The Socio-economic Implications of the Multi-Media Society

The Turn of International Relations Study in the Advent of Multimedia Age

Abstract

There seems to be consensus among various literature of economics that the way in which information technology makes impacts on market. That is, the premise of perfect market competition which has been regarded only as a theoretical hypothesis is now a reality as information technology makes it possible to disseminate all necessary information on market. The two-way multi-media supplies almost complete information on commodities and their prices, eradicates geographical barriers by quick dissemination of economic transactions, nulifies governmental regulations by a flow of information over national boundaries, and furthermore, enables small firms to join into market competition because customers can have access to them by network search. Then, both firm organization and distribution system attain maximum efficiency and the Pareto Optimum can be realized.
In view of socio-economics, information is not only of the type of “formal” information which is used in the above discussion, but also of the type of the “tacit” information. The evolving process of information between “formal” information and “tacit” one at various stages of expression, exchange, accumulation, sharing of is independently illustrated by Ikujiro Nonaka for the case of firm organization, by F. A. Hayek for the case of market, and by Susumu Nishibe for the case of a social system. According to them, perfect competiton cannot be universally realized by the advancement of information technology. It is only realized as a unique case, in the American society where information is all regarded as “formal” but not “tacit.” Also, I would like to point out that if information is searched at any time in the network like internet, that network would have tendency to go inward.
This article tries to argue that what would happen and at which level in firms, market, and social system when the multi-media is widely diffused.