The construction of the World Wide Web audience

Abstract

This article charts two parallel shifts in the phenomenon known as the Internet, and the sometimes contradictory links between the two. One is in the public perception and representation of the Internet as it changes from a technology of personal communication to a mass medium along the lines of television. The other shift is in the technology upon which the system as an artefact is built, and the kinds of uses it inherently facilitates. The trajectory of technological production cannot be understood without consideration of the social and cultural forces shaping both the market and the attitudes of engineers and companies developing technology. Moreover, as users of technology we are implicated in conceiving of ourselves as consumers and audiences. The relations of power within the World Wide Web medium are in this respect more a matter of Gramscian hegemony than simple corporate domination.