Page 174 - Communication Commerce and Power The Political Economy of America and the Direct Broadcast Satellite

164 Communication, Commerce and Power

corporations, the Act was promoted by companies such as Citicorp,
the- world's largest financial services corporation. Like much of the
US and international service sector, Citicorp continues to benefit
from post-Fordist developments such as regulatory liberalization,
international free-trade agreements and ongoing digital technology
applications. The Telecommunications Act - because it facilitates
the long-term development of relatively seamless (and oligopolistic)
communications and information infrastructures - probably will gen-
erate more efficient and malleable service sector offerings. In keeping
with the post-Fordist emphasis on production process flexibility, Citi-
corp and others thus will be better able to decentralize operations,
penetrate markets and centralize control over their diverse activities.
In this chapter, the Telecommunications Act is treated as the latest
and one of the most significant steps yet taken in the use of the
American state as the mediator of corporate interests in international
markets. Following the establishment of an international free trade in
services and intellectual property rights regime through the GATT I
WTO, the White House - led by Vice President AI Gore - has
promoted the need for a universal commitment by foreign state offi-
cials to facilitate corporate efforts in the construction a so-called
Global Information Infrastructure (Gil). It is in this context that
Business Week magazine reported, one month after President Clinton
signed the Telecommunications Act, that 'more important than better
prices ... the players know where they stand, they can finally build the
long-awaited high speed (so-called broadband) links of the Informa-
tion Superhighway.' Beyond a model for 'freeing up' the private
9
sector in efforts to construct a Gil, the Telecommunications Act will
fuel its development not despite its probable oligopolistic outcomes
but more probably as a partial result of them. Using DBS as a focal
point, the following pages relate these developments to domestic and
international corporate activities directly involving the information
economy. The implications of introducing digital technologies,
particularly those involving high-definition television, to mass consu-
mers and their implications also are addressed.

7.1 DBS IN AN 'OPEN MARKET'

Following the failure of the first domestic license holders in the early
1980s, American state officials - despite their growing awareness of
the potential technological and economic significance of direct