The InfoSphere

Entering the infosphere* (Michael Vlahos. Journal of International Affairs. New York: Spring 1998.Vol.51, Iss. 2;  pg. 497, 29 pgs): "The Infosphere is shorthand for the fusion of all the world's communications networks, databases and sources of information into a vast, intertwined and heterogeneous tapestry of electronic interchange. The global fusion of networks changes the character of each individual network. Networks will no longer serve simply as the medium through which people in different places can communicate... The global fusion of networks creates a... place in which people can gather and do business...The Infosphere has the potential to gather all people and all knowledge together in one place. This is what makes the Infosphere so compelling. The place itself is not "real," meaning, it is not part of our normal, physical world. Operating in the Infosphere is disconcerting today, but people accept its alien environment because it offers tremendous advantages....Business transactions and financial exchange are already migrating to the Infosphere, which is rapidly becoming the new global marketplace."

• "Instead of being dominated by a few mass media, Third Wave civilization will rest on inter-active, de-massified media, feeding extremely diverse and often highly personalized imagery into and out of the mind-stream of the society." (Toffler, The Third Wave,1980- p.351)

In the past few decades cataclysmic changes in the nature and capabilities of communication channels have most certainly & profoundly impacted society in general and marketing in particular.

• "With digitalization all the media become translatable into each other--computer bits migrate merrily.... A movie, phone call, letter, or magazine article may be sent digitally via phone line, coaxial cable, fiber-optic cable, microwave, satellite, the broadcast air, or a physical storage medium such as tape or disk. If that's not revolution enough, with digitalization the content becomes totally plastic--any message, sound, or image may be edited from anything into anything else " (Stewart Brand. The Media Lab (Viking Press: New York,'1987- p.18).

   And with technological convergence corporate convergence wasn't far behind...

    'Until the 1980s, media systems were generally national in scope...and ...domestically owned and regulated. But "beginning in the 1980s ...pressure to deregulate and privatize media & communication systems coincided with new satellite and digital technologies, The result:  by the end of the 1990's  - nine media-conglomerates dominated the media world: AOL-Time Warner, Disney, Bertelsmann, Viacom, News Corporation, TCI, General Electric, Sony  and Seagram (Robert W. McChesney,  The Global Media Giants)

    New technologies, --new capacities & capabilities-- digitalization, demassification, global media & corporate conglomerates.... As the mass media disintegrates ~ interactive media integrates. Assuming  sufficient time has elapsed -- and we are immune from MEDIA MYOPIA -- the ramifications of the emerging Infosphere are clear: