Virtual Society?

Background/Context

The Internet occupies a prominent place in popular, policy and commercial debates about the emergence of a so-called 'virtual society'. Despite its aura of newness, what we now call the Internet has a long history, stretching back to the 1960s. It has evolved from a publicly-funded network to support defence-related research in the USA to an international academic network to its current configuration. This project explores what is happening to the Internet - who uses it for what - as it becomes more influenced by commercial considerations and more able to carry a range of digitised information (image and sound as well as text).

Aims and Objectives

The aims and objectives of the project are to:

• map the development of the Internet, focusing on the post-92 period

• develop a small number of scenarios about the future development of the Internet

• identify factors contributing to the success or failure of each scenario

• identify patterns of access and use within each scenario - to identify and evaluate tools for conducting research about the Internet.

Project Design

Research about the Internet requires a hybrid, interdisciplinary approach. The project analyses online and offline materials to identify the range of predictions made about the Internet and its predecessors. Case studies of different user and producer groups are used to establish what they want and what they expect from the Internet. It is notoriously difficult to conduct research about Internet users, so the project is particularly concerned to refine the techniques available for doing so and to assess the ways in which the problems differ from those encountered in other areas of social research.

Implications

Too much of the debate about the Internet is based on naive utopianism or paranoid pessimism. Predictions about the future of work, entertainment, politics and everyday life are often based on extrapolations of isolated events. Such predictions also often assume that the Internet is fixed and inevitable. This project provides a more subtle understanding of the forces at work shaping the Internet, and of the range of actions and responses open to its producers and users.