Winds of Change (Monday, 7.30, RT╔1) focuses on the global impact of high-tech development, the internet and e-commerce and how the Republic has reacted to it.
George Lee travels to Paris to talk to Ms Gail Fosler, chief economist of the Conference Board, a New York-based economic and business consultancy group.
Ms Fosler is considered to be one of America's most accurate and influential readers of economic trends. She talks about the pressures on workers in the New Economy and about the Republic's economic transformation. She says: "Ireland now needs to reconceive itself as a country that is top of its game."
The programme also features Mr Kevin Dillon, managing director of Microsoft in Ireland, who talks about its experiences and its future plans.
"We had turned 40 and both of us had successful careers in the media when gradually we became convinced of a need for much less in our lives - much more," say Michael and Ethna Viney.
Before the general greening of the middle classes and organic shelves in city supermarkets, the Vineys decided to go for the alternative to "metropolitan complexity, consumption and frustration".
A Year's Turning (Wednesday, 7 p.m., RTE1) is the story of a year on the one acre of land at Thallabawn in Co Mayo that has been their homestead for more than 20 years.
In Estonia, a programmer works for US companies from his laptop. Mr Andrei Filinov is an "elancer", making use of online communication to outbid better-paid US competitors for work he can easily do from the low-wage economy in which he lives.
The Future Just Happened (Sunday, 6.35 p.m., BBC2) reports that this is just one example of how technology is giving outsiders the power of insiders. It's no longer a disadvantage to be on your own, in the middle of nowhere, without the big corporation to back you.
Elsewhere, British band Marillion has discovered how to sidestep its former record companies, and form a direct relationship with its fans. Marillion's new album is being funded by fan subscriptions, collected through the band's website - 13,000 advance orders have already been taken, netting the group an estimated £200,000 sterling. Subsequently, Marillion have the freedom to do exactly what they want, without having to answer to record company executives pushing for a more commercial product.
This internet-induced shift in the balance of power between the traditional big corporations and the smaller interests on the fringe is also manifest with the arrival of Gnuttela. Following the recent legal blow to internet music provider, Napster, the Gnuttela software may prove a far more formidable threat to the corporations.
sokelly@irish-times.ie
