In this groundbreaking book media and time theorist Robert Hassan looks at the effects of the
nexus between neoliberal globalization and the information technology revolution upon the
production and dissemination of knowledge in technologically advanced societies. This nexus has
created what Hassan calls an information ecology an environment that affects the individual
culture and society in the same dialectical ways as the natural and built environment.
Significantly this information ecology generates its own temporality that of network time a
digitally compressed and accelerated time that has sped up society dramatically since the late
1970s. Network time has changed the mechanics and institutions of knowledge production in
society to an unprecedented degree and extent. How we think what we think and what we
consider to be useful and legitimate knowledge is changing in ways (and at a rate) that poses
serious problems for mass culture and civil society.
