Managing the Infosphere

"Managing the Infosphere" examines the global world of communications as a space of mobility that overlaps uneasily with the world of sovereign, territorial nation-states. Drawing on their expertise in geography, political science, international relations, and communication studies, the authors investigate specific policy problems encountered as international organizations, corporations, and individual users try to "manage" a space that simultaneously contradicts and supports existing institutions and systems of governance, identity, and technology. The authors examine debates surrounding efforts to assert local control over cyberspace infrastructures as well as efforts to assert global control over technology standards. They compare the infosphere with other spaces of mobility that are partially incorporated within the international political economy, from the world-ocean to the Special Economic Zone of Hong Kong, shedding light on the relationship between the infosphere and the world's dominant political, economic, and cultural structures and institutions.