Anthony J. Pennings, PhD

WRITINGS ON DIGITAL ECONOMICS, ENERGY STRATEGIES, AND GLOBAL COMMUNICATIONS

Pressing Global Standards for Internet Protocols

Standards sometimes emerge out of functionality, sometimes out of cooperation, and often out of pure economic power. Each of these conditions was present in the fight to develop telecommunications equipment for international data communications during the early 1970s.

Technostructural Stages of Global ICT for Development (ICT4D)

This post explores and outlines the following stages or phases of economic and social development utilizing information and communications technologies. The ICT acronym has emerged as a popular moniker, especially in international usage, for the digital technology revolution and is often combined with “development” to form ICT4D.

Al Gore, Atari Democrats, and the “Invention” of the Internet

This is the fourth part of a narrative about how the Internet changed from a military network to a wide-scale global system of interconnected networks. Part I discussed the impact of the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) or “Star Wars” on funding for the National Science Foundation’s adoption of the ARPANET. In Part II, I looked […]

U.S. Internet Policy, Part 6: Net Neutrality, Broadband Infrastructure and the Digital Divide

The digital divide proved to be more consequential than ever as the K-shaped recovery took shape, exacerbating income divisions. The divide has been particularly stressful on American families as schools and other activities for kids closed down during the Covid-19 pandemic. Some 20 million Americans had no or very slow Internet service while another 100 million cannot afford broadband.

Building Dystopian Economies in Facebook’s Metaverse

Strangely relevant to the new emergence of virtual environments like Facebook’s Metaverse, the talk was held in downtown New York City at the Woolworth Building, known as the “Cathedral of Commerce” when it was built in 1913. The location was strangely appropriate given the topic, a wrap-up of a year-long project at New York University on Second Life. The project involved an animation class taught by Mechthild Schmidt-Feist, and my class, the Political Economy of Digital Media. I still have the tee-shirt my students gave me that says “Got Linden?” a reference to Second Life’s currency, the Linden.

Hypertext, Ad Inventory, and the Use of Behavioral Data

A new advertising environment emerged with the Internet and its click environment. The hypertext system, with its global connections to “new inventory” of browser-view-able webpage content divided into multiple sections of advertising potential, started a new era of personalizable “banner” ads. An offshoot of the ad economy emerged powerfully with keyword search and auctioning, exemplified by Google. This post discusses how the online ad economy emerged and became the basis of a new means of economic production based on the wide-scale collection of data and its processing into prediction products.

Show-Biz: The Televisual Re-mediation of the Modern Global Economy

Media industries “show” business and finance through various camera, editing, and special effects techniques, drawing in data from many sources and presenting them on different windows of high-resolution screens. These techniques create ways of seeing and showing the economy. Consequently, they influence public opinion as well as investment and trading strategies that shape global, local, and national economic activities and investment patterns.

Will Offshore Wind Power Print Money?

The economics of offshore wind energy are very much like media economics – high upfront costs and low marginal costs. Wind power requires major capital influx to set up but once operational, the wind is free. Lubrication and other maintenance is needed at times but as long as the wind is blowing, electricity and thus money is being created.

keep looking »
  • Referencing this Material

    Copyrights apply to all materials on this blog but fair use conditions allow limited use of ideas and quotations. Please cite the permalinks of the articles/posts.
    Citing a post in APA style would look like:
    Pennings, A. (2015, April 17). Diffusion and the Five Characteristics of Innovation Adoption. Retrieved from https://apennings.com/characteristics-of-digital-media/diffusion-and-the-five-characteristics-of-innovation-adoption/
    MLA style citation would look like: "Diffusion and the Five Characteristics of Innovation Adoption." Anthony J. Pennings, PhD. Web. 18 June 2015. The date would be the day you accessed the information. View the Writing Criteria link at the top of this page to link to an online APA reference manual.

  • About Me

    Professor at State University of New York (SUNY) Korea since 2016. Moved to Austin, Texas in August 2012 to join the Digital Media Management program at St. Edwards University. Spent the previous decade on the faculty at New York University teaching and researching information systems, digital economics, and strategic communications.

    You can reach me at:

    apennings70@gmail.com
    anthony.pennings@sunykorea.ac.kr

    Follow apennings on Twitter

  • About me

  • Writings by Category

  • Flag Counter
  • Pages

  • Calendar

    March 2024
    M T W T F S S
     123
    45678910
    11121314151617
    18192021222324
    25262728293031
  • Disclaimer

    The opinions expressed here do not necessarily reflect the views of my employers, past or present.