Technological transformations and media:

the processes of concentration and centralization of capital in Mexico, 1980-2000

Abstract

The notable advances in science and technology at the end of the 20th century radically changed the forms of social and productive organization of the contemporary world. Their depth has allowed them to be considered as the set of new technologies that replace the basic core of production processes, generating a true revolution: the third scientific-technological revolution. Its scope in everyday life is conceived as the axis of economic, social and political transformations. Based on microelectronics, biotechnology and the science of new materials, they have disrupted the areas of production, distribution, management and consumption; With its applications aimed at restructuring and overcoming the crisis of the global capitalist economic system, few sectors have been left out of the changes.

Telecommunications have become, in this context, the infrastructural network of the processes of productive interdependence and globalization of economic activities. Particularly, the media have registered severe transformations in their operation. Traditional forms of communication such as mail and telegraph have been radically surpassed; others, such as television and radio, have been transmuted with the incorporation of computing and digital technology. Likewise, the impressive progress in computing - especially in software development - has made possible the constitution of new forms of personal and institutional link through the real-time interconnection of computers, regardless of their spatial location. Networks and systems are new operational elements that underpin the Internet, conceived as a "network of networks."