Global Communication Economy Notes

The Economy of Global Communication

• The economy of global communication can be studied through analytical and normative perspectives.

Development of a Global Communication Industry

• The latter half of the 20th century saw the rise of a global communication industry, essential to the 21st-century world economy.

• Transnationalization of Industry:

  • In the 1950s, Western industrial production moved to the South for cheaper labor and new markets.
  • Rising labor costs combined with technologies like containerization and satellite communication made transnationalization a necessity and a possibility.
  • Coordinating globally dispersed units of transnational corporations required modern telecommunications.
  • Large corporations (sales of US\$1 billion) spent an average of US\$14 million annually on telecommunication bills.

• Global Shopping Center:

  • The establishment of worldwide production centers and markets led to the emergence of the "global shopping center."
  • This spurred the worldwide proliferation of advertising and marketing.

• Corporate Information Provision:

  • During the 1970s, major transnational corporations began organizing their own information provision for marketing, advertising, and public relations.
  • "Fortune 500" companies developed in-house film, TV, and video production capabilities that rivaled major international audio-visual networks.
  • These corporations used technical innovations for international "image-cultivation" in response to critical questions about their legitimacy.
  • Between 1975 and 1984, US corporations increased corporate advertising budgets from US\$305 million to over US\$1 billion.
  • By 1985, over 75% of major US corporations used international PR firms, mainly for marketing purposes.

• Export of Services:

  • The international expansion of industrial production led to the export of related services like travel, finance, marketing, and advertising.
  • Transnationalization of banking dramatically increased the need for international information networks.

• Emergence of Expanding Services Sector:

  • A key feature of post-WWII global economic development was the expansion of the services sector.
  • This sector grew in Western industrial countries and accounted for a significant portion of world trade.
  • This growth implicitly caused an increase in cross-border information traffic, as many services are based on trading information or are facilitated by information technology.
  • By 1980, world trade in services amounted to US\$400 billion, over 20% of overall world trade.

• Expansion of Information Handling:

  • Economic development increased private consumer expenditures and demands for education and entertainment, which contributed to the expansion of information handling across borders.

• Global Communication Industry Proliferation:

  • A global communication industry developed, related to overall economic expansion.
  • In 1980, the world market for telecommunication equipment and related services amounted to US\$80 billion.
  • Adding sales of electronic components and consumer electronics, the total global communication market was estimated at US\$350 million, about 18% of total global trade.

• Striking Features of the Industry:

  • Strong alliances within the industry and between the industry and defense establishments of major industrial countries.
  • Need for large volumes of finance capital.
  • Role of tycoons.
  • Development of consolidated mega-conglomerates.

Interlocking Interests

• Control by Transnational Corporations:

  • Throughout the 1970s, the communication industry became largely controlled by a network of approximately 80 very large transnational corporations with strong interlocking interests.

• Intricate Web of Connections:

  • The international production and distribution of communication goods and services appeared to be carried out by a small, competitive group with diverse interests. However, closer analysis revealed an intricate web of interlocking connections.

• Direct Connections:

  • Joint ventures.
  • Joint ownership of subsidiaries (e.g., Philips and Siemens with Polygram; NCR, Control Data, and ICL with CPI; Honeywell and Control Data with MPI).
  • Stockholdings (e.g., General Electric holding 11% of Toshiba stock; Philips holding 24.5% of Grundig stock).
  • Licensing, supply, sales, or production agreements (e.g., Fujitsu and Siemens; Honeywell and Nippon Electric; Xerox and Mitsubishi; Olivetti and Hitachi; AEG/Telefunken and Thomson/Brand).
  • Joint directorates (e.g., IBM and Time; Honeywell and G.B. Interpublic and CRS; McGraw Hill and Sperry Band; ICL and Plessey).

• Indirect Connections:

  • Mainly through directorates.
  • Directors of corporation A meet directors of corporation B across the boardroom tables of X other corporations.
  • Apparent competitors, such as IBM and AT&T, had 22 indirect routes for possible private solutions regarding monopoly and competition in the telecommunications industry.

• Reduced Competition:

  • The indirect interlocking interests provided substantial opportunity for policy discussions and potential understandings among major competitors.
  • Genuine competition reduced to "courteous competition."
  • No genuine free market developed, and little space was made for newcomers.

• Combination of Hardware and Software Interests:

  • Corporations active in both hardware and software sectors, such as RCA, Xerox, IT&T, Litton, Singer, Lockheed (US); EMI, Rank, Decca (UK); Siemens (Germany); and Philips (Netherlands).

• Direct and Indirect Links:

  • Links between leading firms in the hardware sectors and the same firms in the software sectors.
  • IBM interlocking with Time, CBS, ABC, the New York Times, McGraw-Hill, the Washington Post, Interpublic, and MCA.
  • General Electric interlocking with Time, CBS, ABC, the New York Times, and McGraw-Hill.
  • RCA interlocking with CBS, ABC, Time, Interpublic, and Disney Productions.
  • EMI interlocking with Thomson, Pearson, Reed, and ATV/ACC.
  • Philips interlocking with MCA and Polygram.
  • Siemens interlocking with Polygram and Bertelsmann.

Military Interconnections

• Military Influence:

  • Military leadership had a significant interest in the information technology developed.
  • Military inputs played an important role in recent communication innovations.
  • Examples: electronic computer, integrated circuit, radar, lasers, computer software (COBOL), optical and electronic systems integration, and the "superchip."
  • In 1984, the US Defense Department paid US\$170.2 million to IBM, TRC, and Honeywell for developing a 0.5-micron chip for deployment in weapons systems by 1989.

• Mutual Dependency:

  • Military took the initiative in some cases, proposing the development of specific techniques.
  • In other cases, research was subsidized to reduce the time between commercial availability and military application.
  • This led to mutual dependency between military and large contractors for military projects.
  • Several leading international communication companies were among the contractors.

• Defense Spending:

  • In fiscal year 1982, the US Ministry of Defense spent a total of US\$125,000 million on civilian contracts for military products.
  • Approximately US\$14,000 million was allocated for electronics and communication systems.
  • About US\$2,800 million was spent on research and development for electronics and communication systems.

• Communication Companies as Contractors:

  • Among the 100 largest US defense contractors (providing over two-thirds of military equipment), communication companies accounted for over 50% of the defense contracts in 1982.
  • At least 30 of the 100 transnational communication industries that control most of the world's information production and distribution have close links with military interests.
  • These companies are among the largest contractors for both equipment and research.

• Consequences of Military-Industrial Interconnections:

  • Technique choices largely defined by military interests.
  • Research and development (R&D) is highly capital-intensive, making industrial manufacturers dependent on external funding.
  • Military funding strengthened industrial concentration.
  • Availability of funds to large firms created an advantage over other market contenders.
  • Markets increasingly dominated by fewer firms.
  • Civilian "spin-offs" from military R&D legitimized excessive defense spending, ignoring that these could have been developed at far less expense without military research.

Capital Intensity

• Shift in Telecommunication Sector:

  • The telecommunication sector exchanged labor intensity for capital intensity.
  • New technologies made large volumes of factory workers, maintenance crews, and systems operators redundant.
  • Electronic exchanges could be manufactured, maintained, and operated by a few people with specialized computer technique skills.
  • Between 1974 and 1977, large telecommunications equipment manufacturers (Philips, Siemens, and Western Electric) reduced employment by 5-25%.

• Costs of Research and Development (R&D):

  • A crucial factor in increasing capital needs was the high cost of R&D, similar to data-processing and electronic components industries.
  • High expenditures were made for the exploration and implementation of techniques such as optical fibers, lasers, and microprocessors.
  • In 1977, the combined average percentage of sales spent on R&D for US aerospace, data processing, and electronics was 4.1%, compared to 2.5% in the chemical industry.
  • In 1979, R&D expenditures in the US data-processing sector were greater than in all manufacturing.
  • In the Federal Republic of Germany, the electrical/electronics industry spent 6.4% of sales on R&D in 1978, compared to 4.7% in chemicals, 5.7% in automotive, and 3% in engineering and mining.
  • Leading FRG firms like Siemens spent 10% and AEG/Telefunken spent 7% of total turnovers on R&D.

• World Scale R&D Expenditure:

  • R&D expenditure for information technology amounted to approximately 30% of the world research and development budget.
  • This attracted large investments from private and governmental sources.
  • There was increasing interest in corporations' R&D figures among large investors.

• Capital Intensity in Mass Media:

  • Traditional mass media sectors also became capital intensive, needing increasing investments for fixed costs.
  • Large fixed capital was needed in the publishing industry for paper and printing ink.
  • Paper prices for magazines had doubled, and printing ink prices increased by about 40% over the last decade.
  • Some companies could not comply with these demands and were forced out of the business, illustrated by the case of United Press International (UPI).
  • In the 1980s, UPI made increasing losses (up to some US\$7 million), forcing its owner, E.W. Scripps Co, to seek a buyer. UPI was finally declared bankrupt and auctioned, and in 1992 was bought by the Middle East Broadcasting Co.

• Product Promotion:

  • Product promotion became a major expenditure in the recorded music sector.
  • Promotion budgets for top-selling categories, such as rock music, increased three times over the 1970s.

• Record Industry Investment:

  • Increasing front investment in the record industry; for example, a rock music LP album rose from US\$100,000 to US\$250,000 during the late 1970s.
  • This was caused by the costs of sophisticated recording equipment, high royalties for musicians, and fees for producers.
  • MCA paid Elton John US\$8 million for a five-year contract in the mid-1970s.
  • Warner Brothers guaranteed Paul Simon US\$13 million in 1978 for his transfer from CBS.
  • CBS signed an US\$8 million contract with Paul McCartney in 1979 for three albums.
  • Top performers like Prince or Madonna asked and got astronomical fees for their recordings.

• Film Sector Investment:

  • Capital investment for production was also on the increase in the film sector.
  • With the increasing volume of fixed capital, the risks for capital to be invested in film production became greater.
  • This caused greater control by financiers and less likelihood for small, independent producers to get credit.
  • In the 1980s, the costs of the average feature film production began to exceed the US\$15 million mark.
  • Increasing costs of production were due to the expansion of fixed capital in the industry, such as studios, technical equipment, and special effects.
  • There were also rising costs for marketing, the employment of "stars", and distribution through expensive international networks.
  • Exhibition became more capital intensive with the emergence of luxurious cinemas.
  • In 1990, the average feature film cost some US\$30 million and Star performers were also increasingly expensive (e.g. Stallone received US\$20 million for Rocky V).

Ownership Structures

• Profitability and New Investors:

  • The communication industry developed as a growth sector, a capital-intensive industry, and a profitable enterprise.
  • This profitability attracted new investors: large companies that previously had little or no operations in the information field (e.g. Boeing, McDonnell Douglas, Fiat, Coca-Cola, Exxon, and Matra).
  • As information producers became integrated into large industrial conglomerates, their industrial policies were predominantly guided by economic concerns.

• Institutional Investors:

  • Institutional investors became the key players in the communication industry, as in other industrial sectors.
  • These institutions include pension funds, insurance companies, and banks.
  • Institutional investors have become increasingly active in the management of companies through their stock ownership and their participation on boards of directors.
  • In many of the largest communication companies, over half of the stock is controlled by institutional investors.
  • International banks are most prominently present among them.
  • Institutional investors are primarily interested in a maximum return for the interests they represent.

• Individual/Family Control:

  • A characteristic element of the communication industry is the considerable number of cases in which one individual or one family group (often related to the original founder) has much of the voting stock.
  • Significant owner control exists in corporations in which one individual or one family group holds over 10% of the voting stock, and no other stockholder owns a similar proportion.
  • This type of control occurs in almost a quarter of the 100 largest communication corporations.
  • Well-known examples of "tycoons" or "media-moguls" are the late Robert Maxwell, Rupert Murdoch, Robert Hersant, Leo Kirch, Silvio Berlusconi, and Sumner Redstone.
  • A characteristic of this type of control is the direct involvement of individual owners in the daily operations of their media.

• Difficulties for "Tycoons":

  • Indications of serious difficulties for the survival of the "tycoons."
  • There is a need for enormous investments that come with considerable financial risks in for today's world market.
  • Many companies are heavily in debt and may only escape bankruptcy if they merge with other companies.
  • The survival chances of information companies that become part of larger industrial conglomerates are better in sheer economic terms.
  • Expected "synergy" does not always materialize.
  • The Japanese companies Sony and Matsushita have not seen remarkable increases in their sales of consumer electronics as a result of their acquisitions.
  • The media-giant Time-Warner is still struggling with an enormous debt and considerable clashes among its various units (e.g., Home Box Office and Warner Brothers).

Concentration

• High Level of Concentration:

  • A characteristic of the development of the global communication industry has been a high level of concentration in all its sectors.
  • This was already the case in the early history of most sectors.
  • International advertising was largely in the hands of two agencies between the two World Wars: J. Walter Thompson and McCann.

• Film Industry Concentration:

  • The film industry has had a strong degree of concentration since the 1920s.
  • Eight major companies practically controlled production, distribution, and exhibition (Paramount, Warner Bros., 20th Century Fox, Loew's Inc., United Artists, Universal Pictures, RKO, and Columbia).
  • The development of the film industry was determined by a tendency towards decisive influence upon the market for maintaining and expanding profits.
  • This oligopolistic structure controlled the U.S. industry and dominated the world industry, drawing a significant proportion of its revenues and profits from the non-U.S. market.

• Record Industry Concentration:

  • The international production and distribution of news has been dominated by four large agencies since the late nineteenth century.
  • From the beginning a few, two or three, large firms have accounted for a majority of industry volume.
  • Major record companies have been linked to phonograph firms since 1900 and to large broadcasting and electronics corporations since the 1930s.

• Data-Processing Sector Concentration:

  • The beginning of concentration in the data-processing sector is of more recent date.
  • In the early 1950s, the US industry supplied more than 95% of the world market.
  • IBM had the uncontested leader position, with a market share estimated to vary between 66% and 72% during the 1960s.

• Telecommunication Equipment Concentration:

  • In 1978, 13 telecommunication manufacturers dominated some 90% of the world market for telecommunication equipment.
  • The market was estimated at US\$34 billion, and three US corporations (Western Electric, ITT, and GT&E) accounted for over 52%.
  • Market control by a few companies was reinforced by mergers in the 1970s, conglomerates throughout the 1980s, and consolidation in the global markets of the 1990s.

Three Sectors of the Global Communication Industry

• The global communication industry developed in three separate but related sectors:

  • Manufacturing of infrastructures.

  • Provision of connectivity and information services.

  • Production and distribution of content.

  • The infrastructure sector: manufacturing the global infrastructure

  • The services sector: servicing global communication

  • The content sector: creating global contents

• Infrastructure Sector:

  • Consists of manufacturers of all technical equipment necessary for global communication.
  • Includes maritime cables, satellites, computer networks, and consumer electronics.
  • A rapidly growing sector is wireless broadband communications, through smartphones and tablet PCs.
  • By the end of 2010, wireless broadband subscriptions in OECD countries exceeded half a billion.

• Services Sector:

  • Encompasses companies that provide connectivity, such as telecommunication operators, and facilitate access to sources of information.

• Content Sector:

  • Consists of firms that produce and distribute global news, entertainment, and advertising.

The Infrastructure Sector

• Early Infrastructure:

  • The first infrastructure for global communication was based upon long-distance cables for telegraphic traffic.
  • The telegraph was invented in 1837 by Samuel F.B. Morse, and major manufacturing companies were Siemens and Slaby-Arco (later Telefunken), Thomson, Western Union, AT&T, United Wireless, Philips, and later Cable and Wireless.
  • The first undersea cable (Dover and Calais in 1851) was laid by the British Electric Telegraph Company and the Magnetic Telegraph Company.
  • In 1852, the Electric Telegraph Company had cables between London, Amsterdam, and Rotterdam.
  • The first cross-Atlantic cable went into operation in 1866.
  • In the USA, the driving forces were Western Union and the American Telegraph Company (1854).
  • The wireless telegraph was invented by Guglielmo Marconi in 1899.
  • With the manufacturing of telephones and telex machines in the nineteenth century, a global communication hardware industry emerged.

• Giants of Wireless Communications:

  • In the first decade of the twentieth century, two companies became the giants of wireless communications:
    • The Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company (1897 in the UK and 1899 in the USA) with support from the UK Post Office and Lloyd's Marine Insurance.
    • Telefunken (1903), by arrangement between Siemens and Allgemeine Elektrizitäts Gesellschaft (AEG) with support from the German government.

• Telecommunication Technology Development:

  • For almost 80 years, telecommunication technology generated and upgraded techniques for transmissions between people-centered "transducers," such as telephones, facsimile machines, and TV systems.
  • It added the technique of switching, which made networking possible.
  • When electronic data processing became available, it was applied to telecommunications for the enhancement of its efficiency, particularly in switching systems.

• Integration of Technologies:

  • In the 1950s, machine-centered transducers were linked with each other and with people.
  • Transmission through such networks commenced with applications to defense systems and airline reservations.
  • In the 1960s and 1970s, it was increasingly applied to international banking, credit control, databanks and databases, and intergovernmental cooperation.

• Technological Developments Increasing Capacity:

  • The widening application of computer-communication networks has been made possible by a number of technological developments which have considerably increased the performance capacity, the accessibility, and the compatibility of computing and telecommunication facilities.
  • Traditional telephone networks greatly enlarged their capacity for data traffic through techniques such as modems and multiplexors.
  • Optical fibers further increased the data transmission capacity of the telephone network.
  • They made it possible to transport digital signals through light over glass-fiber cables.
  • The introduction of a non-terrestrial mode of data traffic through communication satellites has also been an important development.

• Advent of Satellite Technology:

  • In the 1950s, global telecommunications expanded significantly through the advent of satellite technology.
  • In 1957, the first satellite (Sputnik) was launched by the Soviet Union.
  • In 1965, the first geostationary satellite was launched into space by INTELSAT (International Telecommunication Satellite Organization), which was established in 1964.

• Emergence of the Internet:

  • In 1969, the first global network, linking computers through telecommunications, emerged as the Arpanet (Advanced Research Projects Agency network).
  • Arpanet was operated by the US Defense Department and was the fore-runner of the Internet.

• Data Networks and Micro-Electronics:

  • Data networks became more attractive through the developments in computer hardware and software.
  • Micro-electronics, which since the early 1970s produced the microprocessor, made it possible to apply computer capacity very broadly and cheaply.
  • Between 1960 and 1988, the world's computer population grew from 9,000 to 1,750,000.

• Mobile Phone Networks:

  • From 2005 onwards mobile phone networks began to take over from fixed landlines.

• Interlocking Interests:

  • One of the characteristics of the infrastructure sector has been its strong interlocking interests with the worlds of banking and defense contracting.

• Trade in Communication Equipment:

  • Largest exporter of communication equipment in 2009 was China (US$87 billion) followed by Korea, Mexico, the Netherlands, and the USA (some US$22 billion).
  • Historically largest exporters, such as Canada, Finland, France, and Germany, saw a noticeable decline of exports in the early twenty-first century.
  • Countries with high trade surplus were Hungary, Korea, and Mexico.
  • Equipment that accounts for the highest volumes of export (72% of all telecom equipment exports) are devices for the transmission and reception of voice, images, and data, such as cell phone handsets.
  • Total global trade in communication equipment in 2009 amounted to US$589,012 million.
  • Over the past 10 years the largest manufacturers and operators of global communications have represented 20% of the world's largest (Fortune 500) companies.

The Services Sector

• Communication Services:
  • Refer to telecommunications services and postal courier services.
  • Leading exporters in 2009 were the USA, the UK, Germany, France, and the Netherlands. They were also the largest importers of services.
  • Luxembourg ranked very high on the trade balance, possibly due to the presence of Skype.
  • BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) saw rapid growth in trade in communication and telecommunication services.
  • Largest growth in communication services is presently found in mobile services.
  • Revenues for these services in 2009 reached US$527 billion, which amounted to a share of 45% of total global communications revenues.

The Content Sector

• Production and Distribution:

  • This sector produces and distributes on a global scale news, music, film, television, and advertising.
  • The content of global communication are the stories that the cultural industries produce and distribute worldwide through news, entertainment, and advertising.

• cultural industries:

  • "are involved in the making and circulating of products - that is texts - that have an influence on our understanding of the world".
  • They contribute to our sense making of the world and thus are important forces in the daily experiences of people around the globe.
  • Important factors in the growth of this sector have been the smart use of new technological options (by Rupert Murdoch, for example: time lease on the Astra satellite), the digitizing of content, and the application of interactive television.
  • The great success formula for content was, and is, usually the triple S combination of scandal, sports, and sex.
  • Corporate expansion in the content sector has largely developed through vertical integration, which made around-the-clock and around-the-world operations possible.
  • A crucial additional effect on the growth of this sector has been deregulatory politics.

How to Study the Economic Dimension of Global Communication

• Political Economy of Communication:

  • Most characteristic approaches involve studies in the political economy of communication.
  • In a general way, this can be described as the study of the relations between economic factors (such as ownership) and political factors (such the exercise of political power).
  • Crucial notion in the political economy approach is power, and particularly the relationship between power and wealth.
  • Vincent Mosco defines political econ.-omy as "study of social relations, particularly the power relations, that mutually constitute the production, distribution, and consumption of resources, including communication resources".
  • Political economy as a field of economic studies emerges in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries with the first professorial chair at the University of Vienna (1763), and in 1805 in Britain's East India Company College.
  • Important representatives were Adam Smith, David Ricardo, and Karl Marx.
  • The notion "political economy" generally refers to the study of the economic behaviour of such political entities as national states. Its students are interested in the analysis of the structural relationships between economic and political behavior.

• Political Economy Approach:

  • A political economy approach emerged with Harold Innis' study, Empire and Communication, in 1950.
  • Innis explored the impact of the monopoly access to knowl. edge by privileged groups on their societies.
  • Other early exponents of the political economy approach were Horkheimer and Adorno with their work on "cultural industries".
  • For global communication, a political economy approach implies the attempt to understand the structural relationship between the economic and the political significance of trans-local flows of stories.
  • This can be further explained by looking at economic and political behaviour of the participants in global communication.
  • Economic behaviour produces and distributes goods and services that represent values: use values (e.g. information, knowledge, and entertainment) and exchange values (monetary rewards, profits).
  • Political behaviour deals with the exercise and the distribution of power: who gets what.
  • Political economy studies how value and power are structurally (i.e. non-accidentally) related.
  • The evolutionary perspective helps us to better understand the economic behaviour of communication organizations.
  • Examines the evolution of communications media from stone tablets to printing presses, and the direct impact of various media on the duration and prosperity of the empires of Egypt, Greece, Babylon, Europe and America (1950).

The Perspectives

• Evolutionary Perspective:

  • The prevailing economic models that are inspired by neo-classical theory tend to propose that the maximization of wealth is largely steered by rational and well-informed processes of decision-making.
  • They tend to ignore the dynamic complexities of institutional and individual economics which are not helpful in understanding the real conduct of parties on markets.
  • Wikström argues that societal and economic systems are often not in equilibrium, and socio-economic structures do change, sometimes even rather dramatically.
  • Individuals and organizations are often unable to make well-informed decisions, and these decisions are biased and irrational, contrary to neoclassical economic theory.
  • Analyzing the economies of global communication from an evolutionary perspective focuses upon structural change and development whereas a neo-classical approach emphasizes linear economic growth.
  • The economic dimension of global communication can best be understood if we see economic development as a process of adaptation that is characterized by complexity, chaos, and self-organization.
  • March and Simon (1958) and Cyert and March (1992) offered a useful evolutionary approach when they developed the behavioural theory of the firm.
  • They explained intra-organizational decision- making by using the concept of bounded rationality.
  • This means that decision-makers may not be well-informed and rational. Actually, their choices may even be irrational.

• Complexity Perspective:

  • Cultural industries are a complex and at times contradictory business.
  • They are, as with all other businesses, intent on making profits but their products may serve more than commercial interests and may sometimes not be supportive of those interests.
  • The characteristics of cultural industries are high risk and volatility, high production costs versus low reproduction costs.
  • Nicholas Garnham argues that the problem with cultural and informational goods is that, because their use value is almost limitless (they cannot be destroyed or consumed by use) it is extremely difficult to attach an exchange value to them. They are classic public goods.
  • A peculiar economic problem with information is that, contrary to tangible goods, the same product can be used by many users.
  • To create revenues there has to be a (temporary) monopoly through copyright legislation.
  • In the digital world, scarcity was replaced by abundance and all content could be free to all at no cost. The corporate answer was copyright enforcement and limitations to the functions of digital devices, plus advertising.
  • The Internet represents an abundance that poses a threat to private gain.

• Egalitarian Perspective:

  • The democratic perspective is helpful in identifying inequalities in participation in public decision-making in the domains of communication infrastructures and communication contents.
  • Its egalitarian dimension suggests the need for exploring the extension of democracy to all aspects of social life, including communications and thus encourages research into issues of control and power.