Understanding Complex Dynamics
of Information Spaces

Review by Nakho Kim
University of Wisconsin-Madison

Managing the Infosphere: Governance, Technology, and Cultural Practice in Motion, by Stephen D. McDowell, Philip E. Steinberg & Tami K. Tomasello, Philadelphia, Temple University Press, 2008, ISBN 978-1-59213-280-5, 236 pp

One of the main challenges social science researchers must face in studying information society is how to deal with the spatial aspects of information. While production and consumption of industrial goods and services were largely determined by the boundaries of the physical space, movement of information is far less restricted by them. Pioneers of the concept have addressed the issue by focusing on its role as a means in the globalization, such as products of a service economy-driven “post-industrial society” (see Bell, 1973) or networks that connect existing social nodes to form social structures (see Castells, 2000). On the other hand, there is less discussion on how information  and communication constructs its own sense of space and how that “space” is managed in accordance with existing physical spaces and their governance structures.

Managing the Infosphere: Governance, Technology, and Cultural Practice in Motion by Stephen D. McDowell, Philip E. Steinberg and Tami K. Tomasello is a book that provides some foundational ideas to tackle the issue of how we can understand the world of information spatially. The authors argue that to understand the infosphere, or the “overall universe of electronic communication and networking” (p.10) we need to consider much more than state regulations. In their view, the infosphere is a space of motion and management. More than merely a fixed space that facilitates information flows, it is a space constructed through continual and conflictual action (p.22) between social actors. Managing it requires a dynamic and complex approach, taking into account the interactions between media technology, cultural practices and traditional state-led governance combined with several dialectic tensions in political economy contexts.

Clearly, this kind of analysis requires expertise from various backgrounds. As such, the close teamwork of the authors is noteworthy. McDowell has studied international political economy and communication, providing solid foundation for the policy and other management issues that comprise much of the book. Steinberg is a geographer, with past experience including studies on the oceans where space is constructed as the result of state managements. His role in building the basic theoretical ideas of managed space is eminent. Combined with Tomasello’s contribution on the origin and use of the Internet, the book provides a detailed and nuanced exploration into the subject. Together they have accumulated a solid theoretical framework consisting of diverse and dynamically interacting elements, and backed it up with concrete cases including how the Internet, the most prominent example of infosphere, has been managed.

To make their theoretical point, the authors start by taking the “liberal perspective on space” (p.11) apart. When applied to state-societies, the liberal perspective assumes binary traits between essential and non-essential state aspects for several attributes such as economy activity (production versus trade), spatial properties of capital (fixity versus mobility), space of economic activity (discrete points within state territory versus cannels of movement across boundaries) and the reason why states care about strong national economy (means for political power versus economy as end in itself). However, the authors argue that in an infosphere defined by motion and management those binaries are in fact tensions which should be considered dialectic. Moreover, they suggest that it is not solely the state governance but three dimensions which influence a specific set of practices. They are governance, technology and culture, and each set of political-economic tension between the binaries as described by the liberal view of space raises issues in each dimension. For example, when the “production versus trade” tension of economic activity meets the governance dimension, the infosphere management issue becomes “simultaneous promotion of production and exchange” as exemplified by e-commerce and meta-information services (p. 30). Based on this premise and the notion that space itself is constructed through motion and management, managing the infosphere requires considering all the tensions across each dimension in complex dynamics.

Most of the theories are presented in Chapter 1, followed by explorations of the four tensions by each dimension of infosphere management. Chapter 2 discusses the technological dimension by examining various perspectives on technology and raises the need to look more fully into the social contexts including governance and cultural context to understand technological issues. Chapter 3 deals with the governance dimension by looking into the conflicting interests through a case study on policy making for new local communication networks. The study shows that diverse interests in the community interact simultaneously, while the local scope of decision making is directly linked to the larger scale of global political economy. Chapter 4 looks into the cultural dimension through a case study on tourism. The authors emphasize the close link between mobile information and mobile consumers, making the movement of information itself an aspect of consumption. After examining each of the three dimensions, the next chapters elaborate the constructed space of the infosphere by analyzing the management structure of the Internet, especially the domain name system which makes the spatial imagination possible. Chapter 5 deals with the top-level domain name conventions to explain complex dynamics between state, capital and other interests. Particularly, they examine the country code top-level domain names which initially reflect existing national borders but the utilization of which has developed into other directions as well. Chapter 6 looks at ICANN, the regulating body of Internet standards and manages the domain name space structure. Again, institutions with different power and interests are interacting, resulting in decisions that do not reflect the seemingly democratic look of the organization. Based on the arguments of previous chapters, Chapter 7 closes the book by emphasizing the need for considering the full scope of the complex issues to manage the infosphere responsibly.

The main strength of this book is its strong theoretical framework. Unlike many other social theories emphasizing critical rethinking and complex remodeling, the authors are successful in articulating their underpinnings clearly. The constructionist perspective helps them in systematically organizing the diverse elements to consider for infosphere management into distinct clusters, while the dynamic and mobile perspective allows interaction among the elements. Also it was a smart choice to take the historical and critical approach, because it enables the authors to explain the dynamic transformation from the initial picture to the current management conventions of the infosphere. Even the writing itself is well done, utilizing vivid metaphors to compress the arguments efficiently. It is best exemplified in the title of the closing chapter 7 “The Infosphere: A World of Places, an Ocean of Information, or a Special Administrative Region?” to which the authors answer that it is all of them combined and somewhat more.

The shift from the simplified governance model to the complex management model as the explanation tool for information spaces is largely successful, and the book provides fresh views on important current issues such as the re-territorialization of the Internet as seen in the censorships of Google China or local debates over ccTLD management rights. Eminent and potential policy problems in managing the infosphere are adequately addressed throughout the book, and the final chapter provides some suggestions to deal with them.

On the other hand, there are some weaknesses as well. Though the book emphasizes the synthesis between the sets of political economic tensions, it is less successful in explaining specific outcomes triggered by different managerial decisions in each individual attribute. Most case studies, except the local communication network and issue difference study in Chapter 3, focus on exploring the complexity of single cases, making them hard to directly compare with each other. For example, the recurring contrast between Hong Kong and Mountain City is successful in showing the vast difference of how the infosphere can be managed. However, since the two cases have too many differences in the tensions synthesized, it is not easy to suggest which attribute contributed to which decision and what its outcome would look like. The case studies in the book could benefit from a more formal comparative sociology approach, such as comparing two cases that are almost identical in most features but differ significantly in a single attribute and vast different outcomes as a result.

Also, the need for practical efficiency in decision making is largely underemphasized in this book. For example, although the liberal perspective of space is far from sufficient to be used as a guide for managing the fundamentally mobile infosphere like the authors argue, its more simplistic and node-focused view is still efficient in policies for relatively fixed spaces where most of the physical space and infosphere overlap. Instead of always looking at the full spectrum, various levels of complexity should be considered depending on the space and scope it is mainly applied.

Of course these are not significant shortcomings but rather suggestions for further research, given the scope of this book. The main objective is not to provide an easy how-to structural guide for policy making, but to rethink the complexity we should consider in understanding the infosphere and managing them. It introduces spatial understanding of motion and management into a world made of communication. Managing the Infosphere will prove useful as a foundational text for anyone who wants to explore deeply how governance, cultural practices and technology shape and territorialize the space of information – and sometimes the other way around.

References

Bell, D. 1976. The Coming of Post-Industrial Society. New York: Basic Books.

Castells, M. 2000. The Rise of the Network Society. Malden: Blackwell. Second Edition.