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 innovation systems with studies of mediatisation, media convergence, trans- and cross-media and with other approaches within media and culture studies. It elaborates on a new concept, cross-innovation, referring to co-innovation and convergence processes taking place between different sectors of digital service economies. The proposition is that digitisation and mediatisation processes are conditioning new inter-sector dialogues and the emergence of new cross-innovation systems at the borderlines of formerly distinct industries. The case study industries presented are, on the one hand, audiovisual media (film, television, videogames, etc.) and health care, education or tourism, on the other hand. The book builds on 2 years of empirical work across Nordic and Baltic countries, putting a special emphasis on the opportunities and challenges for small countries as they build the cross-innovation systems in the era of media globalisation and platformisation of services. The empirical research of 144 interviews with stakeholders (policy makers, entrepreneurs, managers, professionals) from all four sectors and of secondary data and documentary analysis. The findings tell of complex stories how global platformisation of tourism undermines the emergence of related cross-innovation systems in small countries; how fragmentation of local education and health care markets does not enable the scalability of innovations, but protects local innovation systems for being overtaken by global platform giants. The book has stories of successful facilitation of cross-innovation as well as failures to do so.

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.