The world at stage III, but the Net at stage II

Michael Koenig and Patrizia Sione

Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 1997, vol. 48, issue 9, 853-859

Abstract: This article proposes that there is a recognizable and predictable life cycle to important general enabling technologies such as the railroad, or the telephone, or the “Net.” This life cycle, in simple terms, consists of three stages: A stage of experimentation and development; a stage of societal concern with issues of equity and access, with concomitant regulations; and a stage when the emphasis shifts to efficiency and effectiveness, with concomitant emphasis upon competition and deregulation. The point of this life cycle analysis is that it illuminates the phenomenon that while the great previous general enabling technologies of the 19th and 20th centuries have all recently entered their third, deregulatory, stage, creating a Stage III mind‐set, the Net is only just entering its second, regulatory, stage. From this analysis, from the tension thereby revealed, some issues and paradoxes can be illuminated and understood, and others revealed for further analysis. The thrust of this article derives from the thesis that the Net is entering a very different phase in its likely life cycle than that of the society around it. An examination of some of the characteristics of this phenomenon will, we hope, be illuminating. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Date: 1997
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1002/(SICI)1097-4571(199709)48:93.0.CO;2-Q

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:jamest:v:48:y:1997:i:9:p:853-859

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://doi.org/10.1002/(ISSN)1097-4571

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Journal of the American Society for Information Science from Association for Information Science & Technology
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().