Journal articles on the topic 'Telecommunication – Technological innovations – European Union countries'

Innovation and unemployment are two economic elements related to each other that have been constantly analyzed in the economic debates from the beginning of the 21st century. A classical question is whether innovation creates or destroys jobs. The conventional approach contemplates innovation as a transformation instrument of an economy, resulting in economic growth and jobs creation. Another approach points out to various mechanisms which can compensate the primary effect of innovations and cause an ultimate effect of innovations on labour demand to be unclear. In view of the fact that there are many different explanations about the impact of innovations on labour demand, this paper, after the analysis of theoretical and empirical scientific literature in this field, provides an empirical analysis with unemployment as the dependent variable. The authors use data from 28 European Union countries for the period of 1992–2016 and pursue to research how technological innovations affect unemployment rate. There are two core independent variables – expenditure on R&D (research and development) and number of patent applications – as the main proxies for technological innovations. Control variables that affect unemployment are included to the model as well. The model was estimated using a dynamic two-step System Generalized Method of Moments (GMM-SYS) of a panel data system. After the composition of 12 different estimations of the model, the results suggest that, in some cases, technological innovations affect unemployment.

We study an endogenous stochastic growth model whose dynamic evolution is determined by an adaptive learning process defining the accumulation of technological knowledge within countries. Both the assimilation of technological knowledge and the arrival rate of innovations depend on the technological development level of countries. We illustrate how heterogeneous levels of technological development provide laggard countries with insufficient innovation incentives, leading to divergences in total factor productivity and their technological stagnation. The model is simulated numerically using data from the current Innovation Union Scoreboard where the main expected growth patterns of the Baltic States are compared to those of the reference innovators within the European Union area.

This paper investigates how firm-level innovation and productivity affect the export propensity in manufacturing firms in seven Eastern European Union countries. With respect to innovation activities, we analyze the complementarity between pair-wise product, process and non-technological (organizational and marketing) innovations when the objective function is represented by the exporting probability of a firm. Analyzing CIS2008 data, we find that productivity always has a positive and significant impact on the exporting propensity of firms. Furthermore, complex innovative firms, when large in size and/or from medium high–high technology sectors, can take advantage in terms of a higher attitude to export than non-innovators and simple innovators. By considering these results, governments have to introduce policies that can induce firms, especially small and medium ones, to implement complex innovations. This is fundamental in order to be more productive and more competitive.

Innovations in the Practice of Production and Trade Enterprises in EU CountriesModern theories are increasingly focusing on innovations. Scientific literature states that the implementation of innovations causes increase in sales volume: enterprises are improving the organization of production and trade methods, reducing production and trade costs, producing and selling competitive products as a result of technological progress. Technological progress also influences the development of production and trade prospects. Although the implementation of innovations is different, the main aspects are related to the novelty of product, production and service R&D intensity and the qualification of employees. Enterprises without the capacity to innovate may invest time and resources in studies of research results but are unable to transform this knowledge into practice Hult et al., 2004. In such sense it is important to create innovative behaviors and related outcomes on country level Koellinger, Thurik, 2009.Production and trade enterprises have a significant impact on the national economy, but the number of enterprises that have excellent understanding about innovations and their results is not sufficient. Sales of the trade enterprises in the European Union amount to 66%, and 74% of gross domestic product GDP in Lithuania. At the same time sales of the production enterprises in the European Union amount to 15.5% of GDP, and in Lithuania — 21% of GDP. Production and trade enterprises play a significant part among business companies. In corporate structure of the European Union 9.8% of companies are production companies which employ 22.6% of EU workers, while in the structure of the European Union 28.6% of companies are trade companies and these companies employ 24.7% of EU workers. However, in the trade sector there are 90% of companies, and in the production — 84% of companies with up to nine employees Euro-stat, 2010. Nevertheless, the European Commission’s 2013 study shows the declining contribution of production enterprises to GDP. Eurostat 2010 statistics show that small and medium-sized manufacturing companies are very slow to improve their operations and labor productivity. The EU com­panies are anticipated to increase by only 2.4% compared with the US companies, where growth of labor productivity is 3.5%Therefore, innovations are also important for the EU trade and production companies. To sum up the above set out material, it can be said that the application of innovations must be considered as a very complex cognitive subject.The article consists of three parts to fully examine the implementation of innovations in production and trade enterprises.First, literature analysis is carried out and topic related aspects are identified. In the second part the paper presents empirical research methodology. Herein, practices of production and trade enterprises are presented, comparison of production and trade enterprises is carried out, and effects on the activeness of enterprises regarding the opportunities of innovation implementation in this area are analyzed.In the third part the article presents empirical research results, conclusions and recommendations. Literature analysis reveals that the greatest role innovation plays in international companies, however the number of such enterprises is very small in the EU. The results also show that produc­tion and trade companies from Luxembourg have higher competitiveness than the enterprises from other countries. Overall the paper glances into whether, to what extent, how companies innovate, and how this differs between production and trade service industries.

Purpose: The aim of the article is to identify and compare various types of product innovations and business processes in the area of health in selected countries of the European Union. The rationale for undertaking research on this subject resulted from the lack of scientific studies on innovation in the health sector. Design/methodology/approach: The analysis was carried out on the basis of two countries, namely Poland and Germany. For this purpose, an analysis of domestic as well as foreign literature was used aimed at proving the originality of the problem undertaken. In addition, the method of comparative analysis aimed at searching for similarities and discrepancies occurring in the phenomena under consideration in the article was used. An analysis of selected indexes and rankings on the implementation of innovations in the field of health globally was also carried out. Findings: The article provides insights into the implemented innovations in the field of health. The results obtained show that innovations in the area of health care are more developed in Germany than in Poland, and also most of them are product innovations. Originality/value: Implementation of innovations in the field of health care is important due to the permanent changes that are taking place on the technological, social and economic levels - not only in a specific country, but all over the world. Most of the findings presented in the article can be used to improve the operation of medical facilities in many areas, as well as to increase the quality of service to patients and improve the comfort of their lives. Keywords: innovation, research and development activities, health care. Category of the paper: A literature review.

The increase in the concentration of the banking industry across European Union countries during the last fifteen years can be explained in terms of: a) global factors, like the comprehensive adoption of technological innovations, the intensification of competition that has resulted from the deregulation of the financial sector and, more recently, as a consequence of the government interventions and forced acquisitions prompted by the 2007-2009 financial crisis; and, b) factors that have been specific to the E.U., in particular, the structural changes that took place in the region as a result of the creation of the Single Financial Market (1993) and the introduction of the euro (1999). This work analyzes the concentration process of the banking industry in the E.U. during the last fifteen years giving preeminence to the strategic choices made by the region?s commercial banks. It also reports the most visible E.U. banks? M&As and government interventions that resulted from the 2007-2009 financial crisis, make a preliminary evaluation of the outcomes, and suggests possible future trends for the banking industry in the region.

Economic growth, which is one of the main determinants of social welfare, is among the important issues in economics. It has been a subject emphasized by different schools of economics that technology and technological change are among the main sources of economic growth and development. As a result of R&D and innovation activities, qualified labor employment and production in a country will increase, thus economic growth will occur. As stated in growth theories, technological progress and innovations are considered the driving force of growth. Various economists have argued that public support for R&D through public incentives should be provided, as market failures will prevent firms from reaching the socially optimal level of R&D. Considering the contribution of R&D and innovation practices to national economies, governments provide direct and indirect support to studies in this field. Within the scope of this study, the legal and institutional situation regarding R&D incentives in Turkey has been examined and an evaluation has been made on the current status of innovation activities and R&D incentive policies of the European Union countries.

The development of eco-innovation activities performed by enterprises remains one of the key challenges of sustainable development. In modern economies, the implementation of innovative technological solutions should also take into account performing eco-innovation activities by enterprises. The aim of the research was to assess the involvement level of small and medium-sized enterprises in eco-innovation activities, regarding the implementation of actions for the effective management of resources and the implementation of sustainable products, against the background of their involvement in innovation activities related to the implementation of product innovations and business processes, as well as the assessment of spatial-temporal diversity and trends for changes in this regard. The spatial scope of the research addresses 27 European Union countries, and the time scope of the research covers the years 2013–2020. The methods of multivariate statistical analysis, with particular emphasis on classification methods, were used in the research. The main finding of the research is the division of the European Union countries into three types of classes, including the countries assessed as: (1) poor eco-innovators and moderate innovators; (2) moderate eco-innovators and poor innovators; and (3) leaders of eco-innovation and innovation. The conducted research shows that SMEs in the European Union countries are much less involved in eco-innovation activities than in innovation ones; the level of involvement in eco-innovation can be divergent from that of involvement in innovation. Moreover, the involvement in eco-innovation does not show an upward trend.

The article presents the main research results on the peculiarities of the functioning of agricultural cooperatives and the practices of state regulation of their activities in the countries of the European Union. The high importance of agricultural cooperatives is justified, first of all, by their multifunctionality, and, consequently, by their contribution both to the development of the agricultural economy and to the stability of rural areas. The main trends in the development of agricultural cooperation in Europe are: (1) the enlargement of the cooperative business; (2) the development of vertical integration along the technological chain, (3) all kinds of organizational innovations to expand financial opportunities, (4) strengthening competitiveness through the growth of the scale of activities and all kinds of innovations, (5) socialization of cooperative activities in order to improve the living conditions of rural communities. The specificity of state support for European agricultural cooperatives lies in expanding the range of mechanisms and instruments used by the state, providing financial assistance mainly to small regional cooperatives (performing functions important for rural areas), taking into account the possibilities of cooperative activities under extraordinary conditions (such as the COVID-19 pandemic or emerging natural cataclysms).

The article presents the results of the analysis of regulatory and scientific sources, which reveal the features of police training for EU countries at the end of the 20th and the beginning of the 21st centuries. It was found that the integration of European states in the second half of the 20th century and the first decade of the 21st century contributed to the fact that the system of police training was changing in accordance with the changes in the political and socio-economic situation in individual EU countries and in the Community as a whole. The police training system itself is part of the integration processes within the framework of the integration of the EU law enforcement and police systems. Features such as the practical orientation of training, its continuous nature, and its close relationship to practice are characteristic of all police training institutions in EU countries. At the same time, EU countries are ambivalent about the innovations proposed by the 1999 Bologna Convention. States with established educational systems (Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Denmark, France, Germany, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Portugal, Sweden, and the United Kingdom) are more conservative and less inclined to abandon their own educational standards, unlike Eastern European states that pursue radical reform policies, including reforms in police training. In police education programs, a significant number of hours are devoted to the development of skills and abilities to work with scientific and technological means, which are extremely widely used in police work in foreign countries. It was also found that police officers are thoroughly and comprehensively prepared for close interaction of national services, both through Interpol and directly with each other. At conferences, symposiums, seminars, exchanges of experience and delegations, increased attention is certainly given to police training.

Purpose This study aims to identify the structural features of companies that have implemented marketing innovations at two different points, 2008 and 2010 (before and during the crisis). Design/methodology/approach The sample, obtained from the Technological Innovation Panel, consists of two subsamples of 9,415 enterprises each. The information was processed using a binomial logit model, parametric and non-parametric tests for independent samples and a test of structural stability. Findings Differences were found in the results from 2008 and 2010: enterprises in Spain were less likely to implement marketing innovations in 2010 than in 2008; the effect of an enterprise’s size on how likely it was to innovate in marketing decreased by more than half between the two periods; the likelihood of innovating in marketing increased in enterprises that also pursued organizational innovations; and in contrast to 2008, in 2010, the enterprises that were most likely to innovate in marketing were those that exported to countries outside the European Union. These findings show that innovation is part of the business ethos and that public policies that support exports can also foster innovation. Originality/value Marketing innovation has received little attention in the literature. We believe that marketing innovation can help to improve an organization’s results, even in times of economic crisis.

Abstract Many innovative environmental technologies never reach the market because they are new and cannot demonstrate a successful track record of previous applications. This fact is a serious obstacle on their way to the market. Lack of credible data on the performance of a technology causes mistrust of investors in innovations, especially from public sector, who seek effective solutions however without compromising the technical and financial risks associated with their implementation. Environmental technology verification (ETV) offers a credible, robust and transparent process that results in a third party confirmation of the claims made by the providers about the performance of the novel environmental technologies. Verifications of performance are supported by high quality, independent test data. In that way ETV as a tool helps establish vendor credibility and buyer confidence. Several countries across the world have implemented ETV in the form of national or regional programmes. ETV in the European Union was implemented as a voluntary scheme if a form of a pilot programme. The European Commission launched the Environmental Technology Pilot Programme of the European Union (EU ETV) in 2011. The paper describes the European model of ETV set up and put to operation under the Pilot Programme of Environmental Technologies Verification of the European Union. The goal, objectives, technological scope, involved entities are presented. An attempt has been made to summarise the results of the EU ETV scheme performance available for the period of 2012 when the programme has become fully operational until the first half of 2016. The study was aimed at analysing the overall organisation and efficiency of the EU ETV Pilot Programme. The study was based on the analysis of the documents the operation of the EU ETV system. For this purpose, a relevant statistical analysis of the data on the performance of the EU ETV system provided by the European Commission was carried out.

The Semiconductor Industry is one industry that has been driving technological innovations for decades since its birth in the USA. Semiconductors form the building blocks of a wide array of consumer, medical and industrial electronics. The growth of many economies in the world can be attributed to the growth in the semiconductor industry in such countries. The global semiconductor industry consists of companies in the USA, South Korea, Taiwan, China, and the European Union. However, the semiconductor industry has no presence in the African region, in Ghana to be specific. This work investigates some challenges associated with the establishment of the semiconductor industry in Ghana, including challenges from basic research and development to manufacturing and marketing. The paper also highlights some recommendations which are key in laying the foundation for the entry of the industry in Ghana, including the provision of tax incentives, training of personnel, etc.

The intensification of countries’ growth causes the depletion of natural resources, biodiversity degradation, ecological imbalances, damage, and disasters. The aggravation of ecological issues requires the development of mechanisms for simultaneous achievement of economic, social, and ecological goals. The energy sector is the core direction of economic decarbonization. Therefore, green economic growth requires economic development due to the extension of innovative technologies for renewable energies and relevant investment for that. The study aims to test the hypothesis on the impact of green field investment on green economic growth. The object of the research was countries in the European Union (EU) for 2006–2020. This study applied the Malmquist-Luenberger Global Productivity Index to estimate green economic growth. It considers the resources available for the production process in the country (labor, capital, energy), the desired outcome (gross domestic product) and undesirable results (emissions to the environment) of this process. The study applied the Tobit model to test the hypothesis. The findings confirm the spatial heterogeneity of green economic growth among the EU countries. The asymmetry in technological efficiency and progress limits the efficacy of green innovations. At the same time, the obtained data confirm the research hypothesis. It is shown that along with green investments, economic openness and the efficiency of public governance have a positive effect on the green economic growth of countries. The findings highlight the importance of attracting green investments to increase green innovations in renewable energy, which boost green economic growth. This study explored the linear and direct effects of green investment on the green economic growth while eliminating the transmission impact of other mediating factors. It should be noted that further research should analyze the nonlinear impact of green investment on the green economic growth and the mediating effect, which could be caused by other variables (corruption, governance efficiency, green innovations, etc.).

The article deals with the problems of designing and updating study programmes during the integration process of the Lithuanian education system into the European education space. After the substantial change of general programmes of Basic education(2008) and Secondary education (2011) and seeking to fully involve self-development of general cultural, subject specific, generic and specific competencies which are necessary for teachers, it is important to update the study programmes.The problem of the research: what content of technology teacher training programme should be from the innovations point of view in order to meet the expectations of the changing society.The object of the research: the innovative content of the technology teacher training programme.The aim of the research: to highlight the innovative aspects of the content of technology teacher training programmes, having performed content analysis of technology teacher training programmes of the universities of Lithuania and some European countries.Research methods:analysis of scientific literature, analysis of the programmes of universities of some European countries which provide training for technology teachers as well as the analysis of the legal acts and strategic education policy documents of the European Union and the Republic of Lithuania.Updating of the study programme of technological education is a permanent process, which is conditioned by the following factors: market economy and the needs of information society, the fact that higher education is becoming mass, penetration of humanistic ideas into the content of education as well as the valid unified study quality assessment policy in the European Union.Taking into account the recommendations of the international experts’ group and considering international changes of analogous study programmes, the Committee of Technology Pedagogics Study Programmes of Lithuanian University of Educational Sciences in cooperation with the social partners carried out a research of opinions of students, graduates, university lecturers and employers on the study quality.They also performed a comprehensive analysis of the Bachelor’s degree study programmes of some Western European universities. The analysis revealed that theoretical models of study programmes design of different European universities have similarities and differences, which are determined by the philosophical aspect, humanistic ideas and the context of the national education policy. In the research the experience of five universities from the innovations point of view was used: the University of Helsinki (Finland), Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh (Great Britain), the Polytechnic Institute of Tomar (Portugal), and the University of Iceland.The following elective subjects have been included in the study programme of technology pedagogics: pedagogical ethics, sustainable development and social welfare, educational creative projects, family health education, health promoting nutrition education, visualization of technology education, eco creations, national and global food culture, interior design, technology education for special needs students, art therapy, development of leadership competencies, formation of study archives. The hidden curriculum of the study programme of technology pedagogics is ethnic culture, ecology, project activities.

The purpose of this article is to analyze and rate ideas related to functioning of the public procurement system, in particular the so called “green orders”, in terms of its impact on the development of eco-innovative solutions in the construction industry. The public procurement system, due to its obligatory character for many business entities and significant value, establishes the directions of development for many industries, especially the construction industry. The pace of technological progress accomplished after Poland’s accession to the European Union and competing on the global market requires constant implementation of innovative solutions. Public procurement also amplifies the demand for ecological goods and services from public institutions, being one of the most effective instruments of implementing such solutions. The European Union has issued a number of directives, decrees and communiques governing the rules, capabilities and desired range of applying ecological criteria of conferring public procurement. The essay outlines the current situation of ecological public procurement and provides practical examples of creating innovative and sustainable growth, based on the construction industry. Construction significantly drives the economy, which vulnerable to crises and turbulence. Green public procurement, together with ecological innovations, can positively impact the development and stabilization of the industry, due to its orientation towards sustainable growth. Experience drawn from other, particularly Western European, countries, such as Germany, Austria and Scandinavian countries, which have a high level of energy efficient and passive constructions based on ecological innovations thanks to research and implementations performed by various institutions and government grants, is a significant benchmark for Poland and the only way of reducing construction costs, which could comply with the EU directive in the near future. It seems that both researchers and practitioners appreciate the West European line of work, as institutions and initiatives towards implementing sustained construction are being created in Poland. These include, among others: operations of the Polish Institute of Passive Building in Gdansk or Center for Energy Efficient Buildings in Lesser Poland, in Kraków. Referring to Western European experience, the solution lies in developing our own research facilities, institutions testing and implementing new, native (ie. less expensive) and innovative technological and material solutions. Cooperation and skill sharing between researchers and practitioners, such as architects, constructors, producers and developers is necessary, as are initiatives towards training staff qualified in building such houses and constructing appropriate equipment on a high school level. The practical examples of Lesser Polish public finance units outlined in this article denote the existence of ideas and willingness to create new solutions among the Polish engineering staff. These initiatives, however, require sufficient financial support and research facilities, which can be achieved thanks to the current implementation of a new public procurement law, increasing the role of sustainable procurement. Furthermore, public investor awareness is increasing in the range of introducing sustained development rules, especially in the utilization of green procurement in the building sector, as evidenced by public facilities constructed in the passive and energy efficient standard.

Economic integration supports removal of all obstacles (in economy, trade, tax, administration or industrial area) and establishment of common rules for market competition. Basic benefit of economic integration is thus occurrence of real or potential competitiveness effects. European integration can influence competitiveness of firm, regions or countries. There are existing agglomeration forces causing space and economic concentration and disperse forces working just opposite way. Both effects are influenced by access to a single market and removal of trade barriers. As a consequence, agglomeration effects are expected to dominate. European Commission established RCI (Regional Competitiveness Index) to enable comparison of competitiveness of European regions. Aim of this study is exploration of changes in competitiveness of Czech regions after accession to the European Union as there are no studies analysing regional competitiveness in Czech Republic as a consequence of European integration process via index based approach. Analysis of z statistics of primarily data published by European Commission is used to evaluate theoretical concept of disperse and agglomeration forces. Based on RCI analysis are obvious growing discrepancies with dominant position of Prague and Central Bohemia in comparison with other Czech Regions. Significant differences can be seen in areas of innovations, business sophistication and education. On the opposite, positively can be evaluated lower variability of competitiveness between Czech regions in indicators of infrastructure, institutions and technological readiness. Those indicators could be influenced by European cohesive and regional politics. Decisions on governmental level should follow Europe 2020 strategy and transformation to knowledge based economy.

In the article certain issues of international experience in ensuring information security are investigated through the use of comparativeanalysis. The main tendencies and priorities of the legal regulation of information security in the European Union, particularlyin Germany and Poland are defined. Also significant accents in the development of customs legislation of leading foreign countries are identified as well. These issues are primarily related to the development of automated systems of customs authorities and the prolife -ration of the use of information and telecommunication technologies in the implementation of state customs procedures. It is noted thatthese tendecies make it necessary to simultaneously ensure an adequate level of information security of the customs authorities of fo -reign countries. The author proposed some ways to improve the administrative and legal support of information security in the customsfield, taking into account international experience.It is noted that the customs are one of those areas of social and political life and legal regulation, which should be mostly correlatedwith international experience in the development of the corresponding sphere, with leading international legal tendencies in theorganization and implementation of customs, as well as ensuring information security in the mentioned field. Taking into account allthe mentioned below, we need to say that the experience of international legal support of information security in the customs sphereneeds to be comprehensively studied, it is necessary to systematize and formulate strategic directions for further improvement of thenational information security system, taking into account such progressive provisions.In the context of achieving this task, it is proposed, for example, to provide clear regulation of the key categories of informationsecurity in this field, also it is necessary to make legislative definition of a specialized entity, which will be entrusted with the task ofensuring information security in the customs. Besides, it is necessary: to strengthen the interaction of customs authorities with otherentities of ensuring information security in Ukraine, to guarantee the participation of the public and non-state actors in ensuring informationsecurity in the customs sphere, and further automation and development of information and telecommunication systems of customsauthorities, improving the technological and technical level of these systems and other activities.

In the article certain issues of international experience in ensuring information security are investigated through the use of comparativeanalysis. The main tendencies and priorities of the legal regulation of information security in the European Union, particularlyin Germany and Poland are defined. Also significant accents in the development of customs legislation of leading foreign countries are identified as well. These issues are primarily related to the development of automated systems of customs authorities and the prolife -ration of the use of information and telecommunication technologies in the implementation of state customs procedures. It is noted thatthese tendecies make it necessary to simultaneously ensure an adequate level of information security of the customs authorities of fo -reign countries. The author proposed some ways to improve the administrative and legal support of information security in the customsfield, taking into account international experience.It is noted that the customs are one of those areas of social and political life and legal regulation, which should be mostly correlatedwith international experience in the development of the corresponding sphere, with leading international legal tendencies in theorganization and implementation of customs, as well as ensuring information security in the mentioned field. Taking into account allthe mentioned below, we need to say that the experience of international legal support of information security in the customs sphereneeds to be comprehensively studied, it is necessary to systematize and formulate strategic directions for further improvement of thenational information security system, taking into account such progressive provisions.In the context of achieving this task, it is proposed, for example, to provide clear regulation of the key categories of informationsecurity in this field, also it is necessary to make legislative definition of a specialized entity, which will be entrusted with the task ofensuring information security in the customs. Besides, it is necessary: to strengthen the interaction of customs authorities with otherentities of ensuring information security in Ukraine, to guarantee the participation of the public and non-state actors in ensuring informationsecurity in the customs sphere, and further automation and development of information and telecommunication systems of customsauthorities, improving the technological and technical level of these systems and other activities.

One of the most important sectors of the economy in Russia is industry. In this regard, the state seeks to stimulate the development of innovations in this area. Over the past few years, many industrial sectors in Russia have been in a crisis situation, which is caused by several factors: a decrease in the level of real investment, a decrease in the solvent demand of enterprises-customers and public consumers, and the introduction of financial and economic sanctions in 2014 against Russia by the United States and the European Union countries, as well as the effect of other macroeconomic factors independent of the activities of industrial enterprises. This study aims to identify the main trends in the development of industrial production in Russia in recent years, and an explanation of its causes. This topic is relevant in connection with the foregoing and may be of interest to academic economists studying industry development trends in developing countries. The aim of the study is to analyze the state of industry in Russia from 2015 to 2018 during the period of sanction pressure on the industrial and financial sectors of the Russian economy. Having examined the latest data on the results of the activity of Russian industry as a whole, one can note positive trends in the development of industrial production in Russia despite a number of negative internal and external factors. It is concluded that today, for Russia, the strategic tasks in industrial policy are reduced to overcoming technological backwardness and carrying out technological modernization of industries based on the use of innovative achievements, as well as import substitution for the sectors of the economy that are sensitive to foreign sanctions.

Sustainable development is one of the fundamental and most important objectives of the worldwide policy. The conducted research shows that sustainable development (SD) is increasingly important in the consciousness of the EU countries, which can be viewed through a prism of the undertaken projects. This paper raises the issue of clusters and their significance in the development of a sustainable economy. The article explores trends in the European Union policy related to sustainable development and clusters. The purpose of this study is to find an answer to the following questions: How can clusters contribute to sustainable development and what are the key factors that ensure this process? To achieve the goal of the article a systematic study of the literature and reports was carried out. Moreover, the analysis of the activity of European clusters in the context of sustainable development was performed. Next, the examples of cluster projects focused on sustainable development were presented. It was shown that the clusters contribute a smarter and sustainable development by succeeding in technological and scientific results, developing new technologies for emerging industries, creating new business activities, enticing major technology companies, and connecting local firms into world-class value systems. Furthermore, the clusters participate actively in sustainable development as they promote knowledge creation, joint learning, technology transfer, as well as collaboration, and sustainable innovations. Finally, clusters facilitate the sustainable upgrading of small and medium enterprises and encourage the participation of stakeholders in the process of sustainable development.

The article discusses two fundamentally different approaches to deploying smart, environmentally friendly energy networks. The key aspects of the formation of a market and administrative mechanism for stimulating the development of alternative energy and transformation of the traditional energy model with the systematic application of the principle of distributed energy generation are identified. The European Union's experience in developing an adaptive energy system combining traditional energy technologies and innovative developments aimed at improving the efficiency of energy system operation and integrating disparate energy systems of individual countries belonging to the European Union into a single pan-european energy system was used to achieve the objectives of the study, which entails widespread use of "smart" energy technologies that will allow not only to form an effective model of energy generation, and power consumption, and promote the development of the concept of "smart" cities, ensuring compliance with the necessary conditions for the use of power as a basic element of innovative development of society and the acceleration of technological progress. The article identifies two fundamental approaches to large-scale development of the energy system using smart energy networks: iterative approach and project approach. The iterative approach is to develop the energy system as a whole, with the gradual introduction of energy innovations, which creates corresponding iterations. Accordingly, this approach is characterized by the presence of separate logically ordered stages, where the next stage is possible only after the previous one is completed. The project approach is to implement local high-tech projects with the use of smart grids in a limited area and then integrate disparate projects into a single energy system. Keywords: "smart" grids, energy, energy strategy, distributed power generation.

AbstractForeign Direct Investment (FDI) in recent years has created a positive impact for ASEAN countries. FDI give spillover effects that directly contribute capital improvements, technological developments, and global market access, also skills and managerial transfers. In order to attract FDI inflow into country, ASEAN member countries need to know what factors which attract investment related to the needs of infrastructure types and other factors. The purpose of this study is examine the determinant of FDI in ASEAN countries. This research method used is panel data regression period 2005-2015 from 10 countries in ASEAN. The results showed simultaneously and partially telecommunication infrastructure, market size, trade openness, and labor force variable have significant relationship with FDI inflows in ASEAN countries.Keywords: panel data regression, telecommunication infrastructure, market size, trade openness, labor force, FDI.ReferencesAppleyard, DR. 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In recent years, modern society has faced a number of challenges related to the achievement of global goals for sustainable development. Industrial enterprises are challenged to generate, stimulate, and demand changes in networks and supply chains, but these challenges require flexibility and innovation activity in different directions. The data for Bulgaria show that the country is last among the countries of the European Union in terms of the creation and implementation of eco-innovations. Despite this result, the pace at which the country is developing shows that in the next few years, Bulgaria has the potential to move from a modest to a moderate eco-innovator, provided that it succeeds in filling the structural gaps in the system of ecological innovation. These gaps are related not only to the need for changes in the investment of resources but also to the need for changes in individual and related systems such as science and innovation, support for SMEs, the energy system, etc. Most of the research on sustainable innovation and eco-innovation has, however, focused on firm innovation models dominated by short-term profit-maximizing approaches. Therefore, there is a need to conduct research and propose adequate strategies for modern business environments and design models that facilitate the implementation of eco-innovations in industrial enterprises. The purpose of this report is to investigate the factors influencing the development of eco-innovation activities of Bulgarian industrial enterprises, examining how they can help to achieve success through eco-innovation and improve business results. A factorial model is proposed, through which the relationships between technological, financial, organizational, informational resources, research and development activities (R&D), and company cooperation are analyzed. The PLS structural equation modeling technique was used to validate the proposed theoretical model. The survey was conducted among 380 industrial enterprises from all over the sectors of the economy in Bulgaria with the help of a specially developed questionnaire within the period of April 2019 to December 2021. The obtained results show that human resources, financial resources, and cooperation positively influence research and development activities. In addition, the achievement of a positive effect on the management of eco-innovations affects the innovation activities of industrial enterprises, their ability to carry out research and development activities, as well as their ability to manage the technical and technological resources at their disposal effectively. Finally, the innovation activity aimed at carrying out scientific research and development activity, products and processes obtained as a result of the eco-innovation activity, and adequate information management directly affect the efficiency of business processes and financial results.

It is proven that the country’s post-war recovery policy should take into account previous development miscalculations, and the recovery itself should be considered as a “window of opportunity” for the formation of a new highly productive and high-tech “smart” and “green” economy, an important component of which should be modern industry. It is substantiated that smart specialization involves not so much the stimulation of innovations as the activation of long-term structural changes in the region’s economy with an orientation to the future, that is, the formation of such a policy that will enable the region to occupy important niches in global markets. The experience of implementing the strategy of smart specialization in the European Union is considered. Together with the development of entrepreneurship and the cluster structure of industry, it is part of the economic decentralization of Ukraine. Attention is focused on the fact that, against the background of a slight increase in the share of high-tech industries in the overall structure of the country’s industry, there is a decrease in the specific weight of medium-tech industries and an increase in the share of low-tech industries. The results of the application of the smart approach to the strategic planning of the development of regions should be the modernization of industry and its transition to a new technological structure, the activation of the innovative technological and “digital” potential of the territories. The necessity of implementing the concept of smart specialization for effective synergistic use of public investments, supporting countries/regions in building their innovation potential while simultaneously focusing limited human and financial resources on several competitive areas in order to promote economic growth has been proven. Ways to achieve and tasks of implementing the smart specialization approach in the national economic strategy are systematized. The strategic vectors of ensuring sustainable development and smart specialization of industry are substantiated.

This study presents a systematic review of 169 papers concerning the ICT (Information and Communication Technologies) related to rural areas, specifically to dairy farms. The objective was to delve into the relationship between dairy farmers and the administrative authorities via e-government, comparing this area to another eight concerning the farmer’s needs and expectations in relation to the ICT in different fields of their business. We observed that areas such as connectivity and digital inclusion are the most covered areas not only at the study level but also at the government level since countries all over the world are trying to develop politics to put an end to the so-called “digital divide,” which affects rural areas more intensely. This is increasing due to the growing technological innovations. The areas of the market, production, financial development, management and counseling, Smart Farming, and Internet of Things have been approached, associated with the ICT in dairy farms, showing in the latter two an increasing number of papers in the last few years. The area of public administration in relation to dairy farms has also been covered, being remarkable the low number of pieces of research concerning the interaction by the farmers, more specifically by dairy farmers, with the public administration, which is surprising due to the new global need and especially in the European Union (EU) of interacting with it telematically by all legal entities. The results show that there are still barriers to the implementation of the electronic government (e-government) since the websites do not meet the user’s expectations. Therefore, this study lays the ground for future research on this area. As a graphical abstract of the contributions of this paper, we present a graphic summary, where the different contributions by areas and expressed in percentage values are shown.

This article analyses the different approaches adopted for the regulation of payment systems in a variety of legislative instruments by the European Union (EU). It looks in particular at how the institutions that issue new electronic money products are regulated and supervised by the relevant authorities in the EU, in comparison with existing institutions such as banks. It analyses some of the lessons that may be learned by the South African Development Corporation (SADC) from the regulatory approaches for electronic money institutions adopted by the EU. The article asks if the approach adopted by the EU may be useful for the future regulation of electronic money institutions in the SADC. The proliferation of electronic devices that arrived with the invention of the Internet has sparked some regulatory challenges. This development has become global and involves both developed and developing countries, including regions such as the SADC. It is asked if these technological developments should be addressed by means of a concrete regulatory framework while they continue to develop, instead of the regulators waiting to observe and acquaint themselves with the relevant regulatory challenges that underpin the innovations. The EU has attempted to address the anticipated regulatory challenges that came about with the development of electronic money and to align its regulatory approach with other payment systems. This article discusses the regulatory approaches adopted in the EU and provides an overview that the SADC may use in order to adopt an effective regulatory framework for electronic money and the institutions that issue these methods of payment. It analyses both the achievements and the challenges that the EU faced (and continues to face) in developing the regulation of e-money, and recommends some possible approaches derived from the lessons learned.

The issues of convergence, which are considered as the convergence of the corresponding parameters of the development of regions and countries of the world, have been studied by economists for a long time. The issue acquired particular importance in the period of globalization. This is a priority in ensuring the security of the state, the formation of a national innovation system, the creation and operation of joint ventures, the development of industries based on innovations. When carrying out the research, the main problem that is relevant in the period of globalization was identified - convergence processes towards the creation of joint ventures on an innovative basis. The peculiarities of convergence processes in the direction of the functioning of joint ventures on the basis of innovations, including through the development of scientific and industrial parks, clusters, were highlighted in their scientific works by outstanding specialists. The problems of the functioning of joint ventures on an innovative basis, including through the creation of organizational forms of innovation, which are actively studied by scientists, have been identified. However, it requires more detailed further study, in particular in the development of proposals for improving legislative and other regulatory legal acts on the activities of joint ventures, scientific, industrial and technological parks, clusters. They can be mechanisms for the innovative development of industry. The statement of tasks consists in defining the basic principles of convergence processes in the direction of creating joint ventures on an innovative basis, as well as developing proposals for improving legislative and other regulatory legal acts on the development of special forms of organizing innovative activities. The purpose of the study is to determine the features of convergence, taking into account the specifics of international experience in the functioning of joint ventures and special forms of organizing innovation. The main methods that were used in the research process are analysis, statistical, comparison, and legal regulation. The review of international experience of the features of the development of convergence processes in the countries of the European Union is carried out. In particular, this applies to the group of countries of «innovation leaders», which include Sweden, Denmark, Finland and the Netherlands. The positive aspects of innovative development and the factors hindering development are identified. Consideration of joint ventures on the territory of Ukraine and China in the context of convergence is a significant achievement. Considerable attention is also paid to the development of special forms of organizing innovative activities. Ways of cooperation between Ukraine and China are proposed. Proposals have been developed that will help improve cooperation in industrial, scientific and educational spheres in the direction of the development of Ukrainian-Chinese cooperation. The field of application of the research results is socio-economic development.

Modern economy is based on the information and communication technologies and innovations where information and knowledge are considered to be the main keys to achieve the high and qualitative economic growth. For Ukraine this process is complicated because there is a necessity of the fundamental economy modernization on the basis of the information and network system formation and continuous innovation. The complicated economic situation and the loss of the part of the territory because of the occupation force to find new approaches and possibilities of the qualitative growth and economic stability. Modern tendencies of the world development due to the transition to the post-industrial stage of the information society development facilitate the appearing of various economic models of the network economy. The topicality of the paper lies in considering of reaching the high technological growth of the information society using the experience of the successful countries in the sphere of its implementing and usage. Nowadays less attention is paid to the problems of the Ukrainian economy transformation in the conditions of the modern network economy growth conceptions and the common approach to the determination of the economic model in network economy suitable for the Ukraine was not yet offered. The aim of the article is to analyze the main components of the network economy, to study the Estonian model of network economy development as a country with the successful experience of the present strategy realization. The determination and argumentation of the key tendencies of the network economy development with consideration of the possibilities of its implementing in Ukraine are under the study. The problem of the network economy and the information society is much disputed amongst scholars. The most fundamental works in the network economy and the information society belongs to Manuel Castells who analyzes the tendencies that formed network society and new economy emerging called informational and global. D. Bell in his work «The Coming of Post-Industrial Society» denotes the place and role of the post-industrial society in the overall view of the social progress. Ukrainian scholar A. Chukhno in his works considers the problems of the correlation of industrial and post-industrial growth, new economy emerging and transition to the qualitatively new level of the social and economic growth. The expansion and usage of the information and telecommunication technologies he sees as one of «the fundamental processes of the post-industrial growth». According to S. Sokolenko the formation of the world networks and network economy became the leading tendency in evolution of the global output. The transition to the new stage of the world economy development he regards as industrial and information network economy. The method of analysis and synthesis is used to reveal the basic constituents of the network economy and tendencies of its development in modern economy, the methods of historic and logical analyses are used to study the Estonian model of the network economy growth and to define the possibilities of this model implementing in Ukraine. Network economy technologies cannot solve the problem of the national economy development, but the movement in this direction strengthens the Ukraine's trade integration strategy into the world economy, facilitates the scientific, innovative and network economy development and enables to take the worthy place in the global information society. Consideration of the foreign experience, the prior task for Ukraine is to develop the global information infrastructure, to constitute an open and flexible foundation for e-Government services and «Open Big Data» for all authorities and government institutions. Key words: network economy, e-Government, information services, Internet, information society. Modern economy is based on the information and communication technologies and innovations where information and knowledge are considered to be the main keys to achieve the high and qualitative economic growth. For Ukraine this process is complicated because there is a necessity of the fundamental economy modernization on the basis of the information and network system formation and continuous innovation. The complicated economic situation and the loss of the part of the territory because of the occupation force to find new approaches and possibilities of the qualitative growth and economic stability. Modern tendencies of the world development due to the transition to the post-industrial stage of the information society development facilitate the appearing of various economic models of the network economy. The topicality of the paper lies in considering of reaching the high technological growth of the information society using the experience of the successful countries in the sphere of its implementing and usage. Nowadays less attention is paid to the problems of the Ukrainian economy transformation in the conditions of the modern network economy growth conceptions and the common approach to the determination of the economic model in network economy suitable for the Ukraine was not yet offered. The aim of the article is to analyze the main components of the network economy, to study the Estonian model of network economy development as a country with the successful experience of the present strategy realization. The determination and argumentation of the key tendencies of the network economy development with consideration of the possibilities of its implementing in Ukraine are under the study. The problem of the network economy and the information society is much disputed amongst scholars. The most fundamental works in the network economy and the information society belongs to Manuel Castells who analyzes the tendencies that formed network society and new economy emerging called informational and global. D. Bell in his work «The Coming of Post-Industrial Society» denotes the place and role of the post-industrial society in the overall view of the social progress. Ukrainian scholar A. Chukhno in his works considers the problems of the correlation of industrial and post-industrial growth, new economy emerging and transition to the qualitatively new level of the social and economic growth. The expansion and usage of the information and telecommunication technologies he sees as one of «the fundamental processes of the post-industrial growth». According to S. Sokolenko the formation of the world networks and network economy became the leading tendency in evolution of the global output. The transition to the new stage of the world economy development he regards as industrial and information network economy. The method of analysis and synthesis is used to reveal the basic constituents of the network economy and tendencies of its development in modern economy, the methods of historic and logical analyses are used to study the Estonian model of the network economy growth and to define the possibilities of this model implementing in Ukraine. Network economy technologies cannot solve the problem of the national economy development, but the movement in this direction strengthens the Ukraine's trade integration strategy into the world economy, facilitates the scientific, innovative and network economy development and enables to take the worthy place in the global information society. Consideration of the foreign experience, the prior task for Ukraine is to develop the global information infrastructure, to constitute an open and flexible foundation for e-Government services and «Open Big Data» for all authorities and government institutions. Key words: network economy, e-Government, information services, Internet, information society.

In the context of globalization, the sphere of tourism becomes more and more important, since it is one of the most profitable and dynamic branches of the world economy of the country. Tourism contributes to the growth of employment, accelerates the diversification of the economy, because this sphere covers more than 50 branches of the national economy, therefore the innovation of the tourist sphere should become its constant component. In addition, tourism not only preserves, but also develops the cultural potential of the country and the population, harmonize relations between different peoples and contributes to the friendly use of the environment. Indicators of its profitability indicate the importance of tourism for the development of economy, namely: 8% of world exports and 30% of world services sales, as well as annual growth of world tourist flows by 4-5%. However, Ukraine loses significantly in the competition, lagging behind the leading countries of the world in terms of development of tourist infrastructure and the quality of tourist services. Financial and economic crisis that has been continuing in recent years, the events associated with annexation of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and anti-terrorist operation on the territory of Donetsk and Luhansk regions had a negative impact on the tourism flows, the tourism structure and tourist opportunities of the country both on the domestic and the external tourism market. In addition, Ukrainians have recently received the possibility of visa-free travel to the countries of the European Union, which will also lead to the increase in outbound tourism, and a reduction in the entrance. In this regard, it is necessary to introduce innovations in the development of tourism in Ukraine in order to attract visitors. Innovation in tourism "involves developing an original approach, developing new ways to use existing resources while seeking new ones";. Typization of innovation in tourism is developed by Abernathy and Clark, who distinguish 4 types of innovations: regular, niche, revolutionary and architectural. Regular innovations refer to the continuous improvement of the quality of services, the improvement of personnel skills and productivity. Niches innovations usually change the structure of cooperation, but not basic knowledge and skills; they combine existing services in a new way. Revolutionary innovations are associated with the use of new technologies in firms, the development of new methods; they have a radical impact on the key knowledge and skills of the staff up to the appearance of new occupations in the sector. Architectural innovations change the structure, business model and rules in tourism; they create new events and objects that require reorganization, chang physical or institutional infrastructure, research and training facilities. One of the main directions of innovation is the development of sustainable tourism. Destination (tourist areas) are beginning to create a management system for tourism resources and use them in the planning of territorial development. Recently, it became clear that the directions of innovation in tourism are increasingly becoming a systemic nature, when tourism turns from the industry into a "public enterprise";, which involves a variety of institutional stakeholders: government, business, local communities, science and education. At the same time, the remarkable thing is that the more the system of tourism management varies from industrial to post-industrial, the greater the innovative potential has the sphere of tourism, the greater the extent of tourism shifts from mass to individualized. This is due to the smaller segmentation of the market and the emergence of many niche, specialized services and tourist products. There is adaptation of tourism infrastructure, buildings and equipment for the needs of such new, growing groups of tourists as children, the elderly and the disabled. The innovations in the tourism industry, according to Novikov V.S., “are the result of actions aimed at creating a new or changing existing tourist product, developing new markets, using advanced information and telecommunication technologies, improving the provision of tourist, transport and hotel services, creating strategic alliances for realization of tourist business, introduction of modern forms of organizational and managerial activity of tourist enterprises”. In general, tourism is a multi-vector industry, which can create some difficulties in introducing innovations. At the same time, certain areas of tourism activity are impossible without the use of innovative technologies, in particular, information and computer technologies. Effective administrative work of tourism enterprises involves the application of various facilities, as Ukrainian travel agencies are widely using the information sector, in the form of messages, and the virtual sector of travel in global networks. Studies conducted in the field of tourism demonstrate the "consumer nature" of information innovation, while tourism is not a producer in this field. According to preliminary estimates, the cost of the initiative tour operators in Ukraine for maintaining an on-line booking system is about 2% of the cost of services sold. Sales of entertainment and recreation tours provide about 3.3 million dollars. US annually spent money on developing, maintaining and filling in the information support system. Common directions of the use of innovative technologies in tourism are: mobile Internet, catalogs of electronic offers, on-line booking not only for retail agencies, but also directly for clients. Further development of innovation activity is the development of new ideas for promotion of tourist product, development of new tourist routes, availability of information to the consumer, software, etc.

Social innovations are activities aiming at implementation of social objectives, including mainly the improvement of life of individuals and social groups, together with public policy and management objectives. The essay indicates and discusses the most important contemporary problems, solving of which requires social innovations. Social innovations precondition the progress of civilisation. The world needs not only new technologies, but also new solutions of social and institutional nature that would be conducive to achieving social goals. Social innovations are experimental social actions of organisational and institutional nature that aim at improving the quality of life of individuals, communities, nations, companies, circles, or social groups. Their experimental nature stems from the fact of introducing unique and one-time solutions on a large scale, the end results of which are often difficult to be fully predicted. For example, it was difficult to believe that opening new labour markets for foreigners in the countries of the European Union, which can be treated as a social innovation aiming at development of the international labour market, will result in the rapid development of the low-cost airlines, the offer of which will be available to a larger group of recipients. In other words, social innovations differ from economic innovations, as they are not about implementation of new types of production or gaining new markets, but about satisfying new needs, which are not provided by the market. Therefore, the most important distinction consists in that social innovations are concerned with improving the well-being of individuals and communities by additional employment, or increased consumption, as well as participation in solving the problems of individuals and social groups [CSTP, 2011]. In general, social innovations are activities aiming at implementation of social objectives, including mainly the improvement of life of individuals and social groups together with the objectives of public policy and management [Kowalczyk, Sobiecki, 2017]. Their implementation requires global, national, and individual actions. This requires joint operations, both at the scale of the entire globe, as well as in particular interest groups. Why are social innovations a key point for the progress of civilisation? This is the effect of the clear domination of economic aspects and discrimination of social aspects of this progress. Until the 19th century, the economy was a part of a social structure. As described by K. Polanyi, it was submerged in social relations [Polanyi, 2010, p. 56]. In traditional societies, the economic system was in fact derived from the organisation of the society itself. The economy, consisting of small and dispersed craft businesses, was a part of the social, family, and neighbourhood structure. In the 20th century the situation reversed – the economy started to be the force shaping social structures, positions of individual groups, areas of wealth and poverty. The economy and the market mechanism have become independent from the world of politics and society. Today, the corporations control our lives. They decide what we eat, what we watch, what we wear, where we work and what we do [Bakan, 2006, p. 13]. The corporations started this spectacular “march to rule the world” in the late 19th century. After about a hundred years, at the end of the 20th century, the state under the pressure of corporations and globalisation, started a gradual, but systematic withdrawal from the economy, market and many other functions traditionally belonging to it. As a result, at the end of the last century, a corporation has become a dominant institution in the world. A characteristic feature of this condition is that it gives a complete priority to the interests of corporations. They make decisions of often adverse consequences for the entire social groups, regions, or local communities. They lead to social tensions, political breakdowns, and most often to repeated market turbulences. Thus, a substantial minority (corporations) obtain inconceivable benefits at the expense of the vast majority, that is broad professional and social groups. The lack of relative balance between the economy and society is a barrier to the progress of civilisation. A growing global concern is the problem of migration. The present crisis, left unresolved, in the long term will return multiplied. Today, there are about 500 million people living in Europe, 1.5 billion in Africa and the Middle East, but in 2100, the population of Europe will be about 400 million and of the Middle East and Africa approximately 4.5 billion. Solving this problem, mainly through social and political innovations, can take place only by a joint operation of highly developed and developing countries. Is it an easy task? It’s very difficult. Unfortunately, today, the world is going in the opposite direction. Instead of pursuing the community, empathic thinking, it aims towards nationalism and chauvinism. An example might be a part of the inaugural address of President Donald Trump, who said that the right of all nations is to put their own interests first. Of course, the United States of America will think about their own interests. As we go in the opposite direction, those who deal with global issues say – nothing will change, unless there is some great crisis, a major disaster that would cause that the great of this world will come to senses. J.E. Stiglitz [2004], contrary to the current thinking and practice, believes that a different and better world is possible. Globalisation contains the potential of countless benefits from which people both in developing and highly developed countries can benefit. But the practice so far proves that still it is not grown up enough to use its potential in a fair manner. What is needed are new solutions, most of all social and political innovations (political, because they involve a violation of the previous arrangement of interests). Failure to search for breakthrough innovations of social and political nature that would meet the modern challenges, can lead the world to a disaster. Social innovation, and not economic, because the contemporary civilisation problems have their roots in this dimension. A global problem, solution of which requires innovations of social and political nature, is the disruption of the balance between work and capital. In 2010, 400 richest people had assets such as the half of the poorer population of the world. In 2016, such part was in the possession of only 8 people. This shows the dramatic collapse of the balance between work and capital. The world cannot develop creating the technological progress while increasing unjustified inequalities, which inevitably lead to an outbreak of civil disturbances. This outbreak can have various organisation forms. In the days of the Internet and social media, it is easier to communicate with people. Therefore, paradoxically, some modern technologies create the conditions facilitating social protests. There is one more important and dangerous effect of implementing technological innovations without simultaneous creation and implementation of social innovations limiting the sky-rocketing increase of economic (followed by social) diversification. Sooner or later, technological progress will become so widespread that, due to the relatively low prices, it will make it possible for the weapons of mass destruction, especially biological and chemical weapons, to reach small terrorist groups. Then, a total, individualized war of global reach can develop. The individualisation of war will follow, as described by the famous German sociologist Ulrich Beck. To avoid this, it is worth looking at the achievements of the Polish scientist Michał Kalecki, who 75 years ago argued that capitalism alone is not able to develop. It is because it aggressively seeks profit growth, but cannot turn profit into some profitable investments. Therefore, when uncertainty grows, capitalism cannot develop itself, and it must be accompanied by external factors, named by Kalecki – external development factors. These factors include state expenses, finances and, in accordance with the nomenclature of Kalecki – epochal innovations. And what are the current possibilities of activation of the external factors? In short – modest. The countries are indebted, and the basis for the development in the last 20 years were loans, which contributed to the growth of debt of economic entities. What, then, should we do? It is necessary to look for cheaper solutions, but such that are effective, that is breakthrough innovations. These undoubtedly include social and political innovations. Contemporary social innovation is not about investing big money and expensive resources in production, e.g. of a very expensive vaccine, which would be available for a small group of recipients. Today’s social innovation should stimulate the use of lower amounts of resources to produce more products available to larger groups of recipients. The progress of civilisation happens only as a result of a sustainable development in economic, social, and now also ecological terms. Economic (business) innovations, which help accelerate the growth rate of production and services, contribute to economic development. Profits of corporations increase and, at the same time, the economic objectives of the corporations are realised. But are the objectives of the society as a whole and its members individually realised equally, in parallel? In the chain of social reproduction there are four repeated phases: production – distribution – exchange – consumption. The key point from the social point of view is the phase of distribution. But what are the rules of distribution, how much and who gets from this “cake” produced in the social process of production? In the today’s increasingly global economy, the most important mechanism of distribution is the market mechanism. However, in the long run, this mechanism leads to growing income and welfare disparities of various social groups. Although, the income and welfare diversity in itself is nothing wrong, as it is the result of the diversification of effectiveness of factors of production, including work, the growing disparities to a large extent cannot be justified. Economic situation of the society members increasingly depends not on the contribution of work, but on the size of the capital invested, and the market position of the economic entity, and on the “governing power of capital” on the market. It should also be noted that this diversification is also related to speculative activities. Disparities between the implemented economic and social innovations can lead to the collapse of the progress of civilisation. Nowadays, economic crises are often justified by, indeed, social and political considerations, such as marginalisation of nation states, imbalance of power (or imbalance of fear), religious conflicts, nationalism, chauvinism, etc. It is also considered that the first global financial crisis of the 21st century originated from the wrong social policy pursued by the US Government, which led to the creation of a gigantic public debt, which consequently led to an economic breakdown. This resulted in the financial crisis, but also in deepening of the social imbalances and widening of the circles of poverty and social exclusion. It can even be stated that it was a crisis in public confidence. Therefore, the causes of crises are the conflicts between the economic dimension of the development and its social dimension. Contemporary world is filled with various innovations of economic or business nature (including technological, product, marketing, and in part – organisational). The existing solutions can be a source of economic progress, which is a component of the progress of civilisation. However, economic innovations do not complete the entire progress of civilisation moreover, the saturation, and often supersaturation with implementations and economic innovations leads to an excessive use of material factors of production. As a consequence, it results in lowering of the efficiency of their use, unnecessary extra burden to the planet, and passing of the negative effects on the society and future generations (of consumers). On the other hand, it leads to forcing the consumption of durable consumer goods, and gathering them “just in case”, and also to the low degree of their use (e.g. more cars in a household than its members results in the additional load on traffic routes, which results in an increase in the inconvenience of movement of people, thus to the reduction of the quality of life). Introduction of yet another economic innovation will not solve this problem. It can be solved only by social innovations that are in a permanent shortage. A social innovation which fosters solving the issue of excessive accumulation of tangible production goods is a developing phenomenon called sharing economy. It is based on the principle: “the use of a service provided by some welfare does not require being its owner”. This principle allows for an economic use of resources located in households, but which have been “latent” so far. In this way, increasing of the scope of services provided (transport, residential and tourist accommodation) does not require any growth of additional tangible resources of factors of production. So, it contributes to the growth of household incomes, and inhibition of loading the planet with material goods processed by man [see Poniatowska-Jaksch, Sobiecki, 2016]. Another example: we live in times, in which, contrary to the law of T. Malthus, the planet is able to feed all people, that is to guarantee their minimum required nutrients. But still, millions of people die of starvation and malnutrition, but also due to obesity. Can this problem be solved with another economic innovation? Certainly not! Economic innovations will certainly help to partially solve the problem of nutrition, at least by the new methods of storing and preservation of foods, to reduce its waste in the phase of storage and transport. However, a key condition to solve this problem is to create and implement an innovation of a social nature (in many cases also political). We will not be able to speak about the progress of civilisation in a situation, where there are people dying of starvation and malnutrition. A growing global social concern, resulting from implementation of an economic (technological) innovation will be robotisation, and more specifically – the effects arising from its dissemination on a large scale. So far, the issue has been postponed due to globalisation of the labour market, which led to cheapening of the work factor by more than ten times in the countries of Asia or South America. But it ends slowly. Labour becomes more and more expensive, which means that the robots become relatively cheap. The mechanism leading to low prices of the labour factor expires. Wages increase, and this changes the relationship of the prices of capital and labour. Capital becomes relatively cheaper and cheaper, and this leads to reducing of the demand for work, at the same time increasing the demand for capital (in the form of robots). The introduction of robots will be an effect of the phenomenon of substitution of the factors of production. A cheaper factor (in this case capital in the form of robots) will be cheaper than the same activities performed by man. According to W. Szymański [2017], such change is a dysfunction of capitalism. A great challenge, because capitalism is based on the market-driven shaping of income. The market-driven shaping of income means that the income is derived from the sale of the factors of production. Most people have income from employment. Robots change this mechanism. It is estimated that scientific progress allows to create such number of robots that will replace billion people in the world. What will happen to those “superseded”, what will replace the income from human labour? Capitalism will face an institutional challenge, and must replace the market-driven shaping of income with another, new one. The introduction of robots means microeconomic battle with the barrier of demand. To sell more, one needs to cut costs. The costs are lowered by the introduction of robots, but the use of robots reduces the demand for human labour. Lowering the demand for human labour results in the reduction of employment, and lower wages. Lower wages result in the reduction of the demand for goods and services. To increase the demand for goods and services, the companies must lower their costs, so they increase the involvement of robots, etc. A mechanism of the vicious circle appears If such a mass substitution of the factors of production is unfavourable from the point of view of stimulating the development of the economy, then something must be done to improve the adverse price relations for labour. How can the conditions of competition between a robot and a man be made equal, at least partially? Robots should be taxed. Bill Gates, among others, is a supporter of such a solution. However, this is only one of the tools that can be used. The solution of the problem requires a change in the mechanism, so a breakthrough innovation of a social and political nature. We can say that technological and product innovations force the creation of social and political innovations (maybe institutional changes). Product innovations solve some problems (e.g. they contribute to the reduction of production costs), but at the same time, give rise to others. Progress of civilisation for centuries and even millennia was primarily an intellectual progress. It was difficult to discuss economic progress at that time. Then we had to deal with the imbalance between the economic and the social element. The insufficiency of the economic factor (otherwise than it is today) was the reason for the tensions and crises. Estimates of growth indicate that the increase in industrial production from ancient times to the first industrial revolution, that is until about 1700, was 0.1-0.2 per year on average. Only the next centuries brought about systematically increasing pace of economic growth. During 1700- 1820, it was 0.5% on an annual average, and between 1820-1913 – 1.5%, and between 1913-2012 – 3.0% [Piketty, 2015, p. 97]. So, the significant pace of the economic growth is found only at the turn of the 19th and 20th century. Additionally, the growth in this period refers predominantly to Europe and North America. The countries on other continents were either stuck in colonialism, structurally similar to the medieval period, or “lived” on the history of their former glory, as, for example, China and Japan, or to a lesser extent some countries of the Middle East and South America. The growth, having then the signs of the modern growth, that is the growth based on technological progress, was attributed mainly to Europe and the United States. The progress of civilisation requires the creation of new social initiatives. Social innovations are indeed an additional capital to keep the social structure in balance. The social capital is seen as a means and purpose and as a primary source of new values for the members of the society. Social innovations also motivate every citizen to actively participate in this process. It is necessary, because traditional ways of solving social problems, even those known for a long time as unemployment, ageing of the society, or exclusion of considerable social and professional groups from the social and economic development, simply fail. “Old” problems are joined by new ones, such as the increase of social inequalities, climate change, or rapidly growing environmental pollution. New phenomena and problems require new solutions, changes to existing procedures, programmes, and often a completely different approach and instruments [Kowalczyk, Sobiecki, 2017].

The article is devoted to the development of digital economy and information networks on the basis of advances in information and telecommunication technologies, affecting the qualitative and structural changes in all sectors of social production, in particular in the EU labor market. This leads to the transformation of production systems, management and state regulation in most EU countries. Having recovered from World War II, humanity has launched a new economic model called "smart production and consumption". It is shown that the economy of the XXI century, acquiring more and more signs of digitalization, is significantly transformed into a global digital economy. The development of ICTs reflects notable changes in the organization of the production process and labor activities, as new technologies stop performing certain types of labor activities. At the same time, they create a demand for people with new professional and qualification characteristics and contribute to the emergence of new jobs, thus creating new opportunities and requirements that a modern automated worker should meet. The fact that new opportunities for Ukrainian IT specialists have appeared on the EU labor market deserves special attention, the number of which has increased significantly due to the military aggression of the Russian Federation against Ukraine. IT has become an integral part of modern life. Thus, at the beginning of 2022 there were 90 thousand IT specialists (programmers) working in Ukraine. However, it is worth noting that Ukraine is currently experiencing a very difficult military situation, which reflects an accelerated outflow of population to other regions of Ukraine and EU countries. About 3.5 million Ukrainians have moved to the European Union. Among the "forced migrants" there is a certain share of people with skills in the IT industry. Considerable attention is paid to the analysis of IT skills, which are the main driving force behind the digitalization of the EU labor market. In particular, these qualities include the ability to work with foreigners, to attract investment, to work with computer technology and use technology in various cases, and to learn quickly and know foreign languages. This makes IT specialists very demanding. On the EU labor market, professions such as IT recruiter, project manager, PR manager, product manager and system analyst are most attractive to men, while HR manager, SEO-marketer, copywriter and WEB-analyst are more popular among women. Methodology. The methodology of expert assessment of the level of digitalization in the EU labor market is determined by an integral indicator, namely the index of digitalization of the labor market. This index measures the share of employment in services, the share of employment in knowledge-intensive services, the level of access to ICTs, the level of use of ICTs, the level of adoption of new organizational models of work based on ICTs, the share of exports of information and communication services, and the share of exports of digital services. This methodology allows to rank the countries of the European Union on the degree of digitalization of the labor market and prove the ability of states to provide employment growth through the spread of digital technology and the development of a digital global space. Results. It has been argued that humans today are hostage to resource collapse. In this case there is a dilemma: either to move along the current path, or technologically to become part of nature, that is, to live at the expense of fundamentally new inexhaustible resources and technologies created by wildlife, but using the most modern technology. This means the convergence of science and technology, consisting of similarities in the device and function of relatively distant groups, namely the convergence in the evolution of such technologies as N-nano, B-bio, I-Information, C-cognitive, the so-called NBIC-technologies. It has been established that today's programmers come in different ranks: junior, middle, and senior, and are proficient in major programming languages such as C, C++, C#, Java, Python, JavaScript, and PHP. With these qualities, programmers can work in a variety of industries because they are highly adaptable to change and have patience, because technology is constantly changing. Therefore, undoubtedly, such employees in the field of digital technology are very desirable for employers. Practical implications. As an effective practical method of analyzing the digitalization of the EU labor market the system approach and the development of IT-technologies are proposed. They cover the whole complex of scientific and technical problems, which, for all their specificity and diversity, are similar in their understanding and consideration of the objects and systems they study. That is, sets of interrelated elements that act as a whole. The index of digitalization of the labor market is one of these elements. It is used to assess the large share of IT services in various areas of the EU labor market. Value/originality. The article discusses the current directions of IT influence on the digitalization of the EU labor market. It shows how exactly IT contributes to the implementation of automated labor at the current stage of development of the digital economy in the EU. The number of people engaged in technical and technological labor in the digital space is relatively increasing, which forms the digital employment market. The digitalization of the labor market is automated through information systems and the spread of information technology. It requires a new type of thinking from the modern worker, formed on the basis of general education and special knowledge and skills in the use of innovative information technologies.

Today, more than 3.9 billion people live in urban areas, that is, more than 54% of the world population. According to scientists from New York State University, urbanization will continue in the coming years, increasing the urban population to 6.0 billion. people by 2045 A significant increase in the urban population increases the demand for energy, mobility, water and other urban services in cities. Therefore, cities should become smarter in providing urban services. In addition, cities are the largest environmental pollutants responsible for more than 80% of greenhouse gas emissions, 75% of waste generation and 70% of global energy consumption. Due to global awareness of the negative impacts of such pollution on the environment, cities are under greater pressure to improve environmental performance while improving the level of services. All these trends converge at the moment when a new trend is being formed: digitalization. The growing demand for sustainable, comprehensive, reliable and efficient urban service puts enormous pressure on our urban infrastructure, but digitalization provides a powerful tool for solving these issues and creates a paradigm shift in our concept of cities – creating the Smart City concept. The use of information technologies in the management of a modern city has long been relevant. Since the 2000s, progressive companies have mentioned Smart City as an effective way to manage urban resources and recommended it for use by officials. However, then it is only possible to talk about it, and today every city that considers itself modern wants to be Smart City. It is also worth introducing smart technologies in the public administration sector, and not only in the field of infrastructure, security and tourism. This is due to both the globalization processes, the increase in the population in cities and the growing role of the cities themselves and the systematic growth of urbanization, and the change in the role of the city itself – their transformation into modern information centres using information and communication technologies in many spheres of life of residents. Modern cities face constant contradictions every day: the combination of social attractiveness of the city and the comfort of residents' living, the rapid growth of production and environmental norms and the growth of industrial waste, transport and production infrastructure and modern information technologies. At the same time, it is worth noting that cities are the driving engines of the economy, platforms for creating and implementing social innovations, technological innovations, centres of education and culture. Smart cities today become the basis of social progress and economic growth, as information technologies help transform traditional functions in the classical sense through the use of smart technologies. These technologies make it possible to solve the problems that arise and qualitatively change the system of the city administration. As a result, conditions for the development of each resident of the community and the city as a whole are ensured. Smart decisions of the city authorities produce an increase in the value of the city itself due to additional emerging opportunities, as well as increasing the investment attractiveness of the city itself. The growth of modern solutions using the latest technologies, primarily in the field of municipal management, increases the efficiency of resource use, ensures the development of economic potential, the launch of new individual business areas, and also improves the quality and comfort of citizens' living in the city. At the same time, modern city development and management systems should include smart technologies and information systems for the transformation of life in urban processes, better management and improvement of life in the city. It is also worth noting that today with the spread of infections, such as covid-19 infection, which has become a global pandemic, the role of Smart City smart technologies is not so much in demand in the world and Ukraine in particular. The role of such technologies will increase from year to year. Also, taking into account globalization and integration processes in the world, the Smart City system has long begun to gain popularity among leading countries with developed economies and the European Union. Smart City affects both everyday life in the city and the sphere of state and local administration, public safety, industry, transport, ecology, medicine, energy, mobility and other spheres of life of citizens, both at the national and local levels. Keywords: globalization, smart technologies, digitalization, digitalization, development, Smart City.

In the era of globalization, the attraction of foreign investments has become an important factor in promoting the economic growth of countries. Investors are constantly looking for favorable conditions for investing their capital, which involves a combination of several important factors. The investor, who is focused on getting the maximum profit with the minimum cost, before making an investment decision, will study the investment environment of the host country, the proximity to large key markets, the barriers to entry from the host country to international markets, the availability of production and energy resources, the level of political and economic stability, the number of labor force, qualifications, etc. .sh. In terms of investments in the modern world, two types of trends have been identified: 1. High-tech investments, which are mainly located in developed countries, due to the developed country's intellectual resources, key market and good opportunities for business development, and 2. Investment, which is focused on obtaining maximum profit at the expense of cheap resources and labor force, and there is no or minimal technical innovation in it. It is important for the state to attract such direct foreign investments, which will not only be focused on making profits, but will also ensure the raising of the qualifications of local staff, the introduction of technological innovations, and the social protection of employees. Thanks to the economic reforms implemented after the post-Soviet upheavals, Georgia has become an attractive place for foreign investment, however, due to the shortage of labor force and low qualifications, investments focused on cheap resources and labor force are entering the country more than high-tech ones. The entry of relatively large, high-tech investments is hindered, in addition to the scarcity of the country's workforce and relatively low qualifications, the low level of energy independence, the territories occupied by the Russian Federation of Georgia, the generally politically and economically unstable region (Tskhinvali, Abkhazia, Karabakh regions), the aggressive state - the Russian Federation. Neighborhood and high probability of potential armed conflicts. The positive factors that make Georgia attractive for foreign investors are a favorable geopolitical location with land access, moderate natural and climatic conditions, low level of corruption, less bureaucratic and simple legislation compared to other countries, high level of harmonization of national legislation with international legislation, with the European Union in 2014 and in 2017 Free trade agreements signed with China, which allow a foreign investor to export products produced on behalf of Georgia to two of the world's largest markets without any problems. Due to the fact that one of the most important factors of production - "capital" - is needed to develop the economy, and the country does not have it at this stage, attracting foreign investments is a vitally important task for the economic growth of Georgia. In developing countries like Georgia, the level of domestic savings is relatively low. In addition to this, apart from the banking system, there is no stock market. In the period 1996-2021, a total of about 23.12 billion dollars of investment came into Georgia. The first and only investor country in 1996 was Ukraine with 3753.45 thousand US dollars. In the following years, significant investments were made in Georgia from the USA (1.81 billion USD), the European Union, CIS countries and Great Britain. According to the latest data, foreign investment has entered Georgia from 74 countries, which is almost 2 times less than the number of countries with which Georgia has trade relations (export-import). Since 2003, the growth of investments had an irreversible character, however, the 2008 world economic crisis and Russia's military attack on Georgia sharply reduced this figure, and it took 6 years to restore the pre-war figure. In addition, since 2017, foreign investments in Georgia have been characterized by a decreasing trend. Pandemic year 2020 was particularly notable in terms of investment decline. Despite the fact that after the signing of the Georgia-EU association in 2014, foreign investments should have increased due to the desire to access the EU market, until 2017, their volume was decreasing. In 2017, in the history of independent Georgia, the largest level of foreign investments - 1.98 billion USD was recorded. In the same year, the agreement on free trade between Georgia and China was signed, which should also increase foreign investments due to the desire to access the Chinese market, although the country has not returned to the level of foreign investments made in 2017. On December 31, 2013, the Organic Law of Georgia "On Economic Freedom" adopted in 2011 entered into force. The law, on the one hand, regulates the limit of the amount acceptable from taxpayers - in case of the desire to increase the tax rates of income, profit, VAT and import taxes, citizens' consent is required through a referendum, and on the other hand, the amount of spending of collected taxes is controlled by the limits of the established macroeconomic parameters. After the implementation of this law, the tax burden of taxpayers was not supposed to increase, but the government took advantage of the loophole in the law and in 2017 the excise duty rate was sharply increased on cars (the excise duty on right-hand drive cars was doubled), fuel and tobacco products. The property tax has also been increased, since it does not belong to the general state tax. Since January 1, 2017, when the Estonian model of profit tax came into force, the state budget received about 500 million GEL less. To make up the deficit, either government spending had to be cut, or debt had to be incurred, or taxes had to be raised. In 2017, the government's expenses increased by 800 million GEL, we took on a debt of 400 million GEL, and the excise and property tax rates were also increased, according to which if the family had an annual income of more than 40,000 GEL, they would have already paid property tax on the car. As of May 2021, the foreign debt has increased to 24.8 billion GEL and has already violated the macroeconomic parameter written in the Law on Economic Freedom, according to which the government's debt cannot exceed 60% of GDP. From 2011, when the law was adopted, until 2013, when the law entered into force, the volume of direct foreign investments did not increase, on the contrary - it even decreased, although this can be blamed on the caution caused by the change of government in 2012. - Investors are likely to observe the possibility of a change in the country's political vector. When the law came into force in December 2013, that is, in fact from 2014, the volume of investments increased by leaps and bounds, and this dynamic continued until 2017, when taxes were increased. Since 2018, the volume of direct foreign investments has dropped almost to the level of 2011. Based on all of the above, we believe that in order to attract foreign investments, Georgia should make maximum use of those competitive advantages that will attract the attention of foreign investors. The country, which has historically been a corridor of regional and world importance, has yet to fully utilize its transport function.

AbstractThe article raises the question of whether the European Union should intervene in the standardization process of the telecommunication sector. By analyzing the standardization activities of the EU which have been undertaken so far, it is shown that they have been an important contribution to the creation of a single market in telecommunications. However, they are also increasingly used as an instrument for industrial policy. In the future the need for an interventionist role of the EU in the standardization process will decrease. This is due to rapid technological innovations and increasing demand for user-specific applications.

Innovative development is one of the political priorities of the European Union countries. The Commission of the European Communities recommends that countries pursue innovation policies at the regional level. The regional development of innovations is possible only in conditions of openness. It is important to understand in which conditions the regions will support each other, and in which they will become competitors pulling over limited resources. The strength of mutual influence is determined by economic, technological and geographical distances. In this study we determined how technological development in one region effects the level of development of neighboring territories in the European Union. The research methodology is the calculation of spatial autocorrelation (global and local Moran index I) by the number of patents in 2018-2021 in 169 regions of Europe. Among the regions four groups were identified: innovation cluster centers, innovation agglomerations, the neighbors of innovative cores and the territories outside the influence. The dynamics of development is also analyzed. It is shown that in some cases regions form technological clusters (in Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands) or pull assets from neighbors to more innovative regions (in France, Austria, Denmark). In general, most regions of the EU regions have the low level of patent activity. At the same time, it is possible to identify regions - innovation centers, for instance, Castile-Leon (Spain), Masovian voivodeship (Poland). Understanding the emerging innovation blocs in the European Union will allow to implement more focused and effective policy.

When George Orwell encountered ideas of a technological utopia sixty-five years ago, he acted the grumpy middle-aged man Reading recently a batch of rather shallowly optimistic “progressive” books, I was struck by the automatic way in which people go on repeating certain phrases which were fashionable before 1914. Two great favourites are “the abolition of distance” and “the disappearance of frontiers”. I do not know how often I have met with the statements that “the aeroplane and the radio have abolished distance” and “all parts of the world are now interdependent” (1944). It is worth revisiting the old boy’s grumpiness, because the rhetoric he so niftily skewers continues in our own time. Facebook features “Peace on Facebook” and even claims that it can “decrease world conflict” through inter-cultural communication. Twitter has announced itself as “a triumph of humanity” (“A Cyber-House” 61). Queue George. In between Orwell and latter-day hoody cybertarians, a whole host of excitable public intellectuals announced the impending end of materiality through emergent media forms. Marshall McLuhan, Neil Postman, Daniel Bell, Ithiel de Sola Pool, George Gilder, Alvin Toffler—the list of 1960s futurists goes on and on. And this wasn’t just a matter of punditry: the OECD decreed the coming of the “information society” in 1975 and the European Union (EU) followed suit in 1979, while IBM merrily declared an “information age” in 1977. Bell theorized this technological utopia as post-ideological, because class would cease to matter (Mattelart). Polluting industries seemingly no longer represented the dynamic core of industrial capitalism; instead, market dynamism radiated from a networked, intellectual core of creative and informational activities. The new information and knowledge-based economies would rescue First World hegemony from an “insurgent world” that lurked within as well as beyond itself (Schiller). Orwell’s others and the Cold-War futurists propagated one of the most destructive myths shaping both public debate and scholarly studies of the media, culture, and communication. They convinced generations of analysts, activists, and arrivistes that the promises and problems of the media could be understood via metaphors of the environment, and that the media were weightless and virtual. The famous medium they wished us to see as the message —a substance as vital to our wellbeing as air, water, and soil—turned out to be no such thing. Today’s cybertarians inherit their anti-Marxist, anti-materialist positions, as a casual glance at any new media journal, culture-industry magazine, or bourgeois press outlet discloses. The media are undoubtedly important instruments of social cohesion and fragmentation, political power and dissent, democracy and demagoguery, and other fraught extensions of human consciousness. But talk of media systems as equivalent to physical ecosystems—fashionable among marketers and media scholars alike—is predicated on the notion that they are environmentally benign technologies. This has never been true, from the beginnings of print to today’s cloud-covered computing. Our new book Greening the Media focuses on the environmental impact of the media—the myriad ways that media technology consumes, despoils, and wastes natural resources. We introduce ideas, stories, and facts that have been marginal or absent from popular, academic, and professional histories of media technology. Throughout, ecological issues have been at the core of our work and we immodestly think the same should apply to media communications, and cultural studies more generally. We recognize that those fields have contributed valuable research and teaching that address environmental questions. For instance, there is an abundant literature on representations of the environment in cinema, how to communicate environmental messages successfully, and press coverage of climate change. That’s not enough. You may already know that media technologies contain toxic substances. You may have signed an on-line petition protesting the hazardous and oppressive conditions under which workers assemble cell phones and computers. But you may be startled, as we were, by the scale and pervasiveness of these environmental risks. They are present in and around every site where electronic and electric devices are manufactured, used, and thrown away, poisoning humans, animals, vegetation, soil, air and water. We are using the term “media” as a portmanteau word to cover a multitude of cultural and communications machines and processes—print, film, radio, television, information and communications technologies (ICT), and consumer electronics (CE). This is not only for analytical convenience, but because there is increasing overlap between the sectors. CE connect to ICT and vice versa; televisions resemble computers; books are read on telephones; newspapers are written through clouds; and so on. Cultural forms and gadgets that were once separate are now linked. The currently fashionable notion of convergence doesn’t quite capture the vastness of this integration, which includes any object with a circuit board, scores of accessories that plug into it, and a global nexus of labor and environmental inputs and effects that produce and flow from it. In 2007, a combination of ICT/CE and media production accounted for between 2 and 3 percent of all greenhouse gases emitted around the world (“Gartner Estimates,”; International Telecommunication Union; Malmodin et al.). Between twenty and fifty million tonnes of electronic waste (e-waste) are generated annually, much of it via discarded cell phones and computers, which affluent populations throw out regularly in order to buy replacements. (Presumably this fits the narcissism of small differences that distinguishes them from their own past.) E-waste is historically produced in the Global North—Australasia, Western Europe, Japan, and the US—and dumped in the Global South—Latin America, Africa, Eastern Europe, Southern and Southeast Asia, and China. It takes the form of a thousand different, often deadly, materials for each electrical and electronic gadget. This trend is changing as India and China generate their own media detritus (Robinson; Herat). Enclosed hard drives, backlit screens, cathode ray tubes, wiring, capacitors, and heavy metals pose few risks while these materials remain encased. But once discarded and dismantled, ICT/CE have the potential to expose workers and ecosystems to a morass of toxic components. Theoretically, “outmoded” parts could be reused or swapped for newer parts to refurbish devices. But items that are defined as waste undergo further destruction in order to collect remaining parts and valuable metals, such as gold, silver, copper, and rare-earth elements. This process causes serious health risks to bones, brains, stomachs, lungs, and other vital organs, in addition to birth defects and disrupted biological development in children. Medical catastrophes can result from lead, cadmium, mercury, other heavy metals, poisonous fumes emitted in search of precious metals, and such carcinogenic compounds as polychlorinated biphenyls, dioxin, polyvinyl chloride, and flame retardants (Maxwell and Miller 13). The United States’ Environmental Protection Agency estimates that by 2007 US residents owned approximately three billion electronic devices, with an annual turnover rate of 400 million units, and well over half such purchases made by women. Overall CE ownership varied with age—adults under 45 typically boasted four gadgets; those over 65 made do with one. The Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) says US$145 billion was expended in the sector in 2006 in the US alone, up 13% on the previous year. The CEA refers joyously to a “consumer love affair with technology continuing at a healthy clip.” In the midst of a recession, 2009 saw $165 billion in sales, and households owned between fifteen and twenty-four gadgets on average. By 2010, US$233 billion was spent on electronic products, three-quarters of the population owned a computer, nearly half of all US adults owned an MP3 player, and 85% had a cell phone. By all measures, the amount of ICT/CE on the planet is staggering. As investigative science journalist, Elizabeth Grossman put it: “no industry pushes products into the global market on the scale that high-tech electronics does” (Maxwell and Miller 2). In 2007, “of the 2.25 million tons of TVs, cell phones and computer products ready for end-of-life management, 18% (414,000 tons) was collected for recycling and 82% (1.84 million tons) was disposed of, primarily in landfill” (Environmental Protection Agency 1). Twenty million computers fell obsolete across the US in 1998, and the rate was 130,000 a day by 2005. It has been estimated that the five hundred million personal computers discarded in the US between 1997 and 2007 contained 6.32 billion pounds of plastics, 1.58 billion pounds of lead, three million pounds of cadmium, 1.9 million pounds of chromium, and 632000 pounds of mercury (Environmental Protection Agency; Basel Action Network and Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition 6). The European Union is expected to generate upwards of twelve million tons annually by 2020 (Commission of the European Communities 17). While refrigerators and dangerous refrigerants account for the bulk of EU e-waste, about 44% of the most toxic e-waste measured in 2005 came from medium-to-small ICT/CE: computer monitors, TVs, printers, ink cartridges, telecommunications equipment, toys, tools, and anything with a circuit board (Commission of the European Communities 31-34). Understanding the enormity of the environmental problems caused by making, using, and disposing of media technologies should arrest our enthusiasm for them. But intellectual correctives to the “love affair” with technology, or technophilia, have come and gone without establishing much of a foothold against the breathtaking flood of gadgets and the propaganda that proclaims their awe-inspiring capabilities.[i] There is a peculiar enchantment with the seeming magic of wireless communication, touch-screen phones and tablets, flat-screen high-definition televisions, 3-D IMAX cinema, mobile computing, and so on—a totemic, quasi-sacred power that the historian of technology David Nye has named the technological sublime (Nye Technological Sublime 297).[ii] We demonstrate in our book why there is no place for the technological sublime in projects to green the media. But first we should explain why such symbolic power does not accrue to more mundane technologies; after all, for the time-strapped cook, a pressure cooker does truly magical things. Three important qualities endow ICT/CE with unique symbolic potency—virtuality, volume, and novelty. The technological sublime of media technology is reinforced by the “virtual nature of much of the industry’s content,” which “tends to obscure their responsibility for a vast proliferation of hardware, all with high levels of built-in obsolescence and decreasing levels of efficiency” (Boyce and Lewis 5). Planned obsolescence entered the lexicon as a new “ethics” for electrical engineering in the 1920s and ’30s, when marketers, eager to “habituate people to buying new products,” called for designs to become quickly obsolete “in efficiency, economy, style, or taste” (Grossman 7-8).[iii] This defines the short lifespan deliberately constructed for computer systems (drives, interfaces, operating systems, batteries, etc.) by making tiny improvements incompatible with existing hardware (Science and Technology Council of the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences 33-50; Boyce and Lewis). With planned obsolescence leading to “dizzying new heights” of product replacement (Rogers 202), there is an overstated sense of the novelty and preeminence of “new” media—a “cult of the present” is particularly dazzled by the spread of electronic gadgets through globalization (Mattelart and Constantinou 22). References to the symbolic power of media technology can be found in hymnals across the internet and the halls of academe: technologies change us, the media will solve social problems or create new ones, ICTs transform work, monopoly ownership no longer matters, journalism is dead, social networking enables social revolution, and the media deliver a cleaner, post-industrial, capitalism. Here is a typical example from the twilight zone of the technological sublime (actually, the OECD): A major feature of the knowledge-based economy is the impact that ICTs have had on industrial structure, with a rapid growth of services and a relative decline of manufacturing. Services are typically less energy intensive and less polluting, so among those countries with a high and increasing share of services, we often see a declining energy intensity of production … with the emergence of the Knowledge Economy ending the old linear relationship between output and energy use (i.e. partially de-coupling growth and energy use) (Houghton 1) This statement mixes half-truths and nonsense. In reality, old-time, toxic manufacturing has moved to the Global South, where it is ascendant; pollution levels are rising worldwide; and energy consumption is accelerating in residential and institutional sectors, due almost entirely to ICT/CE usage, despite advances in energy conservation technology (a neat instance of the age-old Jevons Paradox). In our book we show how these are all outcomes of growth in ICT/CE, the foundation of the so-called knowledge-based economy. ICT/CE are misleadingly presented as having little or no material ecological impact. In the realm of everyday life, the sublime experience of electronic machinery conceals the physical work and material resources that go into them, while the technological sublime makes the idea that more-is-better palatable, axiomatic; even sexy. In this sense, the technological sublime relates to what Marx called “the Fetishism which attaches itself to the products of labour” once they are in the hands of the consumer, who lusts after them as if they were “independent beings” (77). There is a direct but unseen relationship between technology’s symbolic power and the scale of its environmental impact, which the economist Juliet Schor refers to as a “materiality paradox” —the greater the frenzy to buy goods for their transcendent or nonmaterial cultural meaning, the greater the use of material resources (40-41). We wrote Greening the Media knowing that a study of the media’s effect on the environment must work especially hard to break the enchantment that inflames popular and elite passions for media technologies. We understand that the mere mention of the political-economic arrangements that make shiny gadgets possible, or the environmental consequences of their appearance and disappearance, is bad medicine. It’s an unwelcome buzz kill—not a cool way to converse about cool stuff. But we didn’t write the book expecting to win many allies among high-tech enthusiasts and ICT/CE industry leaders. We do not dispute the importance of information and communication media in our lives and modern social systems. We are media people by profession and personal choice, and deeply immersed in the study and use of emerging media technologies. But we think it’s time for a balanced assessment with less hype and more practical understanding of the relationship of media technologies to the biosphere they inhabit. Media consumers, designers, producers, activists, researchers, and policy makers must find new and effective ways to move ICT/CE production and consumption toward ecologically sound practices. In the course of this project, we found in casual conversation, lecture halls, classroom discussions, and correspondence, consistent and increasing concern with the environmental impact of media technology, especially the deleterious effects of e-waste toxins on workers, air, water, and soil. We have learned that the grip of the technological sublime is not ironclad. Its instability provides a point of departure for investigating and criticizing the relationship between the media and the environment. The media are, and have been for a long time, intimate environmental participants. Media technologies are yesterday’s, today’s, and tomorrow’s news, but rarely in the way they should be. The prevailing myth is that the printing press, telegraph, phonograph, photograph, cinema, telephone, wireless radio, television, and internet changed the world without changing the Earth. In reality, each technology has emerged by despoiling ecosystems and exposing workers to harmful environments, a truth obscured by symbolic power and the power of moguls to set the terms by which such technologies are designed and deployed. Those who benefit from ideas of growth, progress, and convergence, who profit from high-tech innovation, monopoly, and state collusion—the military-industrial-entertainment-academic complex and multinational commandants of labor—have for too long ripped off the Earth and workers. As the current celebration of media technology inevitably winds down, perhaps it will become easier to comprehend that digital wonders come at the expense of employees and ecosystems. This will return us to Max Weber’s insistence that we understand technology in a mundane way as a “mode of processing material goods” (27). Further to understanding that ordinariness, we can turn to the pioneering conversation analyst Harvey Sacks, who noted three decades ago “the failures of technocratic dreams [:] that if only we introduced some fantastic new communication machine the world will be transformed.” Such fantasies derived from the very banality of these introductions—that every time they took place, one more “technical apparatus” was simply “being made at home with the rest of our world’ (548). Media studies can join in this repetitive banality. Or it can withdraw the welcome mat for media technologies that despoil the Earth and wreck the lives of those who make them. In our view, it’s time to green the media by greening media studies. References “A Cyber-House Divided.” Economist 4 Sep. 2010: 61-62. “Gartner Estimates ICT Industry Accounts for 2 Percent of Global CO2 Emissions.” Gartner press release. 6 April 2007. ‹http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=503867›. Basel Action Network and Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition. Exporting Harm: The High-Tech Trashing of Asia. Seattle: Basel Action Network, 25 Feb. 2002. Benjamin, Walter. “Central Park.” Trans. Lloyd Spencer with Mark Harrington. New German Critique 34 (1985): 32-58. Biagioli, Mario. “Postdisciplinary Liaisons: Science Studies and the Humanities.” Critical Inquiry 35.4 (2009): 816-33. Boyce, Tammy and Justin Lewis, eds. Climate Change and the Media. New York: Peter Lang, 2009. Commission of the European Communities. “Impact Assessment.” Commission Staff Working Paper accompanying the Proposal for a Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) (recast). COM (2008) 810 Final. Brussels: Commission of the European Communities, 3 Dec. 2008. Environmental Protection Agency. Management of Electronic Waste in the United States. Washington, DC: EPA, 2007 Environmental Protection Agency. Statistics on the Management of Used and End-of-Life Electronics. Washington, DC: EPA, 2008 Grossman, Elizabeth. Tackling High-Tech Trash: The E-Waste Explosion & What We Can Do about It. New York: Demos, 2008. ‹http://www.demos.org/pubs/e-waste_FINAL.pdf› Herat, Sunil. “Review: Sustainable Management of Electronic Waste (e-Waste).” Clean 35.4 (2007): 305-10. Houghton, J. “ICT and the Environment in Developing Countries: Opportunities and Developments.” Paper prepared for the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, 2009. International Telecommunication Union. ICTs for Environment: Guidelines for Developing Countries, with a Focus on Climate Change. Geneva: ICT Applications and Cybersecurity Division Policies and Strategies Department ITU Telecommunication Development Sector, 2008. Malmodin, Jens, Åsa Moberg, Dag Lundén, Göran Finnveden, and Nina Lövehagen. “Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Operational Electricity Use in the ICT and Entertainment & Media Sectors.” Journal of Industrial Ecology 14.5 (2010): 770-90. Marx, Karl. Capital: Vol. 1: A Critical Analysis of Capitalist Production, 3rd ed. Trans. Samuel Moore and Edward Aveling, Ed. Frederick Engels. New York: International Publishers, 1987. Mattelart, Armand and Costas M. Constantinou. “Communications/Excommunications: An Interview with Armand Mattelart.” Trans. Amandine Bled, Jacques Guot, and Costas Constantinou. Review of International Studies 34.1 (2008): 21-42. Mattelart, Armand. “Cómo nació el mito de Internet.” Trans. Yanina Guthman. El mito internet. Ed. Victor Hugo de la Fuente. Santiago: Editorial aún creemos en los sueños, 2002. 25-32. Maxwell, Richard and Toby Miller. Greening the Media. New York: Oxford University Press, 2012. Nye, David E. American Technological Sublime. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1994. Nye, David E. Technology Matters: Questions to Live With. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. 2007. Orwell, George. “As I Please.” Tribune. 12 May 1944. Richtel, Matt. “Consumers Hold on to Products Longer.” New York Times: B1, 26 Feb. 2011. Robinson, Brett H. “E-Waste: An Assessment of Global Production and Environmental Impacts.” Science of the Total Environment 408.2 (2009): 183-91. Rogers, Heather. Gone Tomorrow: The Hidden Life of Garbage. New York: New Press, 2005. Sacks, Harvey. Lectures on Conversation. Vols. I and II. Ed. Gail Jefferson. Malden: Blackwell, 1995. Schiller, Herbert I. Information and the Crisis Economy. Norwood: Ablex Publishing, 1984. Schor, Juliet B. Plenitude: The New Economics of True Wealth. New York: Penguin, 2010. Science and Technology Council of the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. The Digital Dilemma: Strategic Issues in Archiving and Accessing Digital Motion Picture Materials. Los Angeles: Academy Imprints, 2007. Weber, Max. “Remarks on Technology and Culture.” Trans. Beatrix Zumsteg and Thomas M. Kemple. Ed. Thomas M. Kemple. Theory, Culture [i] The global recession that began in 2007 has been the main reason for some declines in Global North energy consumption, slower turnover in gadget upgrades, and longer periods of consumer maintenance of electronic goods (Richtel). [ii] The emergence of the technological sublime has been attributed to the Western triumphs in the post-Second World War period, when technological power supposedly supplanted the power of nature to inspire fear and astonishment (Nye Technology Matters 28). Historian Mario Biagioli explains how the sublime permeates everyday life through technoscience: "If around 1950 the popular imaginary placed science close to the military and away from the home, today’s technoscience frames our everyday life at all levels, down to our notion of the self" (818). [iii] This compulsory repetition is seemingly undertaken each time as a novelty, governed by what German cultural critic Walter Benjamin called, in his awkward but occasionally illuminating prose, "the ever-always-the-same" of "mass-production" cloaked in "a hitherto unheard-of significance" (48).

Modern paradigm of society digitalization, based on the introduction of digital economy and management, on new information and computer technologies is considered. The example of the European Union and Morocco in the context of cross-cultural analysis shows how to form a similar paradigm in order to bring the country to the level of an advanced one. At the heart of the digital economy and digital management is the introduction of innovations in various sectors of national economy. The European Union has focused on four key areas: 1) skills; 2) infrastructure; 3) public services; 4) digitalization of business, which contributes to the digital revolution. By increasing their capacity, countries have been able to steer the digital transformation of the world for the better by expanding international technological cooperation. At the same time, three main principles should be followed: 1) equal“playing field” in digital markets; 2) security in cyberspace; 3) freedom online. The example of Morocco as a developing country shows that the country has chosen a scenario for the development of digital technologies and this logic has led to the current development of modern ICT and to the absence of a gap in the mentioned sector. In order to remain competitive in 10 years (as Morocco does), it is necessary to begin digital transformation today and change must affect not only the IT system, but also the people and leaders, their consciousness and culture, the formation of algorithmic thinking in the organization, for which the state should regulate this sector and develop the infrastructure of organizations and advanced innovative thinking.

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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This paper is included in the First Monday Special Issue #3: Internet banking, e-money, and Internet gift economies, published in December 2005. Special Issue editor Mark A. Fox asked authors to submit additional comments regarding their articles. E-money four years later In the late 1990s, there was a lively debate about the implications of the newly emerging e-money on the ability of central banks to control monetary aggregates.[1] What caught the imagination of many observers was not so much the fact that new types of money were electronic. Rather, it was the potential that new forms of money were capable to be transferred via the internet without the intervention of a traditional credit institution. More than anything else, the trial of DigiCash in 1994 with its ‘Cyberbucks’ rang the alarm bells of monetary authorities. It had everything they feared: it was issued by a non-bank, it could be used via the internet, it was P2P capable and it was anonymous. Against this background, a debate ensued about the merits of the new type of money and its potential to limit the power of central banks. Central banks and international bodies such as the Bank for International Settlements published a large number of reports [2] and academics scrutinised the issues involved. Finally, law makers took to the issue and e-money became subject of regulation in a number of countries. Thus, after long debates, the E-Money Directive of the European Union was passed in 2001 (it is currently reviewed). By 2001, however, many of the early pioneers such as DigiCash, Cybercash or First Virtual had gone out of business. The whole discussion began losing steam. Moreover, the very concept of ‘e-money’ was slowly changing. Initially, e-money was meant to be a close electronic substitute for cash: a bearer instrument, capable to circulate, anonymous, etc. To some degree, this was achieved by e-purses. However, only to a degree because e-purses do not allow balances to circulate. The recipient has to return balances to financial institutions and the corresponding value will be credited to a bank account. Thus, from the point of view of the payor, e-purses have a lot in common with cash, but not from the point of view of the payee. On the internet, nothing like the envisioned digital bearer certificates has emerged. Rather, today, what is called ‘e-money’ consists of limited purpose accounts with non-banks. In the EU these non-banks have to obtain an e-money licence. In the U.S. they may be required to hold state money transmitter licences. These accounts have much more in common with bank accounts than with cash. What drives the demand for these products is convenience of use. Thus, in the end, the internet e-money that exists is not a new type of money at all. And the card based e-money is struggling in many parts of the world. Only recently, one of the first e-purse schemes, the Danish Danmont has been discontinued. What are the lessons? 1. I think the approach by Alan Greenspan to take a ‘wait and see’ attitude was vindicated. Strict ex ante regulation of new concepts and products make life difficult for small start-ups and thus slows down innovation. Moreover, early regulation may be misguided because it is not known well what to regulate. Thus, the type of e-money regulators had in mind in the late 1990s (digital bearer instruments) never took off. 2. Payments exhibit strong network effects. Therefore, any new instrument that is meant to be more than just a niche product has be firmly connected with the payment backbone: the bank-based retail and wholesale payment system. Therefore, the emergence of a parallel circulation of alternative monies should not worry central bankers. Such schemes are unlikely to grow beyond the already existing scale (in form of barter schemes etc.). Technological innovations are unlikely to change this. This is the point made in my paper and I think it is still valid. 3. The early discussion was very much about technical issues. Innovators that entered the market were technology companies. However, the payment industry also is, to a considerable extent, a service industry. The early newcomers ignored this and paid the price. They all vanished from the market. Today’s successful internet payment providers are much more focussed on service than their predecessors. 4. It seems wise to let non-banks have a share of the payment market. Internet payments, for example, require a mix of technological skills and quality of service that banks may often be unable to provide. Notes to Special Issue Update 1. Strictly speaking, the term e-money was a misnomer. It implied that traditional monies were non-electronic. But as a matter of fact, bank deposits had been electronic for many years already. 2. Between 1996 and 2001 the BIS published 5 reports on e-money. The ECB (and its predecessor the EMI) published 2 reports (1994 and 1998) and a security framework for e-money issuers (2002). The European Commission passed an E-Money Directive that came into force in 2002. In some countries law makers were much faster. Thus, the German government amended the German banking law in 1997 requiring e-money issuers to become banks. Technically, it is conceivable that banks (or even non-banks) that are based in offshore centres can issue e-money and distribute it via the Internet all over the world. Therefore, many economists see offshore e-money issuers as a severe threat to the ability of central banks to conduct monetary policy. In this paper, it is argued that offshore issuers will denominate their e-money products in terms of existing currencies. Therefore they will be affected by monetary policy measures in the same way as onshore banks.

Mobile In many countries, more people have mobile phones than they do fixed-line phones. Mobile phones are one of the fastest growing technologies ever, outstripping even the internet in many respects. With the advent and widespread deployment of digital systems, mobile phones were used by an estimated 1, 158, 254, 300 people worldwide in 2002 (up from approximately 91 million in 1995), 51. 4% of total telephone subscribers (ITU). One of the reasons for this is mobility itself: the ability for people to talk on the phone wherever they are. The communicative possibilities opened up by mobile phones have produced new uses and new discourses (see Katz and Aakhus; Brown, Green, and Harper; and Plant). Contemporary soundscapes now feature not only voice calls in previously quiet public spaces such as buses or restaurants but also the aural irruptions of customised polyphonic ringtones identifying whose phone is ringing by the tune downloaded. The mobile phone plays an important role in contemporary visual and material culture as fashion item and status symbol. Most tragically one might point to the tableau of people in the twin towers of the World Trade Centre, or aboard a plane about to crash, calling their loved ones to say good-bye (Galvin). By contrast, one can look on at the bathos of Australian cricketer Shane Warne’s predilection for pressing his mobile phone into service to arrange wanted and unwanted assignations while on tour. In this article, I wish to consider another important and so far also under-theorised aspect of mobile phones: text. Of contemporary textual and semiotic systems, mobile text is only a recent addition. Yet it is already produces millions of inscriptions each day, and promises to be of far-reaching significance. Txt Txt msg ws an acidnt. no 1 expcted it. Whn the 1st txt msg ws sent, in 1993 by Nokia eng stdnt Riku Pihkonen, the telcom cpnies thought it ws nt important. SMS – Short Message Service – ws nt considrd a majr pt of GSM. Like mny teks, the *pwr* of txt — indeed, the *pwr* of the fon — wz discvrd by users. In the case of txt mssng, the usrs were the yng or poor in the W and E. (Agar 105) As Jon Agar suggests in Constant Touch, textual communication through mobile phone was an after-thought. Mobile phones use radio waves, operating on a cellular system. The first such mobile service went live in Chicago in December 1978, in Sweden in 1981, in January 1985 in the United Kingdom (Agar), and in the mid-1980s in Australia. Mobile cellular systems allowed efficient sharing of scarce spectrum, improvements in handsets and quality, drawing on advances in science and engineering. In the first instance, technology designers, manufacturers, and mobile phone companies had been preoccupied with transferring telephone capabilities and culture to the mobile phone platform. With the growth in data communications from the 1960s onwards, consideration had been given to data capabilities of mobile phone. One difficulty, however, had been the poor quality and slow transfer rates of data communications over mobile networks, especially with first-generation analogue and early second-generation digital mobile phones. As the internet was widely and wildly adopted in the early to mid-1990s, mobile phone proponents looked at mimicking internet and online data services possibilities on their hand-held devices. What could work on a computer screen, it was thought, could be reinvented in miniature for the mobile phone — and hence much money was invested into the wireless access protocol (or WAP), which spectacularly flopped. The future of mobiles as a material support for text culture was not to lie, at first at least, in aping the world-wide web for the phone. It came from an unexpected direction: cheap, simple letters, spelling out short messages with strange new ellipses. SMS was built into the European Global System for Mobile (GSM) standard as an insignificant, additional capability. A number of telecommunications manufacturers thought so little of the SMS as not to not design or even offer the equipment needed (the servers, for instance) for the distribution of the messages. The character sets were limited, the keyboards small, the typeface displays rudimentary, and there was no acknowledgement that messages were actually received by the recipient. Yet SMS was cheap, and it offered one-to-one, or one-to-many, text communications that could be read at leisure, or more often, immediately. SMS was avidly taken up by young people, forming a new culture of media use. Sending a text message offered a relatively cheap and affordable alternative to the still expensive timed calls of voice mobile. In its early beginnings, mobile text can be seen as a subcultural activity. The text culture featured compressed, cryptic messages, with users devising their own abbreviations and grammar. One of the reasons young people took to texting was a tactic of consolidating and shaping their own shared culture, in distinction from the general culture dominated by their parents and other adults. Mobile texting become involved in a wider reworking of youth culture, involving other new media forms and technologies, and cultural developments (Butcher and Thomas). Another subculture that also was in the vanguard of SMS was the Deaf ‘community’. Though the Alexander Graham Bell, celebrated as the inventor of the telephone, very much had his hearing-impaired wife in mind in devising a new form of communication, Deaf people have been systematically left off the telecommunications network since this time. Deaf people pioneered an earlier form of text communications based on the Baudot standard, used for telex communications. Known as teletypewriter (TTY), or telecommunications device for the Deaf (TDD) in the US, this technology allowed Deaf people to communicate with each other by connecting such devices to the phone network. The addition of a relay service (established in Australia in the mid-1990s after much government resistance) allows Deaf people to communicate with hearing people without TTYs (Goggin & Newell). Connecting TTYs to mobile phones have been a vexed issue, however, because the digital phone network in Australia does not allow compatibility. For this reason, and because of other features, Deaf people have become avid users of SMS (Harper). An especially favoured device in Europe has been the Nokia Communicator, with its hinged keyboard. The move from a ‘restricted’, ‘subcultural’ economy to a ‘general’ economy sees mobile texting become incorporated in the semiotic texture and prosaic practices of everyday life. Many users were already familiar with the new conventions already developed around electronic mail, with shorter, crisper messages sent and received — more conversation-like than other correspondence. Unlike phone calls, email is asynchronous. The sender can respond immediately, and the reply will be received with seconds. However, they can also choose to reply at their leisure. Similarly, for the adept user, SMS offers considerable advantages over voice communications, because it makes textual production mobile. Writing and reading can take place wherever a mobile phone can be turned on: in the street, on the train, in the club, in the lecture theatre, in bed. The body writes differently too. Writing with a pen takes a finger and thumb. Typing on a keyboard requires between two and ten fingers. The mobile phone uses the ‘fifth finger’ — the thumb. Always too early, and too late, to speculate on contemporary culture (Morris), it is worth analyzing the textuality of mobile text. Theorists of media, especially television, have insisted on understanding the specific textual modes of different cultural forms. We are familiar with this imperative, and other methods of making visible and decentring structures of text, and the institutions which animate and frame them (whether author or producer; reader or audience; the cultural expectations encoded in genre; the inscriptions in technology). In formal terms, mobile text can be described as involving elision, great compression, and open-endedness. Its channels of communication physically constrain the composition of a very long single text message. Imagine sending James Joyce’s Finnegan’s Wake in one text message. How long would it take to key in this exemplar of the disintegration of the cultural form of the novel? How long would it take to read? How would one navigate the text? Imagine sending the Courier-Mail or Financial Review newspaper over a series of text messages? The concept of the ‘news’, with all its cultural baggage, is being reconfigured by mobile text — more along the lines of the older technology of the telegraph, perhaps: a few words suffices to signify what is important. Mobile textuality, then, involves a radical fragmentation and unpredictable seriality of text lexia (Barthes). Sometimes a mobile text looks singular: saying ‘yes’ or ‘no’, or sending your name and ID number to obtain your high school or university results. Yet, like a telephone conversation, or any text perhaps, its structure is always predicated upon, and haunted by, the other. Its imagined reader always has a mobile phone too, little time, no fixed address (except that hailed by the network’s radio transmitter), and a finger poised to respond. Mobile text has structure and channels. Yet, like all text, our reading and writing of it reworks those fixities and makes destabilizes our ‘clear’ communication. After all, mobile textuality has a set of new pre-conditions and fragilities. It introduces new sorts of ‘noise’ to signal problems to annoy those theorists cleaving to the Shannon and Weaver linear model of communication; signals often drop out; there is a network confirmation (and message displayed) that text messages have been sent, but no system guarantee that they have been received. Our friend or service provider might text us back, but how do we know that they got our text message? Commodity We are familiar now with the pleasures of mobile text, the smile of alerting a friend to our arrival, celebrating good news, jilting a lover, making a threat, firing a worker, flirting and picking-up. Text culture has a new vector of mobility, invented by its users, but now coveted and commodified by businesses who did not see it coming in the first place. Nimble in its keystrokes, rich in expressivity and cultural invention, but relatively rudimentary in its technical characteristics, mobile text culture has finally registered in the boardrooms of communications companies. Not only is SMS the preferred medium of mobile phone users to keep in touch with each other, SMS has insinuated itself into previously separate communication industries arenas. In 2002-2003 SMS became firmly established in television broadcasting. Finally, interactive television had arrived after many years of prototyping and being heralded. The keenly awaited back-channel for television arrives courtesy not of cable or satellite television, nor an extra fixed-phone line. It’s the mobile phone, stupid! Big Brother was not only a watershed in reality television, but also in convergent media. Less obvious perhaps than supplementary viewing, or biographies, or chat on Big Brother websites around the world was the use of SMS for voting. SMS is now routinely used by mainstream television channels for viewer feedback, contest entry, and program information. As well as its widespread deployment in broadcasting, mobile text culture has been the language of prosaic, everyday transactions. Slipping into a café at Bronte Beach in Sydney, why not pay your parking meter via SMS? You’ll even receive a warning when your time is up. The mobile is becoming the ‘electronic purse’, with SMS providing its syntax and sentences. The belated ingenuity of those fascinated by the economics of mobile text has also coincided with a technological reworking of its possibilities, with new implications for its semiotic possibilities. Multimedia messaging (MMS) has now been deployed, on capable digital phones (an instance of what has been called 2.5 generation [G] digital phones) and third-generation networks. MMS allows images, video, and audio to be communicated. At one level, this sort of capability can be user-generated, as in the popularity of mobiles that take pictures and send these to other users. Television broadcasters are also interested in the capability to send video clips of favourite programs to viewers. Not content with the revenues raised from millions of standard-priced SMS, and now MMS transactions, commercial participants along the value chain are keenly awaiting the deployment of what is called ‘premium rate’ SMS and MMS services. These services will involve the delivery of desirable content via SMS and MMS, and be priced at a premium. Products and services are likely to include: one-to-one textchat; subscription services (content delivered on handset); multi-party text chat (such as chat rooms); adult entertainment services; multi-part messages (such as text communications plus downloads); download of video or ringtones. In August 2003, one text-chat service charged $4.40 for a pair of SMS. Pwr At the end of 2003, we have scarcely registered the textual practices and systems in mobile text, a culture that sprang up in the interstices of telecommunications. It may be urgent that we do think about the stakes here, as SMS is being extended and commodified. There are obvious and serious policy issues in premium rate SMS and MMS services, and questions concerning the political economy in which these are embedded. Yet there are cultural questions too, with intricate ramifications. How do we understand the effects of mobile textuality, rewriting the telephone book for this new cultural form (Ronell). What are the new genres emerging? And what are the implications for cultural practice and policy? Does it matter, for instance, that new MMS and 3rd generation mobile platforms are not being designed or offered with any-to-any capabilities in mind: allowing any user to upload and send multimedia communications to other any. True, as the example of SMS shows, the inventiveness of users is difficult to foresee and predict, and so new forms of mobile text may have all sorts of relationships with content and communication. However, there are worrying signs of these developing mobile circuits being programmed for narrow channels of retail purchase of cultural products rather than open-source, open-architecture, publicly usable nodes of connection. Works Cited Agar, Jon. Constant Touch: A Global History of the Mobile Phone. Cambridge: Icon, 2003. Barthes, Roland. S/Z. Trans. Richard Miller. New York: Hill & Wang, 1974. Brown, Barry, Green, Nicola, and Harper, Richard, eds. Wireless World: Social, Cultural, and Interactional Aspects of the Mobile Age. London: Springer Verlag, 2001. Butcher, Melissa, and Thomas, Mandy, eds. Ingenious: Emerging youth cultures in urban Australia. Melbourne: Pluto, 2003. Galvin, Michael. ‘September 11 and the Logistics of Communication.’ Continuum: Journal of Media and Cultural Studies 17.3 (2003): 303-13. Goggin, Gerard, and Newell, Christopher. Digital Disability: The Social Construction of Digital in New Media. Lanham, MA: Rowman & Littlefield, 2003. Harper, Phil. ‘Networking the Deaf Nation.’ Australian Journal of Communication 30. 3 (2003), in press. International Telecommunications Union (ITU). ‘Mobile Cellular, subscribers per 100 people.’ World Telecommunication Indicators <http://www.itu.int/ITU-D/ict/statistics/> accessed 13 October 2003. Katz, James E., and Aakhus, Mark, eds. Perpetual Contact: Mobile Communication, Private Talk, Public Performance. Cambridge: Cambridge U P, 2002. Morris, Meaghan. Too Soon, Too Late: History in Popular Culture. Bloomington and Indianapolis: U of Indiana P, 1998. Plant, Sadie. On the Mobile: The Effects of Mobile Telephones on Social and Individual Life. < http://www.motorola.com/mot/documents/0,1028,296,00.pdf> accessed 5 October 2003. Ronell, Avital. The Telephone Book: Technology—schizophrenia—electric speech. Lincoln: U of Nebraska P, 1989. Citation reference for this article MLA Style Goggin, Gerard. "‘mobile text’" M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture <http://www.media-culture.org.au/0401/03-goggin.php>. APA Style Goggin, G. (2004, Jan 12). ‘mobile text’. M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture, 7, <http://www.media-culture.org.au/0401/03-goggin.php>