Telecommunications and transnationalism: The polarization of social space

This article critically assesses the policy orientation, social impacts, an d linkages of telecommunications in the United States within a government d eregulated policy environment and an increasingly globalized economy. Dereg ulation has been driven by both ideological and technological demands, stem ming from several political and economic transformations in the world econo my, the collapse of state socialism in eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, and greater oligopolistic competition among transnational corporati ons. An expanded infrastructure of new digital information and communicatio ns technology (ICT) is the foundation of a worldwide political economic reg ime of accumulation. ICT increases command and control capabilities of larg e corporations, together with the mobility and liquidity of capital, making it essential to the restructuring of the world economy, the new internatio nal division of labor, and the creation of global "information city" networ ks. At the same time, government deregulation and rapid technological chang e are associated with a number of spatial, economic, and social dualisms.