Indrek Ibrus - Böcker

It is only since global media and digital communications became accessible to ordinary populations – with Telstar, jumbo jets, the pc and mobile devices – that humans have been able to experience their own world as planetary in extent. What does it mean to be one species on one planet, rather than a patchwork of scattered, combative and mutually untranslatable cultures? One of the most original and prescient thinkers to tackle cultural globalisation was Juri Lotman (1922-93). On the Digital Semiosphere shows how his general model of the semiosphere provides a unique and compelling key to the dynamics and functions of today’s globalised digital media systems and, in turn, their interactions and impact on planetary systems. Developing their own reworked and updated model of Lotman’s evolutionary and dynamic approach to the semiosphere or cultural universe, the authors offer a unique account of the world-scale mechanisms that shape media, meanings, creativity and change – both productive and destructive. In so doing, they re-examine the relations among the contributing sciences and disciplines that have emerged to explain these phenomena, seeking to close the gap between biosciences and humanities in an integrated ‘cultural science’ approach.

It is only since global media and digital communications became accessible to ordinary populations – with Telstar, jumbo jets, the pc and mobile devices – that humans have been able to experience their own world as planetary in extent. What does it mean to be one species on one planet, rather than a patchwork of scattered, combative and mutually untranslatable cultures? One of the most original and prescient thinkers to tackle cultural globalisation was Juri Lotman (1922-93). On the Digital Semiosphere shows how his general model of the semiosphere provides a unique and compelling key to the dynamics and functions of today’s globalised digital media systems and, in turn, their interactions and impact on planetary systems. Developing their own reworked and updated model of Lotman’s evolutionary and dynamic approach to the semiosphere or cultural universe, the authors offer a unique account of the world-scale mechanisms that shape media, meanings, creativity and change – both productive and destructive. In so doing, they re-examine the relations among the contributing sciences and disciplines that have emerged to explain these phenomena, seeking to close the gap between biosciences and humanities in an integrated ‘cultural science’ approach.

The ebook edition of this title is Open Access and is freely available to read online.This book combines economic studies of innovationsystems with studies of mediatisation, media convergence, trans- andcross-media and with other approaches within media and culture studies. Itelaborates on a new concept, cross-innovation, referring to co-innovation andconvergence processes taking place between different sectors of digital serviceeconomies. The proposition is that digitisation and mediatisation processes areconditioning new inter-sector dialogues and the emergence of newcross-innovation systems at the borderlines of formerly distinctindustries.  The case study industries presented are, on the one hand, audiovisualmedia (film, television, videogames, etc.) and health care, education ortourism, on the other hand. The book builds on 2 years of empirical work acrossNordic and Baltic countries, putting a special emphasis on the opportunitiesand challenges for small countries as they build the cross-innovation systemsin the era of media globalisation and platformisation of services. Theempirical research of 144 interviews with stakeholders (policy makers,entrepreneurs, managers, professionals) from all four sectors and of secondary dataand documentary analysis. The findings tell of complex stories how globalplatformisation of tourism undermines the emergence of related cross-innovationsystems in small countries; how fragmentation of local education and healthcare markets does not enable the scalability of innovations, but protects localinnovation systems for being overtaken by global platform giants. The book hasstories of successful facilitation of cross-innovation as well as failures todo so.