Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
banking remain concentrated in a few chosen locales, where they rely heavily on
tacit knowledge and face-to-face communications, the internet has simultaneously
facilitated the dispersal of many low wage functions such as back offices and call
centers (and, increasingly, more skilled jobs such as radiologists) to the global
periphery. The telecommunications industry has not been immune to the changes it
has unleashed on the rest of the economy, as witnessed by the prodigious growth
of VOIP telephony. Moreover, e-tailing has become a significant domain of
spending and consumption in its own right and the internet has facilitated new
forms of distance education and gambling, with their own, distinctive spatialities.
The loose assemblage of practices known as e-commerce is transforming the
worlds of work, production, sales, advertising, and consumption. As firms and
corporations across the world have adopted the internet, it has accelerated product
cycles, restructured supply chains, opened new market opportunities, increased
competition, and in general deepened capitalist social relations. For customers, e-
tailing allows access to an unprecedented variety of options, while for small firms
located in relatively inaccessible areas, the horizons for new sales possibilities are
greatly expanded. Clearly, however, the implementation and impacts of e-com-
merce vary widely from region to region, as well as from place to place. Different
national economic structures, government policies, levels of security and trust in e-
commerce transactions, varying degrees of internet access and digital divides,
cultural and gender roles, and variations in consumer habits and traditions all help
to explain these geographies, which strongly suggest that there is no single, unified
model that can be invoked.
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