Mapping the World System

The transition from the geography of old to an emergent global geography is made explicit in the MCI Worldcom commercial commenting on the world historical significance of the Internet as the new material force spanning the globe into a single market unit. The first scene shows the early modern mapping of geography and history: building the transcontinental railway, an act that helped unify the nation as a geographical entity. The latter scene represents the globe as spanned by the telecommunications technology directed by MCI WorldCom.

A similar, but intermediate, concept lies behind the rather different pictorial representation of the Internet landscape set forth from an aerial viewpoint by Earthlink.