Guest editorial

Citation

Constantelou, A. and Van Audenhove, L. (2010), "Guest editorial", info, Vol. 12 No. 6. https://doi.org/10.1108/info.2010.27212faa.001

Guest editorial

Article Type: Guest editorial From: info, Volume 12, Issue 6

In May 2010, the European Commission launched the Digital Agenda for Europe, the successor to Europe’s i2010 Information Society Policy (European Commission, 2010). The Digital Agenda is one of the seven key initiatives surrounding Europe’s 2020 Strategy, a policy document that describes Europe’s strategic priorities in order to deliver smart, sustainable and inclusive growth for 2020. At the heart of the Digital Agenda is the recognition that information and communication technologies (ICTs) remain key contributors to the sustainable development of the European economy and to its capacity to address major societal challenges. The seven action areas around which the Digital Agenda is based have all been revealed during extensive consultations with various stakeholders as the most significant obstacles that Europe currently faces, which prevent the region from the full exploitation of ICTs and limit its ability to orchestrate a catch-up strategy against its industrial partners. The areas of concern, as outlined in the Digital Agenda, are the following:

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  fragmented digital markets;

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  lack of interoperability;

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  rising cyber-crime and risk of low trust in networks;

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  lack of investment in networks;

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  insufficient research and innovation efforts;

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  lack of digital literacy and skills; and

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  missed opportunities in addressing societal challenges

Facing up these obstacles presents serious challenges to all actors in Europe that are either directly or indirectly involved in policy design and/or in policy making for the information society. The academic and research community, in particular, has over the years contributed constructively and critically to the formation of European information society policy through the development of both theoretical models and empirical analysis using a diverse array of policy instruments and cutting across several disciplines.

Against this background, two months prior to the launch of Europe’s Digital Agenda, and in the midst of discussions and debates triggered by the expected roll-out of post-i2010 information society policy agenda, the European communications research community met in Brussels in late March 2010 for its annual meeting, the European Communications Policy Research Conference (EuroCPR). EuroCPR was conceived 25 years ago by a group of academics, members of industry, and policy practitioners led by Professor Nicholas Garnham, Emeritus Professor of Communication Studies at the University of Westminster. Since then EuroCPR has been organised annually with the ambition to contribute in a timely and critical manner to European information society policy developments. A particular and unique feature of EuroCPR is that it encourages a high level of interaction among academia, policy makers, and industry representatives aiming to achieve both the highest academic excellence and the maximum policy and industrial relevance during its works.

The Conference’s twenty-fifth anniversary offered a unique opportunity to critically reflect on the past, present, and future of information society policy design in Europe. It did so by following its tradition using the “lens” of a political economy perspective. Traditionally, scholars and participants in EuroCPR have been proponents of the view that the design of technological artifacts, and of the policies surrounding their development, come about as an interplay between the various private and public, formal and informal institutions found in the political, economic, and social spheres. Thus, technical developments in ICTs and in policies surrounding their development, as is information society policy, are being moulded by the power relationships, the contradictions in choices, and the complex negotiation processes that take place among the actors who are active in the political, economic, and social spheres, be they individual actors, corporate actors, or members of particular societal groups (see, for example, Mansell and Silverstone, 1996).

This special issue includes eight papers presented at the 25th EuroCPR Conference, each addressing a particular area of policy concern for the European information society. In selecting the papers for this special issue, we based our choices on three criteria. First, we sought to provide a flavour of the Conference in terms of the range of issues explored. Second, we wanted the papers included to address topical issues that are also found in one way or another at the heart of the Commission’s Digital Agenda. Third, we were aiming at a fairly balanced international representation in the papers published.

The contribution by Johannes Bauer, “Learning from each other: conceptual and empirical foundations for cross-national benchmarking” fits the twenty-fifth anniversary of EuroCPR well as it reflects on the very foundations of what conferences such as the European Communications Policy Research Conference (EuroCPR) and its counterparts on other continents, such as the American Telecommunications, Policy and Research Conference (TPRC), CPR South, Diálogo Regional sobre la Sociedad de la Información (ISRI) and Africa CPR, aim to achieve. All these organisations aim to exchange information and to learn from policy choices both within and across countries and continents. In his contribution, Bauer focuses on learning across countries. His main argument is that as advanced communication services become more and more differentiated, conceptually and empirically, meaningful performance indicators are increasingly difficult to design. Furthermore, even if such meaningful metrics can be devised, the drawing of lessons from other countries’ experiences is not trivial, but raises additional theoretical and methodological challenges. For example, good regulatory policy is endogenous to the performance and structure of the regulated industry, but it is also influenced by other political and sociocultural aspects of a country or a region. In this article, Bauer first reviews the literature on policy learning, transfer and diffusion, then looks more specifically at benchmarking and the construction of robust performance indicators, and finally revisits policy transfer issues with a look at implementing constraints and typical scenarios that may arise in policy learning.

Along similar lines, but from a more applied perspective, the paper by Linda Kool, Martijn Poel and Annelieke van der Giessen, “How to decide on the scope, priorities and coordination of information society policy?”, presents an analytical framework grounded on public management and innovation literature that aims to assist policy makers in deciding on the priorities and coordination of information society policy. The framework is built upon seven pillar questions, each dealing with:

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  the rationale for policy intervention;

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  the identification of the main stakeholders;

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  the relevance of ICT issues across sectors;

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  the level of fit with the broader objectives of information society policy;

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  the detection of relevant resources, capabilities and policies of other policy makers;

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  the identification of policy instruments that can be effective in addressing a particular ICT issue; and

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  the potential economic, social and environmental costs, benefits, and risks associated with specific policy interventions.

The authors emphasize the interactive and cross-cutting nature of information society policy interventions both within and across sectors, which makes policy coordination crucial. For example, they argue that in healthcare and in other public sectors, information society policy can take the lead on cross-cutting ICT issues such as privacy, standardisation and interoperability and leave room to policy makers to take the lead in stimulating ICT innovation “vertically” in health, education, transport, energy, etc. Their framework can also be extended beyond national borders, in particular, between DG Information Society and Media and other Directorates involved in the coordination of the Digital Agenda initiatives.

One of the areas that has attracted the interest of policy makers for “vertical” action in order to stimulate innovation is the software and software-based services (SSBS) sector. Michael Friedewald and Timo Leimbach, in their paper “Assessing national and EU policies to support the software industry in Europe”, present the preliminary findings of a major survey of national programmes targeting specifically, or in substantial part, the software sector, aiming to shed light on the various strategies, policies and activities pursued by the EU member states. Their research reveals that there are great differences in-between the EU member states related to policies in support of the ICT/SSBS sector. More specifically, following a classification of EU member states according to the level of domestic development capacity in ICT and SSBS products and services, they find that the number of policies directed specifically at ICT or even SSBS producers has increased in the intermediary and independent countries over the last years. In contrast, in the dependent member states relatively little policy activity is being directed specifically at fostering SSBS producers as compared to broader information society objectives. Another finding of their research is that recent programmes focus on the technological side of the ongoing major changes, while the business side is often neglected. As a result, there is the risk for European firms to be at the forefront of technological developments, but unable to commercialise them, a problem inherently associated with the European innovation system. In their conclusion, the authors point to two directions that relate to the Digital Agenda’s objective for more investment in R&D and ensuring that the best ideas reach the market:

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   that the development of existing and emerging technologies and industries cannot be based on a single industrial policy alone, but need to be consistent with developments in other policy domains; and

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   that policies in support of SSBS, and especially of the emerging segment of software-based internet services (SBIS), have to complement or supplement existing horizontal policies in support of the ICT sector as a whole, or else they have to target newly emerged areas.

The contribution by Karen Donders, “The benefits of introducing European competition principles into national public broadcasting policy”, discusses a fundamental aspect of both future communications research and policy. The integration of competition policy principles, which apply across sectors, with the sector-specific policies and sensitivities in the communications and media sectors is high on the agenda of scholars, national governments and European policy makers. In her contribution, Karen Donders studies the actual integration of competition principles in the policy domain of public service broadcasting. Public broadcasting organisations are embedded in a specific national, historical, social and economic context. Member states in general oppose European intervention within this policy domain, which they consider their exclusive competence. Member states’ opposition is shared by academics and public broadcasters, who fear that the European Commission aims to marginalise public broadcasting from the mainstream into the margin. Donders reflects on these fears and evaluates the introduction of competition principles into public broadcasting policy. Contrary to what is generally held, her main argument is that competition policy has fostered public service broadcasting and has in fact made it more apt to meet the challenges of the highly complex digital media ecology.

Trisha Meyer and Leo Van Audenhove, in their paper “Graduated response and the emergence of a European surveillance society”, discuss the “three-strikes-out” warning and sanction mechanism aimed at fighting online piracy. The authors take a fresh look at this mechanism by reflecting on it in terms of theories on surveillance society and code. Their central arguments are:

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  that graduated response fits within a particular discourse that portrays rights-holders as residing in a state of emergency, avoiding discussions on alternative forms of remuneration or the reform of copyright law;

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  that graduated response is a form of social sorting, prioritising the rights and interests of one specific group (i.e. big rights-holders) over others (i.e. small rights holders and internet users); and

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  that graduated response is a kind of enforcement through code, which has a technological bias in favor of perfect enforcement and automation of regulation.

Graduated response has strong societal consequences and is therefore much more than a means of deterring online copyright infringement. It is about surveillance and controlling persons and populations.

The paper by Wainer Lusoli and Ramón Compañó, “From security versus privacy to identity: an emerging concept for policy design?” discusses the related topic of electronic identity (eID). The authors note that increasingly, the provision and take-up of advanced digital services relies on complex, interoperable identity management systems through which people disclose significant amounts of personal data. In their paper the authors focus on the systematic monetisation of users’ eID and the emergence of eID markets. The question is discussed whether a single European Market for identity is possible and feasible, and whether a common identity framework for Europe is timely and appropriate. The authors argue that the only effective way to regulate personal data and privacy is through what is called “privacy by design”. Privacy by design refers to techno-regulation in which privacy and data protection principles are directly integrated in the design of technologies and procedures meant to deal with personal data.

The last two papers in this special issue look at the topical issue of next generation infrastructures (NGI), their financing and deployment. Francois Jeanjean’s paper, “Financing the next generation infrastructures: demand subsidies or infrastructure subsidies”, looks at the potential impact of subsidisation strategies for ultra-broadband development. Subsidies are considered as a medium-intervention strategy and have been used in geographic areas where broadband services are not available because of either high fixed development costs or low population density. The author develops an econometric model that compares the welfare provided by two specific types of subsidies:

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   a demand subsidy, given to each household as a contribution to its subscription fee for a predefined time period (a refund, a tax cut); and

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   an infrastructure subsidy, given to operators by means of a contribution to their infrastructure development costs.

By applying the model under different scenarios regarding the duration of subsidy and the rate of coverage, the author concludes that consumer subsidies are cheaper than infrastructure subsidies when the coverage without subsidies is dynamic enough, as happens in the beginning of the roll out. Also, if the time required to subsidise the demand is shorter than the infrastructure lifetime, then consumer subsidies are more efficient than infrastructure subsidies.

In developing his argument, Jeanjean also highlights a finding of other similar studies dealing with factors influencing broadband deployment: people’s predisposition and skills for using new technologies has been identified as having a positive impact on broadband penetration and connection speed.

The last paper, by José Maria Castellano – “Secondary education and broadband diffusion: a qualitative comparative analysis” – seeks to explore this relationship further. Taking into account supply side factors, such as market entry regulation, and demand side factors, such as secondary education attainment, it seeks to identify the combinations of regulation and secondary education patterns that under specific income levels allow explaining differences in broadband diffusion patterns across the 27 EU member states. Using the novel analytical tool of qualitative comparative analysis (QCA), the paper suggests that different combinations of market entry regulations and secondary school attainment can lead to similar broadband diffusion patterns. This is because structural conditions, like income, have a stronger influence than regulation and education. The paper also suggests that high secondary school attainment is a necessary factor for broadband innovator countries. By contrast, low income and low secondary school attainment are factors connected with late majority and laggard broadband adopters.

Overall, the papers selected for this special issue do not confine to one particular aspect of the information society policy agenda. Rather, they provide a “snapshot” of current conceptual models and empirical evidence available in support of a range of issues relating, either directly or indirectly, to the actions foreseen by the Commission in its newly announced Digital Agenda. Thus, policy learning, benchmarking, and policy coordination mechanisms, sector-specific policy concerns, copyrights management, and the conditions for the development and deployment of NGIs are all topical issues whose analysis in the present special issue may provide an excellent ground for discussions and debates that will shape the Commission’s targeted actions in the sector.

Anastasia ConstantelouAssistant Professor of Innovation Management at the University of the Aegean, Chios, Greece.Leo Van AudenhoveAssociate Professor in the Department of Communication Studies at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Brussels, Belgium.

About the Guest Editors

Anastasia Constantelou is Assistant Professor of Innovation Management at the University of the Aegean, Greece. She has been a consultant at the OECD and a Research Fellow at the Laboratory of Industrial and Energy Economics and the Institute for Computer and Communication Systems (ICCS) at the National Technical University of Athens. Currently, she is a member of the Organising Committee of the Annual Euro-CPR Conference. Her research interests focus on the economics of science and technology, innovation management and policy, and the socio-economic implications of the information society. E-mail: a.konstantelou@fme.aegean.gr

Leo Van Audenhove is Associate Professor in the Department of Communication Studies at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel and Vesalius College. He lectures on international communication, policy analysis, and globalisation and the information society. He is a Senior Researcher at the Centre for Studies on Media, Information and Telecommunication, a research institute that forms part of the Interdisciplinary Institute on Broadband Technologies of the Flemish Community. Between 2001 and 2004 he worked part-time as a researcher/advisor at TNO-STB in Delft, The Netherlands. His main areas of interest are international media and communication, the information society and ICT policies, the political economy of internet media and Internet governance. Leo is an Honorary Researcher at the Link Centre, University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg and, together with Luciano Morganti and Tom Lipinski, holds a Jean Monnet Module on European Information Society Policy in a Global Context at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee. E-mail: Leo.Van.Audenhove@vub.ac.be