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After a half-century of glacial creep, television technology
has begun to change at the same dizzying pace as computer software. What this
will mean -- for television, for computers, and for the popular culture where
these video media reign supreme -- is the subject of this timely book. Noted communications
economist Bruce M. Owen supplies the essential background: a grasp of the economic
history of the television industry and of the effects of technology and government
regulation on its organization. He also explores recent developments associated
with the growth of the Internet. With this history as a basis, his book allows
readers to peer into the future -- at the likely effects of television and the
Internet on each other, for instance, and at the possibility of a convergence
of the TV set, computer, and telephone. The digital world
that Owen shows us is one in which communication titans jockey to survive what
Joseph Schumpeter called the "gales of creative destruction." While
the rest of us simply struggle to follow the new moves, believing that technology
will settle the outcome, Owen warns us that this is a game in which Washington
regulators and media hyperbole figure as broadly as innovation and investment.
His book explains the game as one involving interactions among all the players,
including consumers and advertisers, each with a particular goal. And he discusses
the economic principles that govern this game, and that can serve as predictive
tools. Bruce M. Owen is the president of Economists
Incorporated. He has written and coauthored many books and articles on the economics
of the media. |
