PURSUING THE HOLY-GRAIL - INFORMATION-HIGHWAYS AND MEDIA RECONVERGENCE IN BRITAIN AND CANADA

This article shows that media convergence has always been a historical possibility but was foreclosed by private industry and/or governments intent on preventing cross-media combinations. In contrast, the curre nt push to bring about information highways in Britain and Canada prom otes rather than prevents media reconvergence. Given the uncertainties surrounding new media, three potential evolutionary paths are suggest ed: the emergence of 'information suburbs' in contrast to che idealist ic connotations associated with information societies; new media as-ad juncts of 'old media'; or a strategy chat seeks to expand the range of universal service and media freedoms for the many rather than the few and which uses ISDN as the cornerstone of the fixed public telecommun ications network.