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4 COMMUNICA TION THEORY
even led some commentators to argue that the privatizing concentration
of so many context-worlds, be they electronic, architectural or automobile-
derived, is what really amounts to ‘cyberspace’. This convergence is per-
haps nowhere more powerfully represented than it is by the Internet,
which is itself a network as well as a model for ‘cyberspace’ relations. 6
It was in the final decade of the twentieth century that the emergence
of global interactive technologies, exemplified by the Internet, in the every-
day sphere of advanced capitalist nations dramatically transformed the
nature and scope of communication mediums. These transformations
heralded the declaration of a ‘second media age’, which is seen as a depar-
ture from the dominance of broadcast forms of media such as newspapers,
radio and television. Significantly, the heralding of a second media age is
almost exclusively based on the rise of interactive media, most especially
the Internet, rather than the decline of broadcast television. Empirically,
some have pointed out how certain technological forms of mass broadcast
have waned or fragmented in favour of ‘market-specific communication’
(see Marc, 2000), although this is seldom linked to the rise of extended
interactive communication. Rather, what is significant for the second media
age exponents is the rapid take-up of interactive forms of communication.
Whether this take-up warrants the appellation of a second media age,
which can so neatly signal the demise of a ‘first media age’, is contested in
this book. Certainly, the second media age thesis points to and contains
insights about definite changes in the media landscapes of nations and
regions with high media density. But the conjunctive as much as the dis-
junctive relationships between old and new media are very important.
Nevertheless, the arrival of what is described as the ‘second media age’
has two important consequences: one practical and the other theoretical.
The extent and complexity of these practical consequences, which this
book outlines, concern the implications which ‘the second media age’ has
for contemporary social integration. The theoretical consequence of the
second media age is that it has necessitated a radical revision of the socio-
logical significance of broadcast media as addressed by traditions of
media studies.

The overstatement of linguistic perspectives on media

Under the influence of cultural studies, European traditions in media
studies have, since the 1970s, typically focused on questions of content
and representation rather than ‘form’ or ‘medium’. This is perhaps itself a
reaction to the preoccupation which ‘process’ models developed in the
United States had with ‘media effects’ and behavioural epistemologies. 7
Analysing media content – the employment of perspectives on
language, beginning with Marxist conceptualizations of ideology, followed