Core Reading:
o Lappin, Todd. "Déjà Vu All Over Again," Wired, 3.05, 1998 online at
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/3.05/dejavu.html?person=mitch_kapor&topic_set=wiredpeople
o Gauntlett, David. 'Introduction' to Web.Studies, London: Arnold, 2000 also online at http://www.newmediastudies.com/webbook1.htm
o Graham, Gordon. The Internet: A Philosophical Inquiry, London: Routledge, 1999
o Naughton, John. A Brief History of the Future: The Origins of the Internet, London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1999. See also the website at http://www.briefhistory.com/
o 'The Accidental Superhighway: A Survey of the Internet', Economist, 1 July 1995 Reprinted as Chapter 4 of The Economist, Going Digital: How New Technology is Changing Our Lives, London: Economist/Profile Books, 1996 (excerpt online at http://www.temple.edu/lawschool/dpost/accidentalsuperhighway.htm)

A useful resource is: Visions of Heaven and Hell, a series of 3 programmes made by Channel 4 in 1995. Available from Audio-Visual Section of the Library.
 

Supplementary reading:
o Barrett,  Neil. The State of the Cybernation Cultural, Political and Economic Implications of the Internet, London: Kogan Page, 1997
o Noll, Michael A Highway of Dreams: A Critical View Along the Information Superhighway, Mahwah, N.J: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1997
o Stoll, Clifford. Silicon Snake Oil: Second Thoughts on the Information Superhighway, Macmillan, 1995
o Rheingold, Howard. The Virtual Community: Homesteading on the Electronic Frontier, revised edition, MIT Press, 2000 (full text of the earlier edition available online at  http://www.rheingold.com/vc/book/ )
o Clemente,  Peter. The State of the Net: The New Frontier, New York: McGraw-Hill, 1998 - one of the few books to include empirical data on Internet users
o Emmott, S.J. and Travis, D. (eds) Information Superhighways: Multimedia Uses and Futures, London: Academic Press, 1995
o Bettig, R.V.  'The enclosure of cyberspace', Critical Studies in Mass Communication, Vol.14, No.2, (1997) pp.138-157
o Goodwin, Peter. 'British media policy takes to the superhighway', Media, Culture and Society, 17 (1995) pp. 677-689.
o Beacham, Frank:  articles on the Internet at http://www.beacham.com/net_contents.html

STUDENT SYNOPSES

Notes from group discussion:
 

• We began by investigating the notion of 'transformation' - and, in particular, interrogating the notion of 'the transformative power' of the internet as a technology.

• We discussed the problem that the nature of transformation wrought by the internet is, in many repescts, unquantifiable. What do we mean when we talk of transformation? Do we mean technological transformation? Do we mean social/political/economic transformation? And how can we separate the apparent transformations - and allocate the responsibility 'solely' towards the internet?

• One of the central problems is that, as a new technology, debates about the impact of the internet are still infused with hyperbole. As with previous technologies, we felt that it is only when the internet has become enmeshed into the patterns of 'everyday life' - and thus, it becomes invisible and thereby apparently more 'neutral' - that it becomes more possible to judge the actual impact (socially, culturally, politically, economically, technologically etc.)

• Finally, we attempted to question the effects of technological innovations like the internet on those individuals who do not use or come into contact with the actual technology. Is it still possible to argue that the internet is affecting non-users? Here, we discussed issues like the closure of rural branches of banks, and debated how far this could be attributable to the rise of internet banking; or we looked at examples of 3rd world communities, for whom computing technology is entirely absent. Ultimately, we returned to our original thoughts about the unquantifiable nature of the question. How far could we say the internet technology is responsible for the changes being effected (like the closure of high street banks) - and how far is the internet simply one aspect of the cultural, social, political climate?

• This debate is one of technological determinsm versus cultural determinism. Someone like Castells might argue that technological innovation is re-organising society between information/economically rich & information/economically poor. Yet one might counter this by arguing that technology like the internet merely reflects, exacerbates or enhances social dimensions & divisions which are already in existence. It is simply one aspect of a far wider global picture.

Semimar Presentation Slides: Usage

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