[ICTs-and-Society] what is the subject matter?

[Andrew Feenberg]

The Internet is very important today but historically it evolved in isolation from society as a whole until long after communication by computer developed in the public domain on the basis of the very different X.25 protocol with support primarily from telephone companies. There was widespread communication on computer networks in the 1980s, although of course nothing like what we see today since it was almost entirely professional. The big exception was France where the Minitel system attracted millions of users in the 1980s. I think the argument over the origins of the study of the Internet is not very interesting since the substantive issue is communication by computer and the study of that subject matter goes back well before the emergence of the Internet as a public system.

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New Book: (Re)Inventing the Internet
Preview at: 
https://www.sensepublishers.com/catalogs/bookseries/other-books/reinventing-the-internet/
      
Andrew Feenberg 
Canada Research Chair in Philosophy of Technology 
School of Communication 
Simon Fraser University at Harbour Centre 
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