This document discusses the history and evolution of political economy. It begins by tracing the origins of political economy back to 1615 in France. It then describes how political economy has changed from being synonymous with economics to examining how political forces shape economic policy choices. The document goes on to discuss several aspects of the political economy of the internet, including its commodification, the role of large companies like Microsoft, issues around privacy, security and censorship, and how the internet has influenced various aspects of modern life.

1. Political
economy …

2. Political economy
?

3. Political
economy

4. The birth
• First - France in 1615 with the well known
book by Antoine de Montchrétien: Traité de
l’economie politique.
• French physiocrats, Adam Smith, David
Ricardo and German philosopher and social
theorist Karl Marx were some of the
exponents of political economy.
• Now a specialised subject of study in colleges

5. The present state of political
economy…
• No more a synonym for economics
• Different dimensions
• Marxian analysis
• Economists’ advice to a polity or public
• Vast Literature discourse led to change in the meaning
• From model of economic policy
• To examining how political forces affect the choice of policies
• political economy refers to different, but related, approaches
to studying economic and political behaviours,

6. The basic idea..
• interdisciplinary studies drawing upon
economics, law, and political science
• explaining how political institutions, the
political environment, and the economic
system—capitalist, socialist, mixed—influence
each other
• Each discipline has their own approach of
relating their subject to p.e

7. Political economy and the
internet

8. Music,
videos,
games, info,
One man chatting, The golden
social weapon
army networking,
etc etc etc
and lots

9. The intro…
• A computer with internet ( which involves a lot of
other equipment like the telephone connection,
the mode, software, etc.) has become a necessity.
• Millions of us are investing in what could be the
largest media transformation
• A new form of convergence of social interactions
into digital format on the internet
• Let us attempt to understand this transformation
in the way we communicate first……..

10. • The decision makers and their role
• attempt to make us believe these new forms
of communications- our own interest
• They are sub-consciously (or consciously)
being driven by a ‘systematic momentum’
• Our duty to keep a check on this phenomenon
to avoid a creation of society functioning as a
solely consumerist and economic.

11. Political economy of
communication….. (A simplified
version of Vincent Mosco’s ideas
• Analyse the forces of it)
that shape our
communication patterns
• Understand the p.e of I.C by attempting to
uncover the realities of the current situation
• The players, the players, their activities and
environments, and their motives and effects
• Tries to understand social processes rather
than institutions

12. Mosco’s 3 entry points
• 1 COMMODIFICATION
• 2 SPATIALIZATION
• 3 STRUCTURATION

13. Political economy of the
internet…
• "Digitization reinforces a social process in which the
production and distribution of information evolves
into the most important economic activity in a
society, in which information technology begins to
function as the Key infrastructure for all industrial
production and service provision, and in which
information itself becomes a commodity tradable on
a global scale." -Hamelink

14. Contd……
• Computing technology in workplaces
• No need of physical analogue (news ppr, cd
etc.)
• Can remain in digital bits
• They just need a means to send it from
producer’s computer to recepient’s computer
• Thus the internet in I.C plays an important role

15. The digital age – the age of
convergence
• The merging functions of diff media
• telecommunications, media and computing
industries – overlapping activities
• according to McChesney and Herman This
convergence is important in two ways
• 1. the size and growth of the merging global info-
communications sector
• 2. the uncertainty in the markets caused by this
convergence

16. Increase in the number of
people online
• Today internet is the mother of all mediums
• You develop its economic potential- you get rewards,
you don’t- you’ll end up in oblivion
• Competition a major force towards the internet for
companies
• Hype created by mass media
• Internet is important to their corporate customers and
interesting to their audiences
• Govt promotes it out of the fear of the fall of their
economy due to dearth of their infra- structure
• Today plenty of people mke their online presence felt
which have affected many aspects of our lives

17. Microsoft and monopoly
• an industry giant extending its base
• Has monopolized the market
• Initially started s an MS dos os provider, today
comprises a variety of software apps
• The Netscape controversy
• US Department of Justice and 13 states have filed
anti-trust suits against Microsoft, charging it with
uncompetitive practices
• controls the software that in turn controls attention,

18. Governments and the Global
Information Infrastructure
(GII)leading to national
• Internet is global, thus
governments heavily involved in the formation of
a new Global Information Infrastructure (GII),
based on the Internet.
• Fall of soviet union – dominant economic idea –
free market capitalism
• The W.T.O and I.M.F
• Al Gore, the U.S. Vice-President, has been one of
the biggest promoters of the GII
• U.S and European domintion in these forums
causing disparities in the flow of revenue.

19. The commercialized net
• The death of Acceptable Use Policy
• Commercial sites largest category of computer
permanently linked to the Internet.
• Every website has some commercial value to it
• Real estates, transactions, shopping, are all
moving to the virtual world

20. Advertising on the
internet
• Target audience attention
• Which site or portal has the most hits-
attention economy
• Search sites – ads picked on the basis of typed
words
• Their research – invasion of our privacy
• The cookies
• many different forms of advertising, sub-
liminal and direct

21. Pornography and
censorship
• a major conduit for digital pornography
• All the hype has died
• Culture gaps cannot be bridged
• Software
• Some govt involvement
• Parental control options
• Electronic privacy informtion center

22. Security and privacy
• Fear of hackers a hinderance to e commerce
• Access to our info by researchers for
advertising
• Cloud computing ??
• Cookies
• Photographs on net
• Search engines – trackers of user info

23. lifestyle
• Virtual communities
• Work life vs. home life barriers breached
• Structural barriers broken
• Change in communication patterns
• Speed gen v/s lazy gen
• The download culture
• disconnect

25. Some other forms of
political economy….
• (result of discussions of the topic with my
kashmiri roommate zahoor-2 yr history student)
• Historians – Taj mahal ….
• Literature- sale of art
• History/education/journalism- nalanda
• Technology- the issue of tablets to I.I.T students
• Storytellers – films and visual arts