Kreps, DG and Wong, Renfred 2009, Virtual oversight over transnational capitalism: XBRL metadata and renewed government control of the global economy , in: The IFIP WG9.5 "Virtuality and Society" International Workshop on Images of Virtuality: Conceptualizations and Applications in Everyday Life, April 23rd-24th 2009, Athens University of Economics and Business, Greece.

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Abstract

As the recent and ongoing crisis in the world financial system shows, unregulated markets are dangerous for the world economy. Through the news media we have all become much more familiar with the virtual world of financial transactions in today’s global economy than ever before. In this paper we address the difference between the ‘strong’ virtual reality of immersive technological systems and the ‘weak’ virtual reality of digital culture in the information age. We examine how what Gramscii might have termed a ‘hegemonic’ shift in the control of the financial markets is unfolding through the mechanism of what Latour would term ‘inscription’ – using the mandatory introduction of XBRL to bring far greater transparency to the accounting of transnational corporations and a greater ability on the part of regulators to know precisely what is going on.

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