Technology in the Political Landscape

Politics can shape technology not only directly, but also via institutions and regulations that are the product of political choices. The different histories of videotex in France and the US provide such an example. The French state telephone company, a unified actor with little outside oversight, was willing and able to build a national videotex system, known as Minitel. In the US, however, traditions of private telecommunications ownership and suspicion of monopoly power made such an outcome highly unlikely. © 2006 IEEE.