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The metaverse holds a prominent place in debates over the future direction of digital networks. Proponents claim that advances in virtual and augmented reality will shape every facet of social life. This article defines the metaverse, explores the state of the technology, and addresses its public policy significance. It makes use of a political economic perspective focusing on the concepts of commodification and spatialisation. Specifically, it considers how major platform and gaming companies plan to use the metaverse to expand market share. The article also addresses the cultural dimensions of the metaverse as the latest in a series of utopian visions of a digital sublime. It proceeds to take up the social problems associated with the metaverse and concludes by describing the essential policy principles that should guide public authorities in the regulating the metaverse. These principles include acknowledging that current concerns over implementation do not limit future deployment. Moreover, public policy should start by recognising that the metaverse is a public space and not the private property of the major platforms. Finally, policy must address specific social problems deepened by the arrival of the metaverse including crime, privacy, the impact on climate, and data ownership. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article addresses the transformation of the Internet from a loosely organised, decentralised and pluralistic system to a tightly controlled, centralised and commodified system under corporate and government control. Drawing on a political economy perspective, it begins by addressing key technical systems, including cloud computing, big data analytics and the Internet of Things. The paper explores how their convergence raises significant military, environmental, economic, privacy and labour issues. It concludes by considering the challenge of governing the Next Internet as a public utility like water and electricity, available to all as a citizenship right, rather than continuing to treat this vital resource as a commercial commodity, governed by private corporations driven to maximise profit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper responds to the theme of the 2009 CAIS conference, "Borders, Bridges, and Byways," in four ways. First, it takes up issues on the border of labour and language by examining the importance of viewing information as mutually constituted out of these two components. Second, it addresses the boundary between workers and users by explaining the need to incorporate workers more directly into information studies research. Third, it aims to integrate information labour with communication and cultural work. Finally, it points to the importance of bridging the divide that separates informational labour in rich countries from labour in poorer regions of the world. In doing so, the paper intends to shed light on why information studies scholars and practitioners need to spend more time on the study of labour. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The outsourcing of jobs, particularly the growing practice of sending the jobs of US knowledge and communication sector workers to other countries, has become a significant issue in academic, policy and media circles. This paper draws from a research project that examines labour, its unions and social movements in the knowledge and media sectors to describe what we know about outsourcing and assess its significance for media scholars. The paper begins by defining the knowledge worker category and by assessing debates about its significance which date from the 1950s. It next considers major views about the problems which centre on the fear of massive job loss to low-wage nations, especially India and China, and addresses solutions offered by organized labour which call for stopping outsourcing wherever possible, and by business which maintains that outsourcing can only be curtailed when business and labour grow smarter. Each of these views conveys an essential truth but each deals only with symptoms of a significant transformation in the international division of labour. Understanding this transformation, and the role of information and communication technologies, leads us to consider key dimensions in the complexity of outsourcing, Specifically, developed nations like Canada, especially in film and video, and Ireland, in new media and IT, have benefited as recipients of outsourced jobs. Less developed nations like India are not just recipients of outsourced jobs, they are beginning to lead the process. In spite of ‘end of geography’ promises, place matters and culture counts. Finally, resistance takes a multiplicity of forms, including new forms of old unions and new types of worker movements in the knowledge and media sectors. The paper concludes that we need to go beyond the generally accepted views that outsourcing is about sending jobs to low wage countries and that it can be stopped, or at least limited, either by regulation or by developing new and smarter business practices. It signals a fundamental transformation in the international division of labour that is accelerating especially in the knowledge and media sectors. Media scholars need to pay closer attention to these significant changes in the global production process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the concept of labour convergence in the context of two significant labour struggles in the Canadian communication industry: the 2005 lockouts at Canada’s national public broadcaster, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), and at Canada’s second-largest telecommunications company, the Telus Corporation. It begins with a brief analysis of convergence as a technological and institutional process, specifically as it applies to communication technology, the communication arena, and communication companies, and as a myth that contains utopian visions of universal connectedness. The article then describes how labour is deploying its own form of convergence, a form that conflicts with and sometimes “bites back” at the communication industry and its dream of friction-free capitalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Innovations in information and communication technology have deepened the problem of workplace surveillance by expanding the capacity to measure and monitor worker activity. This article assesses the extent to which trade unions in Canada have made privacy a sufficiently serious concern to see that privacy protections are incorporated into collective agreements. It assesses the progress made since Bryant's 1995 study, published in this Journal, which found practically no reference to electronic privacy protection in Canadian agreements. Specifically, the article reports on a content analysis of existing Canadian collective agreements to determine the extent to which privacy has been recognized by trade unions; to examine which sectors, industries, or individual unions have incorporated surveillance protection into their collective agreements; and to identify specific models of surveillance protection clauses in collective agreements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Outsourcing of jobs, particularly the growing practice of sending the jobs of U.S. knowledge and communication sector workers to other countries, has become a significant issue in academic, policy and media circles. The paper begins by defining knowledge workers and summarising debates about their significance dating from the 1950s. Next it considers prevailing views about the problem which centre on the fear of massive job loss to low-wage nations like India and China and prevailing solutions offered by labour- stop outsourcing wherever possible, and by business-outsourcing can only be curtailed when business and labour grow smarter. Each of these views conveys an essential truth but each deals only with symptoms of a significant transformation in the international division of labour. Understanding this transformation, and the role of information and communication technologies, leads us to consider key dimensions in the complexity of outsourcing: developed nations like Canada and Ireland have benefited as recipients of outsourced jobs; less developed nations like India are not just recipients of outsourced jobs, they are beginning to lead the process; in spite of "end of geography" promises, place matters and culture counts; and, finally, resistance takes a multiplicity of forms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At the end of World War II the United States was poised for empire. But in order to extend its imperial hegemony the United States would need to deepen it by solidifying the empire at home. Indeed,success in the war at home is a precondition for success abroad. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Communication scholars have used the concept of myth to understand important concerns of both the political economy and cultural analysis of communication. This paper builds on this work by examining myths about cyberspace and is part of a wider project that aims to address issues on the borders of political economy and cultural studies. Specifically, our understanding of cyberspace can benefit by theorizing it as a mythic space marked by powerful beliefs about a radical and transcendent disjunction celebrating the end of history, the end of geography, and the end of politics. The paper concentrates on cyberspace myths about the end of politics and how these are manifested in two substantive developments. First, there is the rise of the Progress and Freedom Foundation, a lobbying organization whose intellectual and administrative direction has been provided by George Gilder, Alvin Toffler, Newt Gingrich and others. Together these individuals launched a "New Magna Carta" in 1994 and continue to ensure that the Foundation's influence and ideological presence is still being felt. The second focus is the rebirth of the Strategic Defense Initiative, whose protective shield promises to safeguard the United States from nuclear annihilation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Features Herbert I. Schiller, a professor at the University of California in San Diego, California. Details of his life and works; Success in addressing political issues involved in information and communication; Information on Schiller's support to critical scholars.

Presents a reflection of the life and work of Professor Herbert I. Schiller in the United States. Belief on democratization of communication environment; Educational and career background; Involvement in defining the political economy of communication.

Discusses the monopoloy control of Microsoft Inc. of communication and information technology in the United States. Advances in communication and information technology; Use of innovation to gain an unfair competitive advantage; Myths about computer technology and information highways.

This article reflects on the lessons learned from the history of telegraph in the U.S. The telegraph system was created with considerable governmental assistance. It reflected and influenced the central patterns of social, cultural and economic life in the country. There were several controversies surrounding the monopoly control of the Western Union Telegraph Company over the telecommunication industry. The growth of this monopoly undoubtedly had something to do with the need to rationalize an industry suffering from excess capacity and inadequate coordination of facilities and services controlled by competing firms.

Reviews four books on British industrial relations: 'Invitation to Industrial Relations' (1985) by Tom Keenoy, 'Working Order' (1984) by Eric Batstone, and 'Unions on the Board' (1983) and 'Consent and Efficiency: Labour Relations and Management Strategy in the State Enterprise' (1984) by Eric Batstone, Anthony Ferner, and Michael Terry. Keenoy gives an overview of the current industrial relations system, while Batstone uses questionable techniques to come to questionable conclusions on labor relations from the mid-1970's to the mid-1980's. 'Unions on the Board' focuses on the Labour government's experiment in industrial democracy at the Post Office during 1978-79. The related study, 'Consent and Efficiency,' deals with the effects of recent government policies on the postal and telecommunications industries.

States that one cannot totally understand the position of computer communication technology, without taking into account some of the myths about the rise in global computer communication systems identified on the Internet, cyberspace, or the `Information Highway.' Impact of the computer on the population; Identification of a limited way to understand a myth; Details on the Information Highway; Benefits of the use of digits; Indication that myths come in various shapes and sizes.

Four paradigms lead social research on mass media and information technologies. Developmentalism, a view that links urbanization, media growth and social progress has shaped the study of international communications. Pluralism, a perspective that views state-media relations as the product of political bargaining among interest groups that represent all segments of society has led research on the politics of electronic communications. The influence of information technologies on the shape of the economy, on profits, productivity and industrial relations is guided by post-industrialism. It focuses on how technologies increase the power of information professionals and generally liberate workers from the drudgery of traditional industrial labor. Finally, a mass society perspective guides most research on the media and the private sphere of leisure. The diffusion of mass culture provides a payoff for whatever subjugation the individual must endure in the workplace. These paradigms have proven useful in directing attention to the growing impact of electronic media on economic, political and social life. Critical challenges have been slow to develop primarily because the focus of debate in critical theory has been on the cultural realm.