Information and Communication in Economics, 1994 Recent Economic Thought Series, Vol. 32

Although there is a burgeoning interest among economists in `information economics', much of the literature adopts a reductionist conceptualization of information, defining it exclusively as reduction in uncertainty, exploring the implications of imperfect information on markets. This neoclassical treatment obscures major interrelations between economic and communicatory processes.
Drawing on a range of distinguished scholarship from both the economic and communication studies disciplines, Information and Communicationin Economics explores the implications for economic analysis and our understanding of economic processes of employing a more complete conceptualization of information: information as locus of power; information as evolutionary agent; and media systems as devices for control.

1 The Information Economy Revisited.- Commentary by Gilles Paquet.- 2 The Place of Information in Economics.- 3 Commodities as Sign-systems.- Commentary by Sandra Braman.- 4 The Political Economy of Communication: Lessons from the Founders.- 5 Economic Theory: Rhetoric, Reality, Rationalization.- Commentary by Herbert I. Schiller.- 6 The Political Economy of Communications Research.- 7 All the Editorials Fit to Print: The Politics of “Newsworthiness”.- Commentary by Gertrude J. Robinson.- Reply by Edward S. Herman.- 8 The Information Economy in a Spatial Context: City-states in a Global Village.- Commentary by Nicholas Garnham.- 9 The Emerging Mass Media Environment.- Commentary by Gilles Paquet.- Commentary by Nicholas Garnham.- 10 Application of Neoclassical Economics to African Development: a Curse in Disguise.- 11 Communication, Information, and Transnational Enterprise.- 12 Communications and Economics.