Digital switchover in Europe

This article discusses the political, economic, technological and human aspects of the digital switchover in Europe and explores various policies for managing the process. The article first examines the advantages and drawbacks of digital switchover, and identifies a number of challenges and policy dilemmas of making switchover an achievable objective. It goes on to look at digital television adoption across Europe and assesses the effectiveness of free-to-air digital television to accelerate take-up. Finally, the article examines EU initiatives as well as national plans in digital switchover and proposes various measures for encouraging the take-up of digital services and therefore bringing forward the likely idea of analogue switch-off

Shanty towns around the Global Village?: Reducing distance, but widening gaps with ICT

For at least 25 years, prophecies and predictions have been made about the power of communications technologies to reduce the effects of geographical distance. Advances in satellite communications and supranational broadcasting, together with the dramatic growth in the availability and capability of information and communication technologies (ICTs), have revolutionised both the speed and the nature of global communications. However, technological determinist predictions have failed to take account of the pre-existing social contexts and relationships that shape the uptake and use of new technologies at both national and international levels. In Western countries, the impact of ICT upon different groups in society has been varied, tending to reinforce rather than ameliorate existing inequalities. On an international scale, the Internet has now reached most parts of the world, but anglophone countries have dominated information sources and services. Inequalities exist not only in access to the technological means of communication, but also in respect of what is conveyed by those means