Fables of the Reconstruction: Characterizing Business Structures with Online Data Collection

Abstract

The ’60s and ’70s of the last century were effervescent with visions of a radical break between the past and the future. In their manifestos, Marshall McLuhan and the Situationist International (among others) foresaw a Global Village, a Society of Spectacle, post-literacy and nonlinear modes of consciousness evolving from mass media (e.g., Debord, 1977; McLuhan, 1964). More recently much of this rhetoric has been recycled, with similar claims made that contemporary communications and broadcast media (e-mail and the WWW) will lead to new paradigms, new business models, new economies. It remains to be seen whether current information technology will live up to these promises, or stay in a niche role, like shortwave radio or the Parisian pneumatic post. Examples of truly dead media are hard to find (Sterling, n.d.); even CB radio may retain a few adherents somewhere.