Page 204 - Communication Commerce and Power The Political Economy of America and the Direct Broadcast Satellite

194 Communication, Commerce and Power

demands, proceeded with the task of reforming itself in order to reform
the world. The subsequent capacity of US-based corporations to
dominate international information-based commodity developments
and their direct and indirect potential to promote liberal and con-
sumerist ideals overseas remain, however, according to the Assistant
Secretary for Communications and Information in the Department of
Commerce under the Reagan and Bush administrations, Janice Obu-
chowski, a 'somewhat fragmented [concept] among government agen-
cies.' Nevertheless, this awareness appears to be increasing among
'key officials, such as those in the USTR.' 1
American-based transnational corporations directly involved in
information-based products and services, since the early 1980s, have
promoted a shared assumption that communication technologies will
facilitate the development of new economic opportunities leading to
greater national wealth. Especially since the 1970s, virtually every
sector of the international economy has been influenced by technolo-
gical change directly involving convergence. Through the application
of digital and compression technologies, a broad range of integration
opportunities continue to develop, including the integration of differ-
ent transmission media into a single mega-network; the integration of
different telecommunications services into this network; the switching
of voice with data with video over a single communications circuit,
facilitating direct linkages between telephones, computers and video
transmissions; and the conversion of messages from one system (or
'protocol') to others, enabling, for example, the integration of a range
of communications standards? Not only has direct broadcasting
become a core component in this emerging digital mega-network,
but the very presence of DBS - as a result of its use in establishing
unprecedented transnational communication capabilities - itself is
stimulating these developments.
Because the ideals of individualism, competition and equality under
the law are to some degree promulgated through everyday interac-
tions in the capitalist marketplace, the workplace, and through the
ownership and use of household and portable 'personal' technologies,
the atomistic world view of liberalism constitutes both a reflection of
predominant conceptions of reality and day-to-day practices. Liberal-
ism therefore reflects not only a particular kind of common sense, for
many people it also constitutes, quite literally, 'the way it is.' Both its
ongoing practice and conceptualization thus accommodate social
fragmentation over mass organization - the latter constituting the
precondition for the development of a widespread, sustainable and