects and objects change positions while interacting, so that objective facts and judgment become subjectivized, and subjective experiences also become objectivized. We illustrate the role of interpersonal and reciprocal knowledge construction using the case example of computer vendor Dell, which recently launched a business Weblog to interact directly with its customers. Weblog discourses reveal communicative behavior directed both at seeking objective information and at locating subjective experiences, transforming objects and subjects in the context of socially situated intersubjective relationships.