Page 17 - Communication Commerce and Power The Political Economy of America and the Direct Broadcast Satellite

4 Communication, Commerce and Power

have expanded the opportunities and stakes involved in contemporary
political-economic developments. DBS is an ideal medium through
which information-based commodities can enter transnational
markets, and its history and the context of its development provide
insights into, among other things, world order possibilities and the
hegemonic capabilities of the United States.
A DBS system is made up of a ground station that processes and
radiates a signal to a satellite in geostationary orbit 36,000 km above
the earth's surface. 10 In the satellite, the signal is reprocessed and
amplified for its transmission back to earth. Finally, the system
involves a ground receiver that includes a 'dish' or 'squarial' which
collects the signal and processes it for viewing on a television screen or
for use on a computer terminal. DBS systems are unique because of
the tremendous power used to amplify signals for the downlink. In
their most powerful, sophisticated and expensive form, DBS transmis-
sions can be received directly from space by a dish measuring as little
as 18 em in diameter. One DBS system has the capacity to service
simultaneously households and businesses located over one-third of
the earth's surface, and its transmissions can consist of a combination
of anything from compact disc-quality audio to computer software,
from database information to video signals accompanied by multiple
language tracks.
Beyond these stand-alone capabilities, recent developments in di-
gital technology have provided DBS distributors with unprecedented
signal integration and compression capacities, and corporations now
are beginning to make use of a range of information and communica-
tion technologies in order to take advantage of these. Through the
launch of Hughes Communications' DirecTV in 1994, DBS has
become a core technology in the development of what the Clinton
administration has called the Global Information Infrastructure (Gil)
- a mass market, inter-active transnational communications
system involving the virtually seamless integration of different
telecommunication and information services. The very presence of
direct broadcasting and its utility in creating transnational non-
wired communication opportunities itself has stimulated Gil-related
developments. Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation International
(News Corp), for example, the controlling interest of the most suc-
cessful DBS service in Europe, BSkyB, and the dominant DBS service
in Asia, StarTV, is planning to provide North and South America
with a full menu of digitalized direct broadcast services. This involves
News Corp in a partnership with US-based telecomunications