Review by Choice Review
In a posthumous work more polemical and speculative than scholarly, De Sola Pool (formerly political science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology) envisions how the technological revolution in communications may affect the mass media, developing countries, metropolitan centers, and individual users. Citing minimal research, he argues that the greatest benefits will come, in almost all instances, through allowing the free flow, and encouraging the widest possible diversity, of technology and information. Less developed countries, for example, are likely to be most successful in creating their own communication industries by welcoming competition. Computers, satellites, and facsimile machines will jump the boundaries of nations, states, and cities, frustrating those who would control information but bringing together and providing great benefits to those with common interests. The author sees a need to rewrite laws and regulations relating to copyright, the broadcast spectrum, and other barriers that restrict the communication flow, but offers few specific suggestions. Editor Noam has updated the original manuscript (written before De Sola Pool's death in 1984) "where the facts have changed" but has attempted to retain "the essential Pool" (who also authored Technologies of Freedom, CH, Oct'83). College and university collections and public libraries. -K. F. Rystrom, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
