Reaction Paper 8: International communication in the Internet age

Chapter 7 of the textbook focuses on what was named the ‘Internet age’ by the Business Week, in 1999. What is meant by this terminology is an age when information treatment has become so much faster and less expensive, thanks to the development of a major new communication tool: Internet.


The idea, or concept, I will focus on throughout this reflection is the “free flow of commerce”. Not only the rise of Internet has allowed an unprecedented increase in the volume and diversity of information exchanged; but it also gave birth to a new form of commercial transactions: the e-commerce. The textbook points out the way trade on Internet has outpaced all expectations and was representing $1.4 trillion in 2003.


The reason why e-corporations have been so quick to rise is that Internet has made transactions considerably cheaper and faster. It reduced transaction costs, and eliminated issues of geographical positioning, while allowing a more direct form of online marketing. Moreover, as Steve Case (AOL chairman) stated, the possibilities allowed by Internet are much more than what is currently being done and “we’re still scratching the surface”.


The rise of e-commerce, at the time when the textbook was written, meaning in the beginning of the 2000s, concerned essentially business to business commerce; but it was already a growing tendency among particulars to shop online. Nowadays, I think e-shopping has become a true everyday alternative for a large public, for all kind of products consumption.


My own opinion on the matter is quite optimistic, as I think that e-commerce allows a much larger diversity of products to be accessed, independently of the geographical position we are in. Thanks to e-commerce, people from any continent, and any country, can easily have access to any kind of products they wish, as long as they have the means to do so.


I also think that e-commerce has created a new stage for small businesses to develop and export their products all over the world. These same businesses which might not had the means to publicize efficiently their products to more than their immediate physical surrounding without Internet now can do it. Although competitivity, as well as paid publicity, also exist on Internet, I think that there is more chances for small businesses to handle the competition on the web than in physical ‘real’ life.





A nuance to this optimistic vision of the Internet age is that it excludes a considerable part of the World population, who whether has not access to Internet, or who might be computer illiterate.