Academic literature on the topic 'Internet industry – Government policy – Cross-cultural studies'

This study aims to analyze the publications in Scopus around digitalization in the space of time between 2018 and 2022. A bibliometric review is carried out with a bibliographic approach for 658 documents, which were processed by RStudio and VOSviewer software. The findings show the ten fields where digitization is most applied: “Archives, Corruption and Economy”, “Industry 4.0, Internet of Things, Sustainability and Big Data”, “Cultural Heritage, Deep Learning, Preservation and BIM”, “Photogrammetry and 3D Digitalization”, “Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Supply Chain Management”, “Augmented Reality, Machine Learning and Virtual Reality”, “Innovation, Business Model and Publishing Industry”, “Algorithms, E-government and Biometrics”, “Digital Collections” and “Healthcare”. It should be noted that this document is based on 88.14% original studies, validating the results obtained, and it is also one of the most updated studies.

Objectives : Recently, the Fourth Industrial Revolution has been actively discussed in all fields around the world. And the related R&D(Research and Development) has been widely conducted in the environmental field. The core of the Fourth Industrial Revolution is hyperconnectivity, superintelligence, and convergence. Major technologies related with it are AI(Artificial Intelligence), IoT(Internet of Things), 5G(Fifth Generation communication technology), robots, blockchain, drones, 3D(Three Dimension) printers, big data, unmanned transportation, biotechnology, new materials, sharing economy, and VR/AR(Virtual Reality/Augmented Reality), etc. It is intended to seek development plans through the examples of the 4th industrial revolution technology’s environmental application.Methods : In concentration of the public technology development project, based on environmental policy, conducted from 2011 to 2020, some cases of the 4th industrial revolution technology’s environmental application have been analyzed and the future prospects have been derived.Results and Discussion : The 4th Industrial Revolution technology has been applied in various fields such as design, operation, maintenance, investigation, monitoring, and service provision in the environmental field. Therefore, in the future, it is expected that there will be working environment improvement, the progress of service quality and operational efficiency.Conclusion : With the transition to smart environmental technology, it is expected that it will be possible to advance the industry and create high value-added things. To do so, government policy support and technology development should be continuously executed.

This paper looks at the operation of telecommunications-specific competition regulation pursuant to the 1997 legislation, on the eve of a review of the 1997 legislation by the Productivity Commission. The central thesis is that the ‘brave new world’ created by the 1997 legislation, of industry self-regulation of terms and conditions of access to declared telecommunications services, has been an inhospitable land for new entrants. Neither the access nor the competitive conduct provisions have operated in the way intended by the policy-makers and anticipated by new entrants at the time of introduction of the 1997 legislation. The tools of competitive conduct regulation at the retail level have proven cumbersome and susceptible to challenge. Instead of a rapid withering away of market power under threatened or actual market entry, the emergence of the Internet and commercial deployment of digital subscriber line (DSL) technologies has meant that Telstra's ability to cross-market leverage may actually have increased and extended beyond the telephony sphere. Finally, the paper identifies key issues for the Productivity Commission's review.

Purpose : Korea has the fifth largest e-commerce market in the world owing to its high consumption and Internet penetration, but policies and research to revitalize cross-border e-commerce are insufficient. This study derives measures and major tasks to revitalize cross-border e-commerce logistics clusters in Korea. Research design, data, and methodology : In order to investigate policy conditions and problems in the cross-border e-commerce industry in Korea, an expert group is formed, and the Delphi technique is used to identify conditions and derive problems through repeated investigations. In order to establish a cross-border e-commerce logistics cluster-construction roadmap in Korea, based on a survey by a group of experts using the Delphi technique, factors for each strategy are derived, and specific, detailed strategies are sought through AHP analysis. Results and Conclusions : Analysis found that in order to create a cross-border e-commerce logistics cluster in Korea, the e-commerce industry should be revitalized, the industry should be expanded in connection with related industries, and practical support should be provided to develop the industry through improvement of the support system.

Purpose This paper aims to shed some light on the history of the Chinese videogames industry, to document the growth of the leading companies and reveal how they have been morphing into platforms delivering constellations of apps and digital content (audiovisual, films, music, literature, video streaming […]). The paper tracks the development of digital services through the prism of videogames thereby showing how this industry emerged out of the deployment of the internet. Design/methodology/approach The paper provides an overview and a synthesis of what is known about the Chinese game industry, particularly based on consultancy documents and publications from firms. The paper is based on desk research, a review of literature and trade press and the analysis of the annual reports of the leading players (NetEase, Tencent […]). Findings The rise of videogames and the creation of specific company’s “ecosystems” illustrate the capacity of the industry to innovate and its significance for the Chinese economy. It reveals that gaming has been a cornerstone of many Chinese technology companies. The (young) companies came up with the innovative business models (FTP, virtual items) that were required to further expand the market. They found new ways to interact with their customers through communities and various tools. Research limitations/implications The paper relies on consultancy documents and publications from firms on heterogeneous data from industry and consultants. This approach comes with some limitations from a methodological viewpoint. It allows documenting the historical trends and describing the industrial landscape but not to qualify the relationships among players. Besides, the use of these sources leads to a greater focus on business models and a more limited one on the policy dimension. The latter is often perceived only through the glasses of the companies. Practical implications The data provided are meant to be useful to become familiar with the Chinese games industry. Social implications The paper indicates that the online game industry is a complex web of activities with tensions and contradictions between stakeholders (industry, government and consumers). In the case of China, there is a conflict between the willingness to liberalize the economy and the will to maintain an ideological monopoly through cultural industries. Originality/value Little research has been devoted to the role of videogames in emerging economies, to its specific features and to the relationships with the media industry and the information and communications technology sector. The contribution of this “digital native” to the production and distribution of digital content remains less studied. The paper provides an up-to-date overview of the Chinese case.

PurposeThe maritime industry is crucial to the global economy and the scarcity of seafarers is an urgent concern. Seafarers are in short supply right now and will continue to be so in the foreseeable future. This study interrogates Jamaica’s position as a seafarer labour market through the prism of the industry’s apparent scarcity of seafarers (officers) while examining Jamaica’s maritime education and training system as a tool for nation-building. Previous studies have almost exclusively focused on specific jurisdictions, but as far as we know, very little research has investigated Jamaica as a maritime labour market.Design/methodology/approachTo achieve the aim of this study, mixed-method research was applied in collecting and analyzing data.FindingsThe study revealed that Jamaican seafarers possess several positive attributes such as good communication skills, they are typically well trained and have good cross-cultural skills, making them compatible with a multicultural crew. However, the supply of Jamaican seafarers continues to be low due to several challenges, including a lack of government support for the sector, lack of key stakeholder collaboration and a lack of awareness about career prospects.Research limitations/implicationsThe topic of seafarer supply is a broad one, and due to its scope and practical limitations, detailed statistical studies were not undertaken. As a result, further work is needed to establish more precise correlations between the essential variables.Practical implicationsMany findings point to Jamaica’s strengths as a provider of seafarers, yet problems and obstacles were also mentioned. The study’s findings point to a lack of maritime awareness among youth, as well as, perhaps surprisingly, among stakeholders and policymakers. The paper provides a holistic report on Jamaica’s status as a seafaring supply country that policymakers can use to inform policy and to upscale Jamaica’s seafaring output.Social implicationsA career as a seafarer can be both intriguing and lucrative. Hence, creating a conducive environment that promotes training, world-class certification and seafarers’ employment may increase seafarers’ output and, by extension, contribute to Jamaica’s economy and nation-building.Originality/valueJamaica’s status as a maritime labour market is insufficiently studied and as a result several key questions and notions have not as yet been discussed. This study explores the maritime labour market in Jamaica and documents what exists.

Purpose – This paper aims to examine the types of cloud computing, models, characteristics, descriptions, applications, considerations for use and benefits of the following technologies to library users. Cloud computing has taken libraries in Kenya by storm. Because of this, many libraries do not know what to do. They are at cross-roads. They lack policies to govern them. However, the recent realization by information professionals that cloud computing has a critical role to play in the provision of information services has created a desire to effectively harness and manage them for scholarly communication. Design/methodology/approach – The research reviewed previous studies on the topic by examining both electronic and print information resources available in the libraries and internet. Findings – The findings revealed that libraries in Kenya are yet to fully embrace cloud computing in their operations. There are mixed feelings by librarians on the degree at which they should integrate these technologies in their service provisions. However, there is a positive progress toward this noble venture. Research limitations/implications – Kenya as a developing nation has limited local content on the subject. The study established that some of the available literature is restricted by intellectual property rights. This forced the researcher to rely heavily on foreign literature for the study. Practical implications – Appreciation of emerging cloud computing technologies by libraries is inevitable for the sustainability and management of modern libraries. Cloud computing makes libraries more competitive by adequately meeting user’s technological needs. This study will also act as a benchmark for the Government of Kenya to improve the current information communication technology (ICT) national policy. Social implications – Apart from revolutionalizing library operations and delivery of services, cloud computing will tremendously revolutionize the social-cultural and communication landscape of the society. Originality/value – The paper provides vital information and insights into how libraries are embracing cloud computing in the provision and dissemination of varied information services to library users.

Akamavi, R K., Mohamed, E., Pellmann, K., & Xu, Y. (2015). Key determinants of passenger loyalty in the low-cost airline business. Tourism Management, 46, 528-545. Baldus, B.J., Voorhees, C., & Calantone, R. (2015). Online brand community engagement: Scale development and validation. Journal of Business Research, 68(5), 978-985. Boo, H.V. (2017). Service Environment of Restaurants: Findings from the youth customers. Journal of Asian Behavioural Studies, 2(2), 67-77. Bowen, T.J., & Chen, S.L. (2015). Transitioning Loyalty Programs: A Commentary on the Relationship Between Customer Loyalty & Customer Satisfaction. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 27(3), 415-430. Casidy, R., & Shin, H. (2015). The effects of harm directions and service recovery strategies on customer forgiveness and negative word-of-mouth intentions. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 27, 103-112. Chang, J.H. (2017). The role of relationship on time and monetary compensation. The Service Industries Journal, 37, 915-935. Fan, A., Mattila, A.S., & Zhao, X. (2015). How does social distance impact customers’ complaint intentions? A cross-cultural examination. International Journal of Health Policy and Management, 47, 35-42. Gohary, A., Hamzelu, B., & Alizadeh, H. (2016). Please explain why it happened! How perceived justice and customer involvement affect post co-recovery evaluations: a study of Iranian online shoppers. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 31, 127-142. Guo, L., Lotz, S.L., Tang, C., & Gruen, T.W. (2015). The role of perceived control in customer value cocreation and service recovery evaluation. Journal of Service Research, 19(1), 39-56. Heidenreich, S., Wittkowski, K., Handrich, M., & Falk, T. (2015). The dark side of customer co-creation: exploring the consequences of failed co-created services. The Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 43(3), 279-296. Hsu, C.L., & Lin, J.C.C. (2016). Effect of perceived value and social influences onmobile app stickiness and in-app purchase intention.Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 108, 42-53. Kashif, M., Zarkada, A., & Ramayah, T. (2016).The impact of attitude, subjective norms, and perceived behavioural control on managers’ intentions to behave ethically. Total Quality Management & Business Excellence, 29(5-6), 1-21. Li, M., Qiu, S.C., & Liu, Z., (2016). The Chinese way of response to hospitality service failure: The effects of face and guanxi. International Journal Hospital Management, 57, 18-29. Liu, S.Q., & Mattila, A.S. (2015). “I Want to Help” versus “I Am Just Mad” how affective commitment influences customer feedback decisions. Cornell Hospitality Quarterly, 56(2), 213-222. Oman, B., Pepur, M., & Arneric, J. (2016). The impact of service quality and sport-team identification on the repurchase intention. Journal of Contemporary Management Issues, 21(1), 19-46. Ozuem, W., Patel, A., Howell, K.E. & Lancaster, G. (2016). An Exploration of Consumers' Response to Online Service Recovery Initiatives. International Journal of Market Research, 59(1), 97-115. Park, J., & Ha, S. (2016). Co-creation of service recovery: Utilitarian and hedonic value and post-recovery responses. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 28, 310-316. Rezaei, S., Shahijan, M.K., Amin, M., & Ismail, W.K.W. (2016). Determinants ofapp stores continuance behavior: A pls path modellingapproach. Journal of Internet Commerce, 15(4), 408-440. Sengupta, S.A., Balaji, M., & Krishnan, B.C. (2015). How customers cope with service failure? A study of brand reputation and customer satisfaction. Journal of Business Research, 68(3), 665-674. Sloan, S., Bodey, K., & Gyrd-Jones, R. (2015). Knowledge sharing in online brand communities. Qualitative Market Research: An International Journal, 18(3), 320-345. Tan, C., Benbasat, I. & Cenfetelli, R.T. (2016). An Exploratory Study of the Formation and Impact of Electronic Service Failures. MIS Quarterly, 40(1), 1-31. Van Vaerenbergh, Y., & Orsingher, C. (2016). Service Recovery: An Integrative Framework and Research Agenda. The Academy of Management Perspectives, 30(3), 328-346. Varela, J.C.S., Svensson, G., Brambilla, F.R., & Oliveros, M.E.G. (2015) Perceived Justice & Emotions in a Negative Service Encounter: A Latin American Perspective. In: Kubacki K. (eds). Ideas in Marketing: Finding the New and Polishing the Old. Developments in Marketing Science: Proceedings of the Academy of Marketing Science. Cham: Springer. Vyas, V. & Raitani, S. (2015). A Study of the Impact of Relationship Marketing on Cross-Buying. Journal of Relationship Marketing, 14(2), 79-108. Weber, K., Sparks, B., & Hsu, C.H. (2016). The effects of acculturation, social distinctiveness, and social presence in a service failure situation. International Journal Hospital Management, 56, 44-55. Wu, J., Huang, L., Zhao, J.L., & Hua, Z. (2015).The deeper, the better? Effect of online brand community activity on customer purchase frequency. Information & Management, 52(7), 813-823. Yang, A., Chen, Y., & Huang, Y. (2017). Enhancing customer loyalty in tourism services: the role of customer-company identification and customer participation. Asia Pacific Journal of Tourism Research, 22(7), 735-746. Zhang, H., Zhang, K.Z., Lee, M.K., & Feng, F. (2015). Brand loyalty in enterprise microblogs: Influence of community commitment, IT habit, and participation. Information Technology & People, 28(2), 304-326.

This article explores how metaphors about what the internet is inform policymaker and industry discourses, when they propose solutions on internet safety. More specifically, it analyzes documents by key players in this debate during a period when the UK government proposed direct regulation of online harms. The study finds that policy documents construct the internet primarily as a “place” that is separate from offline experience; and to a smaller extent as a “tool” that can be abused if it falls in the wrong hands. The article argues that these constructions obscure any links between online and offline risk, and that they legitimize solutions which may not take into account the social roots of online harms. It also suggests that the discourses of policymakers and SNS companies differ in the degree of agency they attribute to users, indicating a discrepancy in their approaches as direct regulation is introduced in the UK.

Connecting I’ve moved house on the weekend, closer to the centre of an Australian capital city. I had recently signed up for broadband, with a major Australian Internet company (my first contact, cf. Turner). Now I am the proud owner of a larger modem than I have ever owned: a white cable modem. I gaze out into our new street: two thick black cables cosseted in silver wire. I am relieved. My new home is located in one of those streets, double-cabled by Telstra and Optus in the data-rush of the mid-1990s. Otherwise, I’d be moth-balling the cable modem, and the thrill of my data percolating down coaxial cable. And it would be off to the computer supermarket to buy an ASDL modem, then to pick a provider, to squeeze some twenty-first century connectivity out of old copper (the phone network our grandparents and great-grandparents built). If I still lived in the country, or the outskirts of the city, or anywhere else more than four kilometres from the phone exchange, and somewhere that cable pay TV will never reach, it would be a dish for me — satellite. Our digital lives are premised upon infrastructure, the networks through which we shape what we do, fashion the meanings of our customs and practices, and exchange signs with others. Infrastructure is not simply the material or the technical (Lamberton), but it is the dense, fibrous knotting together of social visions, cultural resources, individual desires, and connections. No more can one easily discern between ‘society’ and ‘technology’, ‘carriage’ and ‘content’, ‘base’ and ‘superstructure’, or ‘infrastructure’ and ‘applications’ (or ‘services’ or ‘content’). To understand telecommunications in action, or the vectors of fibre, we need to consider the long and heterogeneous list of links among different human and non-human actors — the long networks, to take Bruno Latour’s evocative concept, that confect our broadband networks (Latour). The co-ordinates of our infrastructure still build on a century-long history of telecommunications networks, on the nineteenth-century centrality of telegraphy preceding this, and on the histories of the public and private so inscribed. Yet we are in the midst of a long, slow dismantling of the posts-telegraph-telephone (PTT) model of the monopoly carrier for each nation that dominated the twentieth century, with its deep colonial foundations. Instead our New World Information and Communication Order is not the decolonising UNESCO vision of the late 1970s and early 1980s (MacBride, Maitland). Rather it is the neoliberal, free trade, market access model, its symbol the 1984 US judicial decision to require the break-up of AT&T and the UK legislation in the same year that underpinned the Thatcherite twin move to privatize British Telecom and introduce telecommunications competition. Between 1984 and 1999, 110 telecommunications companies were privatized, and the ‘acquisition of privatized PTOs [public telecommunications operators] by European and American operators does follow colonial lines’ (Winseck 396; see also Mody, Bauer & Straubhaar). The competitive market has now been uneasily installed as the paradigm for convergent communications networks, not least with the World Trade Organisation’s 1994 General Agreement on Trade in Services and Annex on Telecommunications. As the citizen is recast as consumer and customer (Goggin, ‘Citizens and Beyond’), we rethink our cultural and political axioms as well as the axes that orient our understandings in this area. Information might travel close to the speed of light, and we might fantasise about optical fibre to the home (or pillow), but our terrain, our band where the struggle lies today, is narrower than we wish. Begging for broadband, it seems, is a long way from warchalking for WiFi. Policy Circuits The dreary everyday business of getting connected plugs the individual netizen into a tangled mess of policy circuits, as much as tricky network negotiations. Broadband in mid-2003 in Australia is a curious chimera, welded together from a patchwork of technologies, old and newer communications industries, emerging economies and patterns of use. Broadband conjures up grander visions, however, of communication and cultural cornucopia. Broadband is high-speed, high-bandwidth, ‘always-on’, networked communications. People can send and receive video, engage in multimedia exchanges of all sorts, make the most of online education, realise the vision of home-based work and trading, have access to telemedicine, and entertainment. Broadband really entered the lexicon with the mass takeup of the Internet in the early to mid-1990s, and with the debates about something called the ‘information superhighway’. The rise of the Internet, the deregulation of telecommunications, and the involuted convergence of communications and media technologies saw broadband positioned at the centre of policy debates nearly a decade ago. In 1993-1994, Australia had its Broadband Services Expert Group (BSEG), established by the then Labor government. The BSEG was charged with inquiring into ‘issues relating to the delivery of broadband services to homes, schools and businesses’. Stung by criticisms of elite composition (a narrow membership, with only one woman among its twelve members, and no consumer or citizen group representation), the BSEG was prompted into wider public discussion and consultation (Goggin & Newell). The then Bureau of Transport and Communications Economics (BTCE), since transmogrified into the Communications Research Unit of the Department of Communications, Information Technology and the Arts (DCITA), conducted its large-scale Communications Futures Project (BTCE and Luck). The BSEG Final report posed the question starkly: As a society we have choices to make. If we ignore the opportunities we run the risk of being left behind as other countries introduce new services and make themselves more competitive: we will become consumers of other countries’ content, culture and technologies rather than our own. Or we could adopt new technologies at any cost…This report puts forward a different approach, one based on developing a new, user-oriented strategy for communications. The emphasis will be on communication among people... (BSEG v) The BSEG proposed a ‘National Strategy for New Communications Networks’ based on three aspects: education and community access, industry development, and the role of government (BSEG x). Ironically, while the nation, or at least its policy elites, pondered the weighty question of broadband, Australia’s two largest telcos were doing it. The commercial decision of Telstra/Foxtel and Optus Vision, and their various television partners, was to nail their colours (black) to the mast, or rather telegraph pole, and to lay cable in the major capital cities. In fact, they duplicated the infrastructure in cities such as Sydney and Melbourne, then deciding it would not be profitable to cable up even regional centres, let alone small country towns or settlements. As Terry Flew and Christina Spurgeon observe: This wasteful duplication contrasted with many other parts of the country that would never have access to this infrastructure, or to the social and economic benefits that it was perceived to deliver. (Flew & Spurgeon 72) The implications of this decision for Australia’s telecommunications and television were profound, but there was little, if any, public input into this. Then Minister Michael Lee was very proud of his anti-siphoning list of programs, such as national sporting events, that would remain on free-to-air television rather than screen on pay, but was unwilling, or unable, to develop policy on broadband and pay TV cable infrastructure (on the ironies of Australia’s television history, see Given’s masterly account). During this period also, it may be remembered, Australia’s Internet was being passed into private hands, with the tendering out of AARNET (see Spurgeon for discussion). No such national strategy on broadband really emerged in the intervening years, nor has the market provided integrated, accessible broadband services. In 1997, landmark telecommunications legislation was enacted that provided a comprehensive framework for competition in telecommunications, as well as consolidating and extending consumer protection, universal service, customer service standards, and other reforms (CLC). Carrier and reseller competition had commenced in 1991, and the 1997 legislation gave it further impetus. Effective competition is now well established in long distance telephone markets, and in mobiles. Rivalrous competition exists in the market for local-call services, though viable alternatives to Telstra’s dominance are still few (Fels). Broadband too is an area where there is symbolic rivalry rather than effective competition. This is most visible in advertised ADSL offerings in large cities, yet most of the infrastructure for these services is comprised by Telstra’s copper, fixed-line network. Facilities-based duopoly competition exists principally where Telstra/Foxtel and Optus cable networks have been laid, though there are quite a number of ventures underway by regional telcos, power companies, and, most substantial perhaps, the ACT government’s TransACT broadband network. Policymakers and industry have been greatly concerned about what they see as slow takeup of broadband, compared to other countries, and by barriers to broadband competition and access to ‘bottleneck’ facilities (such as Telstra or Optus’s networks) by potential competitors. The government has alternated between trying to talk up broadband benefits and rates of take up and recognising the real difficulties Australia faces as a large country with a relative small and dispersed population. In March 2003, Minister Alston directed the ACCC to implement new monitoring and reporting arrangements on competition in the broadband industry. A key site for discussion of these matters has been the competition policy institution, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, and its various inquiries, reports, and considerations (consult ACCC’s telecommunications homepage at http://www.accc.gov.au/telco/fs-telecom.htm). Another key site has been the Productivity Commission (http://www.pc.gov.au), while a third is the National Office on the Information Economy (NOIE - http://www.noie.gov.au/projects/access/access/broadband1.htm). Others have questioned whether even the most perfectly competitive market in broadband will actually provide access to citizens and consumers. A great deal of work on this issue has been undertaken by DCITA, NOIE, the regulators, and industry bodies, not to mention consumer and public interest groups. Since 1997, there have been a number of governmental inquiries undertaken or in progress concerning the takeup of broadband and networked new media (for example, a House of Representatives Wireless Broadband Inquiry), as well as important inquiries into the still most strategically important of Australia’s companies in this area, Telstra. Much of this effort on an ersatz broadband policy has been piecemeal and fragmented. There are fundamental difficulties with the large size of the Australian continent and its harsh terrain, the small size of the Australian market, the number of providers, and the dominant position effectively still held by Telstra, as well as Singtel Optus (Optus’s previous overseas investors included Cable & Wireless and Bell South), and the larger telecommunications and Internet companies (such as Ozemail). Many consumers living in metropolitan Australia still face real difficulties in realising the slogan ‘bandwidth for all’, but the situation in parts of rural Australia is far worse. Satellite ‘broadband’ solutions are available, through Telstra Countrywide or other providers, but these offer limited two-way interactivity. Data can be received at reasonable speeds (though at far lower data rates than how ‘broadband’ used to be defined), but can only be sent at far slower rates (Goggin, Rural Communities Online). The cultural implications of these digital constraints may well be considerable. Computer gamers, for instance, are frustrated by slow return paths. In this light, the final report of the January 2003 Broadband Advisory Group (BAG) is very timely. The BAG report opens with a broadband rhapsody: Broadband communications technologies can deliver substantial economic and social benefits to Australia…As well as producing productivity gains in traditional and new industries, advanced connectivity can enrich community life, particularly in rural and regional areas. It provides the basis for integration of remote communities into national economic, cultural and social life. (BAG 1, 7) Its prescriptions include: Australia will be a world leader in the availability and effective use of broadband...and to capture the economic and social benefits of broadband connectivity...Broadband should be available to all Australians at fair and reasonable prices…Market arrangements should be pro-competitive and encourage investment...The Government should adopt a National Broadband Strategy (BAG 1) And, like its predecessor nine years earlier, the BAG report does make reference to a national broadband strategy aiming to maximise “choice in work and recreation activities available to all Australians independent of location, background, age or interests” (17). However, the idea of a national broadband strategy is not something the BAG really comes to grips with. The final report is keen on encouraging broadband adoption, but not explicit on how barriers to broadband can be addressed. Perhaps this is not surprising given that the membership of the BAG, dominated by representatives of large corporations and senior bureaucrats was even less representative than its BSEG predecessor. Some months after the BAG report, the Federal government did declare a broadband strategy. It did so, intriguingly enough, under the rubric of its response to the Regional Telecommunications Inquiry report (Estens), the second inquiry responsible for reassuring citizens nervous about the full-privatisation of Telstra (the first inquiry being Besley). The government’s grand $142.8 million National Broadband Strategy focusses on the ‘broadband needs of regional Australians, in partnership with all levels of government’ (Alston, ‘National Broadband Strategy’). Among other things, the government claims that the Strategy will result in “improved outcomes in terms of services and prices for regional broadband access; [and] the development of national broadband infrastructure assets.” (Alston, ‘National Broadband Strategy’) At the same time, the government announced an overall response to the Estens Inquiry, with specific safeguards for Telstra’s role in regional communications — a preliminary to the full Telstra sale (Alston, ‘Future Proofing’). Less publicised was the government’s further initiative in indigenous telecommunications, complementing its Telecommunications Action Plan for Remote Indigenous Communities (DCITA). Indigenous people, it can be argued, were never really contemplated as citizens with the ken of the universal service policy taken to underpin the twentieth-century government monopoly PTT project. In Australia during the deregulatory and re-regulatory 1990s, there was a great reluctance on the part of Labor and Coalition Federal governments, Telstra and other industry participants, even to research issues of access to and use of telecommunications by indigenous communicators. Telstra, and to a lesser extent Optus (who had purchased AUSSAT as part of their licence arrangements), shrouded the issue of indigenous communications in mystery that policymakers were very reluctant to uncover, let alone systematically address. Then regulator, the Australian Telecommunications Authority (AUSTEL), had raised grave concerns about indigenous telecommunications access in its 1991 Rural Communications inquiry. However, there was no government consideration of, nor research upon, these issues until Alston commissioned a study in 2001 — the basis for the TAPRIC strategy (DCITA). The elision of indigenous telecommunications from mainstream industry and government policy is all the more puzzling, if one considers the extraordinarily varied and significant experiments by indigenous Australians in telecommunications and Internet (not least in the early work of the Tanami community, made famous in media and cultural studies by the writings of anthropologist Eric Michaels). While the government’s mid-2003 moves on a ‘National Broadband Strategy’ attend to some details of the broadband predicament, they fall well short of an integrated framework that grasps the shortcomings of the neoliberal communications model. The funding offered is a token amount. The view from the seat of government is a glance from the rear-view mirror: taking a snapshot of rural communications in the years 2000-2002 and projecting this tableau into a safety-net ‘future proofing’ for the inevitable turning away of a fully-privately-owned Telstra from its previously universal, ‘carrier of last resort’ responsibilities. In this aetiolated, residualist policy gaze, citizens remain constructed as consumers in a very narrow sense in this incremental, quietist version of state securing of market arrangements. What is missing is any more expansive notion of citizens, their varied needs, expectations, uses, and cultural imaginings of ‘always on’ broadband networks. Hybrid Networks “Most people on earth will eventually have access to networks that are all switched, interactive, and broadband”, wrote Frances Cairncross in 1998. ‘Eventually’ is a very appropriate word to describe the parlous state of broadband technology implementation. Broadband is in a slow state of evolution and invention. The story of broadband so far underscores the predicament for Australian access to bandwidth, when we lack any comprehensive, integrated, effective, and fair policy in communications and information technology. We have only begun to experiment with broadband technologies and understand their evolving uses, cultural forms, and the sense in which they rework us as subjects. Our communications networks are not superhighways, to invoke an enduring artefact from an older technology. Nor any longer are they a single ‘public’ switched telecommunications network, like those presided over by the post-telegraph-telephone monopolies of old. Like roads themselves, or the nascent postal system of the sixteenth century, broadband is a patchwork quilt. The ‘fibre’ of our communications networks is hybrid. To be sure, powerful corporations dominate, like the Tassis or Taxis who served as postmasters to the Habsburg emperors (Briggs & Burke 25). Activating broadband today provides a perspective on the path dependency of technology history, and how we can open up new threads of a communications fabric. Our options for transforming our multitudinous networked lives emerge as much from everyday tactics and strategies as they do from grander schemes and unifying policies. We may care to reflect on the waning potential for nation-building technology, in the wake of globalisation. We no longer gather our imagined community around a Community Telephone Plan as it was called in 1960 (Barr, Moyal, and PMG). Yet we do require national and international strategies to get and stay connected (Barr), ideas and funding that concretely address the wider dimensions of access and use. We do need to debate the respective roles of Telstra, the state, community initiatives, and industry competition in fair telecommunications futures. Networks have global reach and require global and national integration. Here vision, co-ordination, and resources are urgently required for our commonweal and moral fibre. To feel the width of the band we desire, we need to plug into and activate the policy circuits. Thanks to Grayson Cooke, Patrick Lichty, Ned Rossiter, John Pace, and an anonymous reviewer for helpful comments. Works Cited Alston, Richard. ‘ “Future Proofing” Regional Communications.’ Department of Communications, Information Technology and the Arts, Canberra, 2003. 17 July 2003 <http://www.dcita.gov.au/Article/0,,0_1-2_3-4_115485,00.php> —. ‘A National Broadband Strategy.’ Department of Communications, Information Technology and the Arts, Canberra, 2003. 17 July 2003 <http://www.dcita.gov.au/Article/0,,0_1-2_3-4_115486,00.php>. Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC). Broadband Services Report March 2003. Canberra: ACCC, 2003. 17 July 2003 <http://www.accc.gov.au/telco/fs-telecom.htm>. —. Emerging Market Structures in the Communications Sector. 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MLA Style Goggin, Gerard. "Broadband" M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture< http://www.media-culture.org.au/0308/02-featurebroadband.php>. APA Style Goggin, G. (2003, Aug 26). Broadband. M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture, 6,< http://www.media-culture.org.au/0308/02-featurebroadband.php>

Defence date: 17 September 2001
Examining Board: Prof. Richard Breen, European University Institute (co-supervisor); Prof. Gary Chapman, University of Texas, Austin; Prof. Giorgio Natalicchi, Università di Firenze; Prof. Thomas Risse, European University Institute (Supervisor)
First made available online on 11 April 2018
Over the last decade, the Internet has transformed how information can be made available-it is now used to transfer information about things as varied as financial transactions and celebrity gossip and to link and coordinate activities between otherwise isolated people, from protest groups to lonely hearts. This unprecedented ease of access to a wealth of information and contacts presents a challenge to national governments who wish to control and restrain some of this activity. In recent years, Internet control has become one of the major indicators to assess the balance between freedom and security in democracies. This book explores and compares how, why, and to what extent, national governments decide to control the Internet and how this impacts on crucial socio-economic activities and fundamental civil rights. The author provides detailed studies on the US, Germany, Italy and further case studies on Brazil, Canada, India, the Netherlands, South Africa and Switzerland, to address topics such cyberterrorism, the protection of information infrastructure, and the impact on individual privacy and freedom of speech. This is the first cross-country, comparative study on the issue of Internet control. It will be of interest to international relations scholars and students, and particularly those with an interest in the Internet.