Abstract:
International Organizations are often responsible for promoting the values that become shared by a community of actors. These values play an important role in guiding conduct, forming policies, and defining rules. The values promoted in the telecommunications regimes of the past 150 years have remained somewhat consistent over time, centered on advocating telecommunications for the sake of commerce and economic prosperity. In this paper I evaluate four current texts provided by International Organizations in order to understand if the values are still centered on commerce, or if there is a shift to values centered on people. The results reveal that three of the four texts contain more statements about the benefits that telecommunications provide to people than to commerce or economies. A divergence in the value of telecommunications could have special implications for the future direction of telecommunications policies and developments.
The technologies,
policies, governance, and standards of telecommunications have gone
through many changes over the course of its history. The three regimes
that have formed this history have moved from a monopolistic approach,
mostly involving radio and telegraph technologies, to an
institution-centered approach, including television and satellites, to
the current regime, with a more diffused approach to governance, with a
variety of state, institutional, and private actors involving more
Internet and mobile phone technologies. Read More »
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