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The Emergent Global Information Policy Regime Edited by Sandra Braman Palgrave Macmillan International Political Economy Series 2004 262 pp. ISBN 1-4039-0369-7 hardback £55.00
Keywords Information society, Internet, Information technology, Globalisation
Review DOI 10.1108/00242530610656037
This is an important book. Librarians and information specialists are skilled in using and applying the new information technologies, but do they know how global (and hence national) information policy is decided and by whom? Who owns the Internet? How is it regulated? How do we find out about these matters, and how can people forge a new governance regime for Internet users? The focus of this engaging volume is the rapid emergence of a new regime of information management and policy that controls the legal, technical and socio-economic aspects of the Internet and how we should understand and conceptualise these vital developments. As the editor argues, struggles over governance of global information networks among governments and international organizations, corporations and NGOs, elites and civil society "will determine how we communicate, the extent of our civil liberties and human rights, the profitability of e-commerce, and the richness of cultural expression".
Ten concise chapters cover key issues of global telecommunications regimes: how the Internet has massively expanded codification of knowledge and infrastructure but clouded information policy (Kahin); a study of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) and INTELSAT (the world's largest commercial satellite communications service provider) (Mueller and Thompson); exclusion and territoriality - scholars are confusing the form of networks with...