INFORMATION, COMMUNICATION AND THE ORGANIZATION OF SPACE MASS COMMUNICATION 27.412 CARLETON UNIVERSITY, OTTAWA SPECIAL TOPICS WINTER 1994 Instructor: Stephen McDowell Purposes: The purpose of this seminar is to compare and evaluate perspectives on the implications of the use of information technology and communications media for the spatial organization of social and economic life. The seminar will consider both historical and contemporary research on the relationship between the use of communications media - mainly electronic media and often interactive electronic media - and economic and social life. Questions of communications and spatial organization will be considered along several levels of analysis: the organization of work life, urban or metropolitan organization, regional development patterns and the international distribution of production activities and control. Prerequisites: The prerequisites for the course are Mass Communication 27.311 and Honours standing in Mass Communication, or permission of the School. Evaluation: The course evaluation will be based on three short discussion papers, participation in class discussions, and on a presentation on one of the readings. Each discussion paper should examine and organize the questions arising from one week of readings. It should lay out the various elements of the overall issue area or of one question in the readings. As well, it should provide your own analysis, evaluation and perspective on those issues. Papers are due in the seminar one week following the readings with which the paper deals. Only one paper can be undertaken for each of two sections in the course (i.e., Parts 1 and 2, Parts 3 and 4, Parts 5 and 6). The paper should be seven to ten pages in length, double-spaced, and should use full citation format. One letter grade per week will be deducted for late papers. Each participant will provide an analytic introduction to one of the readings. Rather than simply summarizing the reading, this should provide your assessment of the reading's contributions and weaknesses. The presentation should also raise questions for discussion among the whole group. Students are also expected to participate in seminar discussions in an active and informed fashion. Requirement: Percent Participation/presentations 10 Discussion papers (Part One or Two) 30 (Part Three or Four) 30 (Part Five or Six) 30 Texts and Readings: The following text is available in the Carleton University Bookstore. In addition, other readings for each week's topics are listed in the syllabus, and are on reserve at the MacOdrum Library. Brunn, Stanley D., and Thomas R. Leinbach (eds), Collapsing Space and Time: Geographic Aspects of Communication and Information (London: Harper Collins, 1991). DISCUSSION TOPICS: PART ONE: COMMUNICATIONS AND SPACE: GEOGRAPHIC QUESTIONS AND CONCEPTS 1/ January 3, 1994: Introduction and Overview 2/ January 10, 1994: Communications, Space and Place: Geographic Conceptions Gould, Peter, "Dynamic structures of geographic space," in Stanley D. Brunn and Thomas R. Leinbach (eds), Collapsing Space and Time: Geographic Aspects of Communication and Information (London: Harper Collins, 1991), pp 3-30. Abler, Ronald F, "Hardware, software, and brainware: mapping and understanding communications technologies," in Stanley D. Brunn and Thomas R. Leinbach (eds), Collapsing Space and Time: Geographic Aspects of Communication and Information (London: Harper Collins, 1991), pp 31- 48. Burgess, Jacquelin, and John R. Gold, (eds), Geography, The Media and Popular Culture (London: Croom Helm, 1985), "Introduction: Place, the Media and Popular Culture," pp 1-32. OTHER: Staple, Gregory, "The Maps in Our Minds: Making Room for the Biosphere and Telegeography," paper for International Institute of Communications, 23rd Annual Conference, Montreal, September 9, 1992. Hepworth, Mark, "Geography of the Information Economy," Intermedia Volume 18 Number 1 (January-February 1990), pp 29-34. PART TWO: HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES ON COMMUNICATIONS AND SPACE 3/ January 17, 1994: Communications and History: (the use of) Harold Innis on Time and Space Innis, Harold A., Empire and Communications (Toronto: Press Porcepic, 1986), "Paper and the Printing Press," pp 139-171. Innis, Harold A., The Bias of Communication (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1991), "The Bias of Communication," pp 33-60; "The Problem of Space," pp 92-131. Carey, James W., Communications as Culture: Essays on Media and Society (Boston: Unwin Hyman, 1988), "Space, Time and Communications: A Tribute to Harold Innis," pp 142-172. Czitrom, Daniel J., Media and the American Mind: From Morse to McLuhan (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1982), "Metahistory, Mythology and the Media: The American Thought of Harold Innis and Marshall McLuhan," pp 147-182. OTHER [ON RESERVE]: Innis, Harold A., Essays in Canadian Economic History (edited by Mary Q. Innis) (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1956), "Transportation as a Factor in Canadian Economic History," pp 62-77. Melody, William, "Introduction," in William Melody, Liora Salter and Paul Heyer (editors), Culture, Communication, and Dependency (Norwood, New Jersey: Ablex, 1981), pp 3-11. Carey, James, "Culture, Geography, and Communications: The Work of Harold Innis in an American Context," in Melody, Salter and Heyer (editors), Culture, Communication, and Dependency, pp 73-91. OTHER [NOT ON RESERVE]: Kroker, Arthur, Technology and the Canadian Mind: Innis/McLuhan /Grant (Montreal: New World Perspectives, 1984), pp 87-124. Williams, Glen, "Canada in the International Political Economy," in Wallace Clement and Glen Williams (editors), The New Canadian Political Economy (Kingston: McGill-Queen's, 1989), pp 116-137. Collins, Richard, "The Metaphor of Dependency and Canadian Communications: The Legacy of Harold Innis," Canadian Journal of Communications Volume 12 Number 1 (Winter 1986), pp 1-19. 4/ January 24, 1994: Urbanization and Communications: Historical Perspectives Gottmann, Jean, "Megalopolis and Antipolis: The Telephone and the Structure of the City," in I. de S. Pool (editor), The Social Impact of the Telephone (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1977), pp 303-317. Abler, Ronald, "The Telephone and the Evolution of the American Metropolitan System," in I. de S. Pool (editor), The Social Impact of the Telephone (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1977), pp 318-341. Moyer, J. Alan, "Urban Growth and the Development of the Telephone: Some Relations at the Turn of the Century," in I. de S. Pool (editor), The Social Impact of the Telephone (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1977), pp 342-370. Martin, Michele, "Hello Central?": Gender, Technology and Culture in the Formation of Telephone Systems (Montreal: McGill-Queen's, 1991), pp 110-122. Carey, James W., Communications as Culture: Essays on Media and Society (Boston: Unwin Hyman, 1988), pp 201-230. Brooker-Gross, Susan R., "The Changing Concept of Place in the News," in Burgess, Jacquelin, and John R. Gold, (eds), Geography, The Media and Popular Culture (London: Croom Helm, 1985), pp 63-85. OTHER: Armstrong, Christopher, and H. V. Nelles, Monopoly's Moment: The Organization and Regulation of Canadian Utilities, 1830-1930 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1988), pp 59-73, pp 163-186. Czitrom, Daniel J., Media and the American Mind: From Morse to McLuhan (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1982), "Lightning Lines," pp 3-29. Postman, Neil, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1985), pp 44-63, pp 64-82. 5/ January 31, 1994: Imperial Expansion, Control and Electronic Communications in the Nineteenth Century Headrick, Daniel R., The Invisible Weapon: Telecommunications and International Politics, 1851-1945 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), pp 1-10, pp 11-27, pp 50-73. Kern, Stephen, The Culture of Time and Space 1880-1918 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1983), "Distance," pp 211-240. Marvin, Carolyn, When Old Technologies Were New: Thinking About Electric Communication in the Late Nineteenth Century (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), "Annihilating Space, Time and Differences: Experiments in Cultural Homogenization," pp 191-230. OTHER: Kern, Stephen, The Culture of Time and Space 1880-1918 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1983), "The Nature of Space," pp 131-180. Fortner, Robert, "The Canadian Search for Identity: 1846-1914 - Part I Communication in an Imperial Context," Canadian Journal of Communication Volume 6 Number 1 (Summer 1979), pp 24-31. Fortner, Robert, "The Canadian Search for Identity: 1846-1914 - Part IV, Communications and Canadian-American Relations," Canadian Journal of Communications Volume 7 Number 1 (1980), pp 37-53. Thompson, Graham, "Sandford Fleming and the Pacific Cable: The Institutional Politics of Nineteenth Century Imperial Telecommunications," Canadian Journal of Communication Volume 15 Number 2 (1990), pp 64-75. PART THREE: CITIES, WORK AND COMMUNICATIONS 6/ February 7, 1994: Communications, Urban Centres and Urban Life Daniels, Peter W., "Internationalization, telecommunications and metropolitan development: the role of producer services," in Stanley D. Brunn and Thomas R. Leinbach (eds), Collapsing Space and Time: Geographic Aspects of Communication and Information (London: Harper Collins, 1991), pp 149-169. Corey, Kenneth E., "The role of information technology in the planning and development of Singapore," in Stanley D. Brunn and Thomas R. Leinbach (eds), Collapsing Space and Time: Geographic Aspects of Communication and Information (London: Harper Collins, 1991), pp 217- 231. Gertler, Len, "High Technology, Societal Change, and the Canadian City," in Trudi Bunting and Pierre Filion (eds), Canadian Cities in Transition (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1991), pp 125-146. Moss, Mitchell L, "The New Fibers of Urban Economic Development," Portfolio: A Quarterly Review of Trade and Transportation Volume 4 Number 1 (Spring 1991), pp 11-18. Nicol, Lionel, "Communications Technology: Economic and Spatial Impacts," in Manuel Castells (editor), High Technology, Space and Society (Beverly Hills: Sage, 1985), pp 191-209. OTHER: Gad, Gunter, "Office Location," in Trudi Bunting and Pierre Filion (eds.), Canadian Cities in Transition (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1991), pp 432-460. Graham, Stephen D. N., "The role of cities in telecommunications development," Telecommunications Policy (April 1992), pp 187-193. Kellerman, Aharon, "Telecommunications and the geography of metropolitan areas," Progress in Human Geography Volume 8 (1984), pp 222-246. Robins, Kevin, and Mark Hepworth, "New technologies the future of cities," Futures (April 1988), pp 155-176. Moss, Mitchell L., "Telecommunications, World Cities, and Urban Policy," Urban Studies Volume 24 (1987), pp 534-546. Jane Jacobs, Cities and the Wealth of Nations: Principles of Economic Life (Harmondsworth, England: Viking, 1985). 7/ February 14, 1994: Cities, Work, Communications and Control Gold, John R., "Fishing in muddy waters: communications media and the myth of the electronic cottage," in Stanley D. Brunn and Thomas R. Leinbach (eds), Collapsing Space and Time: Geographic Aspects of Communication and Information (London: Harper Collins, 1991), pp 327- 341. Holcomb, Briavel, "Social-spatial implications of electronic cottages," in Stanley D. Brunn and Thomas R. Leinbach (eds), Collapsing Space and Time: Geographic Aspects of Communication and Information (London: Harper Collins, 1991), pp 342-353. Becker, Jorg, "Electronic Homework in West Germany: A Critical Appraisal," in Vincent Mosco and Janet Wasko (editors), The Political Economy of Information (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1988), pp 247-273. Clement, Andrew, "Office Automation and the Technical Control of Information Workers," in Vincent Mosco and Janet Wasko (editors), The Political Economy of Information (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1988), pp 217-246. Kraut, Robert E., "Telecommuting: The Trade-offs of Home Work," Journal of Communications Volume 39 Number 3 (1990). OTHER: Hepworth, Mark, Geography of the Information Economy (New York: Guilford Press, 1990), pp 13-38. February 21, 1994: Reading Week. PART FOUR: COMMUNICATIONS, REGIONS AND GLOBAL POLITICAL ECONOMY 8/ February 28, 1994: Communications and the Regional Organization of Production Howenstine, Erick, "Towards a schematic model of communications media and development in Latin America," in Stanley D. Brunn and Thomas R. Leinbach (eds), Collapsing Space and Time: Geographic Aspects of Communication and Information (London: Harper Collins, 1991), pp 278- 301. Kellerman, Aharon, "The role of telecommunications in assisting peripherally located countries: the case of Israel," in Stanley D. Brunn and Thomas R. Leinbach (eds), Collapsing Space and Time: Geographic Aspects of Communication and Information (London: Harper Collins, 1991), pp 252-277. Forer, Pip, and Nigel Parrott, "Information and urban growth in the periphery of the global village: New Zealand and the international information economy," in Stanley D. Brunn and Thomas R. Leinbach (eds), Collapsing Space and Time: Geographic Aspects of Communication and Information (London: Harper Collins, 1991), pp 302-324. Forsstrom, Ake, and Sten Lorentzon, "Global development of communication: a frame for the pattern of localization in a small industrialized country," in Stanley D. Brunn and Thomas R. Leinbach (eds), Collapsing Space and Time: Geographic Aspects of Communication and Information (London: Harper Collins, 1991), pp 82-108. OTHER: Doucet, Michael, "Radio Broadcasting in Southern Ontario," Canadian Geographer Volume 27 Number 2 (1983), pp 109-127. Larose, Robert and Jennifer Mettler, "Who Uses Information Technologies in Rural America?" Journal of Communications Volume 39 Number 3 (1990). Storper, Michael, and Susan Christopherson, "Flexible Specialization and Regional Industrial Agglomerations: The Case of the U. S. Motion Picture Industry," Annals of the American Geographers Volume 77 Number 1 (1977), pp 104-117. Goddard, J. B., Technological Change, Industrial Restructuring and Regional Development (London: Allen, 1986). Storper, Michael, "Technology and Spatial Production Relations," in Manuel Castells (ed), High Technology, Space and Society (Beverly Hills: Sage, 1985), pp 265-283. Koebberling, Uschi, "Extending Telephone Service to Canada's North: Experiences with Service Availability, Quality and Rates," Canadian Journal of Communication Volume 15 Number 2 (1990), pp 16-32. Estabrooks, Maurice, and Rudolph Lamarche (eds), Telecommunications: A Strategic Perspective on Regional Economic and Business Development (Moncton: The Canadian Institute for Research on Regional Development, 1987). 9/ March 7, 1994: Communications and the Global Administration of Space and Time Janelle, Donald G., "Global interdependence and its consequences," in Stanley D. Brunn and Thomas R. Leinbach (eds), Collapsing Space and Time: Geographic Aspects of Communication and Information (London: Harper Collins, 1991), pp 49-81. Code, William R., "Information flows and the processes of attachment and projection: the case of financial intermediaries," in Stanley D. Brunn and Thomas R. Leinbach (eds), Collapsing Space and Time: Geographic Aspects of Communication and Information (London: Harper Collins, 1991), pp 111-131. Hepworth, Mark, "Information technology and the global restructuring of capital markets," in Stanley D. Brunn and Thomas R. Leinbach (eds), Collapsing Space and Time: Geographic Aspects of Communication and Information (London: Harper Collins, 1991), pp 132-148. Pickles, John, "The re-internationalizing of apartheid: information, flexible production and disinvestment," in Stanley D. Brunn and Thomas R. Leinbach (eds), Collapsing Space and Time: Geographic Aspects of Communication and Information (London: Harper Collins, 1991), pp 170- 192. OTHER: Staple, Gregory C., and Mark Mullins, "Telecom Traffic Statistics - MiTT Matter," Telecommunications Policy (June 1989), pp 105-128. Pool, Ithiel de Sola, Technologies Without Boundaries: On Telecommunications in a Global Age (edited by Eli M. Noam) (Cambridge, MA.: Harvard University Press, 1990). PART FIVE: COMMUNICATIONS AND POST-MODERN ANALYSES OF SPACE AND PLACE 10/ March 14, 1994: Modernity, Postmodernity and Space Soja, Edward W., Postmodern Geographies: The Reassertion of Space in Critical Social Theory (London: Verso, 1998), "History: Geography: Modernity," pp 10-42. Harvey, David, The Condition of Postmodernity: An Enquiry into the Origins of Cultural Change (Cambridge, MA: Basil Blackwell, 1990), [selections] pp 201-211, pp 211-225, pp 226-239, pp 240-259, pp 260-283, pp 284-307, pp 308-326, pp 350-353. Massey, Doreen, "Politics and Space-Time," in Michael Keith and Steve Pile (eds), Place and the Politics of Identity (London: Routledge, 1993), pp 141-161. OTHER: Harvey, David and Allen Scott, "The Practice of Human Geography: Theory and Empirical Specificity in the Transition from Fordism to Flexible Accumulation," in W. Macmillan (ed) Remodelling Geography (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1988), pp 217-229. 11/ March 21, 1994: Conceptions of Place, Communications and Culture Soja, Edward W., Postmodern Geographies: The Reassertion of Space in Critical Social Theory (London: Verso, 1998), "Taking Los Angeles Apart: Towards a Postmodern Geography," pp 222-249. Harvey, David, "From space to place and back again: Reflections on the condition of postmodernity," in Jon Bird et al (editors), Mapping the Futures: Local Cultures, Global Change (London: Routledge, 1993), pp 3- 29. Meyrowitz, Joshua, No Sense of Place: The Impact of Electronic Media on Social Behavior (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985), pp 115-126; pp 307-329. PART SIX: MAKING SENSE OF "GLOBAL" COMMUNICATIONS AND CULTURE 12/ March 28, 1994: Global Communications: Global, Regional or Local Culture? Wallerstein, Immanuel, "The National and the Universal: can there be such a thing as a universal world culture?" in A. D. King (ed), Culture, Globalization and the World System (London: MacMillan, 1991). Featherstone, Mike, "Global and Local Cultures," in Jon Bird et al (editors), Mapping the Futures: Local Cultures, Global Change (London: Routledge, 1993), pp 169-187. Stump, Roger, "Spatial implications of religious broadcasting: stability and change in patterns of belief," in Stanley D. Brunn and Thomas R. Leinbach (eds), Collapsing Space and Time: Geographic Aspects of Communication and Information (London: Harper Collins, 1991), pp 354- 375. Lyew-Ayee, Anne, "Communications and information flows in the Commonwealth Caribbean: a force for integration? in Stanley D. Brunn and Thomas R. Leinbach (eds), Collapsing Space and Time: Geographic Aspects of Communication and Information (London: Harper Collins, 1991), pp 376- 388. Lewis, Nancy Davis, and Lori van Dusen Mukaida, "Telecommunications in the Pacific Region: the PEACESAT Experiment," in Stanley D. Brunn and Thomas R. Leinbach (eds), Collapsing Space and Time: Geographic Aspects of Communication and Information (London: Harper Collins, 1991), pp 232- 252. Valpy, Michael, "Lost and devalued in the global city," The Globe and Mail Friday, September 10, 1993. 13/ April 4, 1994: Networking and Networlds: Communications and/or Control? Harasim, Linda, "Networlds: Networks as Social Space," in Linda Harasim (editor), Global Networks: Computers and International Communication (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1993), pp 15-34. Rheingold, Howard, "A Slice of Life in My Virtual Community," in Linda Harasim (editor), Global Networks: Computers and International Communication (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1993), pp 57-80. Mulgan, Geoff J., Communication and Control: Networks and the New Economies of Communication (New York: Guilford, 1991), pp 1-9, pp 10-32, pp 49-75. OTHER: Wilson, Kevin G., Technologies of Control: The New Interactive Media for the Home (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1988), pp 13-48, pp 99-129.