Pursuing the Holy Grail

Abstract

This article shows that media convergence has always been a historical possibility but was foreclosed by private industry and/or governments intent on preventing cross-media combinations. In contrast, the current push to bring about information highways in Britain and Canada promotes rather than prevents media reconvergence. Given the uncertainties surrounding new media, three potential evolutionary paths are suggested: the emergence of `information suburbs' in contrast to the idealistic connotations associated with information societies; new media as adjuncts of `old media'; or a strategy that seeks to expand the range of universal service and media freedoms for the many rather than the few and which uses ISDN as the cornerstone of the fixed public telecommunications network.