Connecting Europe: Politics of Information Society in the EU and Turkey

During the 1990s, in parallel with new media–related initiatives in the US and the Asia–Pacific region, the EU launched its own information society policies in an effort to become, “the most competitive knowledge–based economy in the world by 2010.” In addition to full members, the task of achieving a “European Information Society for all” was also expected of candidate countries, including Turkey.

In Connecting Europe: Politics of Information Society in the EU and Turkey, taking the policy arena as a discursive space, Dr. Miyase Christensen explores the evolution of information society policies in the EU and Turkey. Globalization processes from the 1990s on are explored from the standpoint of contemporary media and communications theory and political economy. Conceptualizing the global and regional shifts in the context of social change and taking commodification and spatialization as entry points, the book presents a detailed account of some of the crucial developments to date (on both on the EU and Turkish sides) based upon in–depth interviews with key stakeholders. The factors that shape the political economy of the telecommunications and ICT sectors in both the EU and Turkey are increasingly complex, engendering new spaces of politics, economy and citizenship.