Telecommunications
- LAST REVIEWED: 02 August 2017
- LAST MODIFIED: 26 February 2013
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199874002-0001
- LAST REVIEWED: 02 August 2017
- LAST MODIFIED: 26 February 2013
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199874002-0001
Introduction
Telecommunications—the electronic transmission of information over long distances—has a long and fascinating history stretching back to the invention of the telegraph in 1844. Since then, numerous technologies, from the telephone to the Internet, have exponentially increased the speed with which an ever larger number of people can share voice, data, and video data. However, telecommunications, which by definition permit two-way flows of information, should not be confused with the media, which generally allow only one-way flows. Geographers have long found telecommunications of interest because of the importance of such technologies in the folding of space and their impacts on various economic, political, and social phenomena. The earlier literature, often by nongeographers, pointed to the “death of distance,” a view that oversimplified the impacts of telecommunications and ignored other forces shaping geographical spaces and relations. Later works delved into the political economy of telecommunications in light of globalization, as well as the vast realm of cyberspace, which has had innumerable economic, political, and cultural effects.
General Overviews
Given the diversity of types of telecommunications, comprehensive introductions are surprisingly scarce. The rapidity of change in this industry means that often such attempts rapidly become out of date. Many focus on the technologies of the industry at the expense of more nuanced views of their social origins and consequences. Akwule 1992 is a good place to start, but is dated and does not address the Internet. Some overviews, such as Cairncross 1997, aimed at the business community, celebrate the ostensible “death of distance” or “end of geography,” overlooking how the consequences of telecommunications are often unevenly distributed among places and spaces. Brunn and Leinbach 1991 is a classic for all who are interested in how information technologies shrink the world. For readers interested in theorizing how telecommunications reflect and alter contemporary capitalism, Castells 1996 offers a comprehensive overview, although it tends to get bogged down in many other, marginally related topics, such as neighborhood formation or gay spaces. Hillis 1998 laments geographers’ lack of sustained interest in communications, although this conclusion carries less merit today than it used to. Warf 1995 points to several examples of the new geographies spawned by telecommunications in the world of finance (see Finance) and producer services. Wilson and Corey 2000 offers a broad survey of the impacts of cyberspace on the world’s places and peoples; Wilson, et al. 2013 updates this analysis in light of the information economy. Leamer and Storper 2001, written by an economist and a geographer, delve into the economic implications of the telecommunications revolution. Buliung 2011 examines cyberspace empirically in light of time-space compression and the acceleration of the rhythms of everyday life.
Akwule, Raymond. Global Telecommunications: The Technology, Administration, and Policies. Boston: Focal Press, 1992.
Comprehensive introduction to major telecommunications technologies and modes of international regulation such as the International Telecommunications Union and Intelsat, the world’s body for governing satellite traffic; but the book was written before the Internet exploded in popularity.
Brunn, Stan, and Thomas Leinbach, eds. Collapsing Space and Time: Geographic Aspects of Communications and Information. London: HarperCollins, 1991.
A series of essays, not all of which concern telecommunications, that address the time-space compression of contemporary capitalism. Some essays explore satellites. Dated now, but still a useful overview.
Buliung, Ron N. “Wired People in Wired Places: Stories about Machines and the Geography of Activity.” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 101.6 (2011): 1365–1381.
DOI: 10.1080/00045608.2011.583568
An empirical examination of the rise of hypermobility emphasizing the role of the Internet, using International Telecommunications Union and Canadian Internet data.
Cairncross, Francis. The Death of Distance. Boston: Harvard Business School, 1997.
An influential and much-cited volume that claims geography has become irrelevant because of the ostensible ability of people everywhere to access information technology. While it makes a good case, it succumbs to the technological fetishism and inattention to political economy that often plagues this literature.
Castells, Manuel. The Rise of the Network Society. Oxford: Blackwell, 1996.
In one volume of a trilogy by a famed sociologist, Castells paints a picture of contemporary society as a space of flows in which information technologies figure prominently, including the transportation and communication infrastructure, the cities or nodes that occupy strategic locations within these, and the social spaces occupied by the global managerial class.
Hillis, Ken. “On the Margins: The Invisibility of Communications in Geography.” Progress in Human Geography 22.4 (1998): 543–566.
DOI: 10.1191/030913298669028680
Laments the dearth of geographic works concerning communications, which pale compared to those studying transportation.
Leamer, Edward, and Michael Storper. “The Economic Geography of the Internet Age.” Journal of International Business Studies 32.4 (2001): 641–665.
DOI: 10.1057/palgrave.jibs.84909988
Reflections on how the Internet is reshaping the spatiality of economic activity, offsetting to some degree the agglomeration economies that have long lay at the core of urban competitiveness.
Warf, Barney. “Telecommunications and the Changing Geographies of Knowledge Transmission in the Late 20th Century.” Urban Studies 32.2 (1995): 361–378.
DOI: 10.1080/00420989550013130
Summarizes several ways in which information technologies are reshaping the global economy, including electronic funds transfer systems, back offices, and global cities. It contests the common assertion that telecommunications lead only to the dispersal of economic functions; rather, they simultaneously promote the centralization of some activities and the decentralization of others.
Wilson, Mark, and Ken Corey, eds. Information Tectonics: Space, Place, and Technology in an Electronic Age. New York: Wiley, 2000.
Offers a collection of essays of varying quality that describe the diverse impacts of information systems in a variety of geographic contexts; some are useful antidotes to the prevailing technological fetishism, while others include useful case studies of East Asia.
Wilson, Mark, Aharon Kellerman, and Kenneth Corey. Global Information Society: Knowledge, Mobility and Technology. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2013.
An overview of the geography of the information society emphasizing the role of telecommunications; it is largely oriented to students.
Users without a subscription are not able to see the full content on this page. Please subscribe or login.
How to Subscribe
Oxford Bibliographies Online is available by subscription and perpetual access to institutions. For more information or to contact an Oxford Sales Representative click here.
Article
- Abortion, Geographies of
- Accessing and Visualizing Archived Weather and Climate Dat...
- Activity Space
- Actor Network Theory (ANT)
- Age, Geographies of
- Agent-based Modeling
- Agricultural Geography
- Agricultural Meteorology/Climatology
- Animal Geographies
- Anthropocene and Geography, The
- Anthropogenic Climate Change
- Applied Geography
- Arctic Climatology
- Arctic, The
- Art and Geography
- Assemblage
- Assessment in Geography Education
- Atmospheric Composition and Structure
- Automobility
- Aviation Meteorology
- Beer, Geography of
- Behavioral and Cognitive Geography
- Belonging
- Belt and Road Initiative
- Biodiversity Conservation
- Biodiversity Gradients
- Biogeography
- Biogeomorphology and Zoogeomorphology
- Biometric Technologies
- Biopedoturbation
- Body, Geographies of the
- Borders and Boundaries
- Brownfields
- Carbon Cycle
- Carceral Geographies
- Cartography
- Cartography, History of
- Cartography, Mapping, and War
- Chicago School
- Children and Childhood, Geographies of
- Citizenship
- Climate Literacy and Education
- Climatology
- Communication
- Community Mapping
- Commuting
- Comparative Urbanism
- Complexity
- Conservation Biogeography
- Consumption, Geographies of
- Crime Analysis, GIS and
- Crime, Geography of
- Critical GIS
- Critical Military Geographies
- Cultural Ecology and Human Ecology
- Cultural Geography
- Cultural Landscape
- CyberGIS
- Cyberspace, Geography of
- Desertification
- Developing World
- Development, Regional
- Development Theory
- Disability, Geography of
- Disease, Geography of
- Drones, Geography of
- Drought
- Drugs, Geography of
- Economic Geography
- Economic Historical Geography
- Edge Cities and Urban Sprawl
- Education (K-12), Geography
- El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO)
- Elderly, Geography and the
- Electoral Geography
- Empire, Geography and
- Energy, Geographies of
- Energy, Renewable
- Energy Resources and Use
- Environment and Development
- Environmental Electronic Sensing Systems
- Environmental Justice
- Ethics, Geographers and
- Ethics, Geography and
- Ethnicity
- Ethnography
- Ethnonationalism
- Everyday Life, Geography and
- Extreme Heat
- Family, Geographies of the
- Feminist Geography
- Fieldwork
- Film, Geography and
- Finance, Geography of
- Financial Geographies of Debt and Crisis
- Fluvial Geomorphology
- Folk Culture and Geography
- Future, Geographies of the
- Gender and Geography
- Gentrification
- Geographic Information Science
- Geographic Methods: Archival Research
- Geographic Methods: Discourse Analysis
- Geographic Methods: Interviews
- Geographic Methods: Life Writing Analysis
- Geographic Methods: Visual Analysis
- Geographic Thought (US)
- Geographic Vulnerability to Climate Change
- Geographies of Affect
- Geographies of Diplomacy
- Geographies of Education
- Geographies of Resilience
- Geography and Class
- Geography, Gramsci and
- Geography, Legal
- Geography of Biofuels
- Geography of Food
- Geography of Hunger and Famine
- Geography of Industrialization
- Geography of Public Policy
- Geography of Resources
- Geopolitics
- Geopolitics, Energy and
- Geospatial Artificial Intelligence (GeoAI)
- GIS and Computational Social Sciences
- GIS and Health
- GIS and Remote Sensing Applications in Geomorphology
- GIS and Virtual Reality
- GIS applications in Human Geography
- GIS, Historical
- GIS, History of
- GIS, Space-Time
- Glacial and Periglacial Geomorphology
- Glaciers, Geography of
- Globalization
- Health Care, Geography of
- Hegemony and Geographic Knowledge
- Historical Geography
- Historical Mobilities
- Histories of Protest and Social Movements
- History, Environmental
- Homelessness
- Human Dynamics, GIScience of
- Human Geographies of Outer Space
- Human Trafficking
- Humanistic Geography
- Human-Landscape Interactions
- Humor, Geographies of
- Hurricanes
- Hydroclimatology and Climate Variability
- Hydrology
- Identity and Place
- "Imagining a Better Future through Place": Geographies of ...
- Immigration and Immigrants
- Indigenous Peoples and the Global Indigenous Movement
- Informal Economy
- Innovation, Geography of
- Intelligence, Geographical
- Islands, Human Geography and
- Justice, Geography of
- Knowledge Economy: Spatial Approaches
- Knowledge, Geography of
- Labor, Geography of
- Land Use and Cover Change
- Land-Atmosphere Interactions
- Landscape Interpretation
- Literature, Geography and
- Location Theory
- Marine Biogeography
- Marine Conservation and Fisheries Management
- Media Geography
- Medical Geography
- Migration
- Migration, International Student
- Military Geographies and the Environment
- Military Geographies of Popular Culture
- Military Geographies of Urban Space and War
- Military Geography
- Moonsoons, Geography of
- Mountain Geography
- Mountain Meteorology
- Music, Sound, and Auditory Culture, Geographies of
- Nations and Nationalism
- Natural Hazards and Risk
- Nature-Society Theory
- Neogeography
- New Urbanism
- Nightlife
- Non-representational Theory
- Nuclear War, Geographies of
- Nutrition Transition, The
- Oceans
- Orientalism and Geography
- Participatory Action Research
- Peace, Geographies of
- Pedagogical Content Knowledge in Geography Education
- Perspectives in Geography Internships
- Phenology and Climate
- Photographic and Video Methods in Geography
- Physical Geography
- Place
- Polar Geography
- Policy Mobilities
- Political Ecology
- Political Geography
- Political Geology
- Popular Culture, Geography and
- Population Geography
- Ports and Maritime Trade
- Postcolonialism
- Postmodernism and Poststructuralism
- Pragmatism, Geographies of
- Producer Services
- Psychogeography
- Public Participation GIS, Participatory GIS, and Participa...
- Qualitative GIS
- Qualitative Methods
- Quantitative Methods in Human Geography
- Questionnaires
- Race and Racism
- Refugees, Geography of
- Religion, Geographies of
- Retail Trade, Geography of
- Rural Geography
- Science and Technology Studies (STS) in Geography
- Sea-Level Research, Quaternary
- Security and Securitization, Geographies of
- Segregation, Ethnic and Racial
- Service Industries, Geography of
- Settlement Geography
- Sexuality, Geography of
- Slope Processes
- Social Justice
- Soils, Diversity of
- Sonic Methods in Geography
- Spatial Analysis
- Spatial Autocorrelation
- Sports, Geography of
- Sustainability Science
- Sustainable Agriculture
- Synoptic Climatology
- Technological Change, Geography of
- Telecommunications
- Teleconnections, Atmospheric
- Terrestrial Snow, Measurement of
- Territory and Territoriality
- Terrorism, Geography of
- The Climate Security Nexus
- The Voluntary Sector and Geography
- Time, Geographies of
- Time Geography
- Time-Space Compression
- Tourism Geography
- Transnational Corporations
- Unoccupied Aircraft Systems
- Urban Geography
- Urban Heritage
- Urban Historical Geography
- Urban Meteorology and Climatology
- Urban Planning and Geography
- Urban Political Ecology
- Visualizations
- Vulnerability, Risk, and Hazards
- Vulnerability to Climate Change
- Water
- Weather and Climate Damage Studies
- Wetlands
- Whiteness, Geographies of
- Wine, Geography of
- World Cities
- Young People's Geography