USD Liquidity and ICT4D/AI4D in Tier 5 Countries
ICT4D therefore needs to build the material and institutional foundations of participation in the global digital economy. These include affordable broadband, reliable electricity, mobile financial services, digital identity where appropriate, cybersecurity, digital literacy, and sustainable models for maintaining public digital services.
The $100 Trillion Question: Treasury-Backed Digital Dollars and a Democratic Political Economy
Citation APA (7th Edition) Pennings, A.J. (2026, Jul 27) The $100 Trillion Question: Treasury-Backed Digital Dollars and a Democratic Political Economy. apennings.com https://apennings.com/global-e-commerce/the-100-trillion-question-treasury-backed-digital-dollars-and-a-democratic-political-economy/ Introduction As the United States national debt accelerates past historical milestones, traditional economic orthodoxy, “goldbugs,” and manipulative politicians continue to issue dire warnings of imminent fiscal insolvency, surging bond yields, and currency […]
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.
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.
Symbolic Economies in the Virtual Classroom: Dead Poets and the Lawnmower Man
This post examines two films that address the production of modern educational spaces and subjectivities. Through them we can begin to figure the symbolic and energetic configurations in the “virtual classroom” and other technological environments for learning and training.
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.
YouTube Meaning-Creating (and Money-Making) Practices
YouTube has become a new frontier for media studies. The opportunity exists now to pioneer strategies for understanding this intriguing visual medium and the sets of meanings they create. What techniques are used in YouTube “channels?” What types of persuasive techniques are effective on YouTube channels. How do they differ from techniques used in film and television?
The NSFNET is the Internet
An important intermediary in the transition of the military’s ARPANET into the commercial Internet was the National Science Foundation’s NSFNET. The NSFNET adopted TCP/IP and required all connecting nodes to use them as well compliant network technology, mainly built by a small California startup company called Cisco. With government funding for advanced scientific and military […]
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About Me
Professor (full) at State University of New York (SUNY) Korea since 2016. Research Professor for Stony Brook University. 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 global political economy
You can reach me at:
anthony.pennings@gmail.com
apennings70@gmail.com
anthony.pennings@sunykorea.ac.kr
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