Infotransformation of Markets

Abstract

Information and communication technologies (ICTs) are a driving force behind major economic, social, and cultural shifts from the modern to the postmodern, from local to global markets, from production to consumption, and from industrial to informational economies. While much has been written about the relationship between marketing and technology, most of the work regards marketing as an a priori category onto which new technologies are simply overlaid as they come along. These instrumentalist—functionalist views of ICTs in marketing are not particularly well suited when—as in macromarketing— the focus is on marketing systems and consumption systems. The present collection of articles provides one of the most insightful one-stop learning shops of the changing character of markets in the information age. From the fractal views of the ethical economy and its emergent collaborative production-provisioning-consumption system to the realities of the persistent digital divide in the age of the mobile phone, articles in this issue touch on important elements of marketing in the age of information. We invite you to enter and enrich these discussions.