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The paper aims to expand the public service principle to cover labour and worker organizations in the communication industry. It also aims to demonstrate the value of labour convergence as an instrument to advance the interests of knowledge workers and the public interest in communication.

The paper draws from conceptual debates around the nature of knowledge labour and of convergence. It draws from interviews and documentary evidence to determine the value of trade union convergence and new forms of worker organization in the communication industries.

The paper finds that communication workers are engaging in their own form of convergence and are using it to advance the public service principle in knowledge labour. In doing so, they are expanding the public interest in communication.

The paper is one of the only studies that connects the public service principle and convergence to knowledge and communication workers. It demonstrates that, despite significant challenges, these workers are a significant force in the communication arena.

Explores a number of the debates and justification used to support and advance non‐state governance of the Internet in the USA. Reviews public reports released leading up to the formation of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). Concludes that the scope herein is restricted to the jurisdictions and reasoning stated in the policy papers leading to the formation of the ICANN.

Looks at the shift in emphasis in Australia, from a historical perspective and examines the growing fears in the community that citizens may become disenfranchised as a result. Argues that a slavish adherence to efficiency through technological advance risks undervaluing the complementarity of information in the community. Concludes that focusing on efficiency and quantification moves away from noting the constitutional and democratic scope of telecommunications.

Analyses the evolution of China’s telephone and cable systems, in terms of the public interest, discussing current bureaucratic conflicts and policy debates over convergence, and construction of an independent broadband cable network. Looks in depth at China’s problems and the different problems for its citizens with regard to poverty levels and access to the Web.

The burning issue which faces the providers of personal financial services is related to the nature of their response to “Increased Competition and Squeezed Profits”. In the 1980's more so than at any previous period, personal financial service institutions have realised that new strategies had to be developed and implemented if they were to maintain both their competitive edge and achieve their profit objectives.

The prospect that technological and social innovation in the use of communication and information technologies are bringing about an end to sovereignty has been a source of optimism, pessimism and ambivalence. It has captured the popular imagination and it can be found in the anxieties of national leaders about the mingling and collision of cultures and cultural products within and across their borders, and about growing awareness that environmental threats bow to no flag. According to much of this discourse, national governments are becoming increasingly powerless in their battles against real or imagined plights of cultural imperialism (and sub‐imperialism, that is, cultural imperialism within states) and capital mobility, as well as in their efforts to effectively exercise political control through surveillance and censorship. The end of sovereignty is a theme in political discussions about new pressures brought on by global regimes of trade and investment, and by unprecedented levels of global criminal networks for drug trafficking, money laundering and trade in human flesh. Social movements and non‐governmental organizations (NGOs) have reflected this by recognizing the need to match the scale of the problems they confront with appropriately scaled collective action. This article examines the discourse about the end of sovereignty and therise of new institutions of global governance. Particular emphasis is given to how advancements in the means of communication have produced the ambivalent outcomes of threatening the democratic governance of sovereign states, and serving as foundations for the assertion of democratic rights and popular sovereignty on a global scale.

Traces the trajectory of the digital divides by focusing on different areas of research that are competing to shape the public policy agenda. Posits that policy should focus at least as much on the context and content of technology use as it has this far on the increased distribution of computing resources.

The Public Advisory Council on Information Highway Policy (PACIHP) project is discussed in terms of activities, difficulties, successes, impact, motivations, and background. This paper is presented in two parts. The first part details how project organizers have attempted to involve the online community in the policy‐making process, the techniques used, and the community′s and policymakers′ response to the initiative. Some preliminary observations about the project′s impact are also discussed. The second part presents an overview of the Canadian regulatory and political environment. The specific trends identified have contributed to the authors′ concerns, providing some of the motivation for the project. In conclusion, thoughts on the future of computer‐mediated communication and its potential for democratizing politics are presented.

This article aims to highlight the main limitations of the emancipatory potentials of digital inclusion policies and information and communication technologies (ICTs). Increasingly, empowerment is put forward as one of the main goals of digital inclusion. By applying user-centric and participatory approaches, assumptions are made that individuals will be empowered and, as such, will be re-included in society.

These assumptions, however, tend to ignore the social, economic, political and technical conditions within which individual choices are made and within which individuals must inevitably act. Instead of attempting to narrow the existing social gap between class-divided societies, and of probing the limitations given at the macro-level by questioning the wider social structure, digital inclusion policies tend to individualize problems that are in fact social in their nature.

This contribution will, therefore, aim to identify the key causes of structural (dis)empowerment and how these resonate to digital inclusion. The article positions itself within the political economy of communication research tradition and aims to confront the structural consequences of social inequalities, existing social hierarchies and power structures against mechanisms of digital inequalities and against the implementation of digital inclusion policies.

By proceeding from a critical perspective, it aims to demonstrate the limitations of user-centric and micro-level approaches, while questioning their normative interpretations of digital empowerment which tend to be reductionist in their essence and instrumental in their aims.