Sage Journals: Discover world-class research

Abstract

This study investigates Internet Corporation of Assigned Names and Numbers’ (ICANN) new generic top-level domain (gTLD) programme, exploring how it a shape of ‘community’ suitable for domain name system (DNS) expansion is constituted. Despite the apparent goal of promoting rights to freedom of expression and free association, the prevalence of the controlled vocabulary model results in preference for unopposed entities with clear hierarchical structures and strict membership boundaries. This creates a TLD landscape incapable of encompassing the heterogeneity and uncertainty of many existing communities, but helps to reinforce ICANN’s discourse surrounding the function of the DNS and its role in Internet governance.

Keywords

Community discourse DNS ICANN institutional power Internet governance religion

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Abbate

(2000) Inventing the Internet (Inside Technology). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

agitsys (2012) New gTLD Application Submitted to ICANN by: Asia Green IT System Bilgisayar San. ve Tic. Ltd. Sti. Available at: https://gtldresult.icann.org/applicationstatus/applicationdetails/13 (accessed 19 December 2018).

Anderson

BRO

(2006) Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. Rev. ed. London; New York: Verso Books.

Barlow

(2016 [1996]) A declaration of the independence of cyberspace. Available at: https://www.eff.org/cyberspace-independence (accessed 29 October 2018).

Calhoun

(1998) Community without propinquity revisited: communications technology and the transformation of the urban public sphere. Sociological Inquiry 68(3): 373–397.

Campbell

(2012) Introduction: the rise of the study of digital religion. In: Campbell

(ed) Digital Religion: Understanding Religious Practice in New Media Worlds. Abingdon; New York: Routledge, pp. 1–23.

Campbell

Golan

(2011) Creating digital enclaves: negotiation of the internet among bounded religious communities. Media, Culture & Society 33(5): 709–724.

Chayko

(2008) Portable Communities: The Social Dynamics of Online and Mobile Connectedness. Albany, NY: SUNY Press.

Cheong

(2012) Authority. In: Campbell

(ed.) Digital Religion: Understanding Religious Practice in New Media Worlds. Abingdon; New York: Routledge, pp. 72–88.

10.

Cheong

Poon

JPH

Huang

, et al. (2009) The Internet highway and religious communities: mapping and contesting spaces in religion-online. The Information Society 25(5): 291–302.

11.

Dawson

(2000) Researching religion in cyberspace: issues and strategies. In: Hadden

Cowan

(eds) Religion on the Internet: Research Prospects and Promises (Religion and the Social Order 8): Amsterdam: JAI, pp. 25–54.

12.

Delanty

(2010) Community (Key Ideas). 2nd ed. London; New York: Routledge.

13.

Easton

(2012) ICANN’s core principles and the expansion of generic top-level domain names. International Journal of Law and Information Technology 20(4): 273–290.

14.

Epstein

(2011) Manufacturing Internet policy language: the inner workings of the discourse construction at the Internet Governance Forum. TPRC, 25 September. Available at: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1989674

15.

Fairclough

(1992) Intertextuality in critical discourse analysis. Linguistics and Education 4(3–4): 269–293.

16.

Fairclough

(2013) Critical Discourse Analysis: The Critical Study of language. 2nd ed. London: Routledge.

17.

Foucault

(1995) Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. 2nd ed. New York: Vintage Books.

18.

Galloway

(2004) Protocol: How Control Exists after Decentralization (Leonardo). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

19.

Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) (2013) GAC communique – Beijing, People’s Republic of China. Available at: https://www.icann.org/en/system/files/correspondence/gac-to-board-18apr13-en.pdf (accessed 19 December 2018).

20.

Gudeluhas

(2018) Gay men and the internet: unlimited possibility, lived reality. In: Nixon

Düsterhöft

(eds) Sex in the Digital Age: Sexualities in Society. London; New York: Routledge; Taylor & Francis, pp. 124–134.

21.

Gusfield

(1975) Community: A Critical Response (Key Concepts in the Social Sciences). Oxford: Blackwell.

22.

Hofmann

(2016) Multi-stakeholderism in Internet governance: putting a fiction into practice. Journal of Cyber Policy 1(1): 29–49.

23.

ICANN (2012) gTLD applicant guidebook. Available at: https://newgtlds.icann.org/en/applicants/agb (accessed 11 January 2018).

24.

ICANN (2014) New gTLD program community priority evaluation report – gay. Available at: https://newgtlds.icann.org/sites/default/files/tlds/gay/gay-cpe-rr-1-1713-23699-en.pdf (accessed 6 December 2018).

25.

ICANN (n.d.-a) Community Priority Evaluation (CPE): ICANN new gTLDs. Available at: https://newgtlds.icann.org/en/applicants/cpe#status (accessed 6 December 2018).

26.

ICANN (n.d.-b) Trademark clearinghouse FAQs. Available at: https://newgtlds.icann.org/en/about/trademark-clearinghouse/faqs (accessed 6 December 2018).

27.

ICANN Board (2018) Further consideration of the Asia Green IT System v. ICANN Independent Review Process Final Declaration. Available at: https://www.icann.org/resources/board-material/resolutions-2018-10-03-en#1.b (accessed 19 December 2018).

28.

ICC (2013) Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of the United Arab Emirates Vs. Asia Green IT System Bilgisayar San. Ve Tic. TLD. STI (EXP/430/ICANN/47). Available at: https://newgtlds.icann.org/sites/default/files/drsp/04nov13/determination-1-1-2130-23450-en.pdf (accessed 19 November 2018).

29.

Keller

(2003) Community: Pursuing the Dream, Living the Reality (Princeton Studies in Cultural Sociology). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

30.

Kendall

(2011) Community and the Internet. In: Consalvo

Ess

(eds) The Handbook of Internet Studies. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, pp 309–325.

31.

Mayr

(2008) Language and Power: An Introduction to Institutional Discourse (Advances in Sociolinguistics). London; New York: Continuum.

32.

Mesthrie

(2000) Introducing Sociolinguistics. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

33.

Milan

Ten Oever

(2017) Coding and encoding rights in internet infrastructure. Internet Policy Review 6(1). Available at: https://policyreview.info/articles/analysis/coding-and-encoding-rights-internet-infrastructure

34.

Morris

(1996) Community beyond tradition. In: Heelas

Lash

Morris

(eds) Detraditionalization: Critical Reflections on Authority and Identity. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell, pp. 223–250.

35.

Mueller

(2002) Ruling the Root: Internet Governance and the Taming of Cyberspace. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

36.

Mueller

(2010) Networks and States: The Global Politics of Internet Governance (Information Revolution and Global Politics). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

37.

Mueller

(2017) Will the Internet Fragment? Sovereignty, Globalization, and Cyberspace (Digital Futures). Cambridge; Malden, MA: Polity Press.

38.

Musiani

Cogburn

DeNardis

, et al. (2016) The Turn to Infrastructure in Internet Governance. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

39.

Padovani

Santaniello

(2018) Digital constitutionalism: fundamental rights and power limitation in the Internet eco-system. International Communication Gazette 80(4): 295–301.

40.

PCCS (2012) New gTLD application submitted to ICANN by: Pontificium Consilium de Comunicationibus Socialibus. Pontifical Council for Social Communication (PCCS). Available at: https://gtldresult.icann.org/applicationstatus/applicationdetails/1002 (accessed 19 December 2018).

41.

Peters

(2015) The Marvelous Clouds: Toward a Philosophy of Elemental Media. Chicago, IL; London: The University of Chicago Press.

42.

Phillips

Lawrence

Hardy

(2004) Discourse and institutions. The Academy of Management Review 29(4): 635–652.

43.

Shimanoff

(2014) The ‘Dot’ times they are a-changin’: how new generic top level domains (gTLDS) will change consumer perception about the Internet. Cardozo Arts & Entertainment 32: 891–926.

44.

Song

(2009) Virtual Communities: Bowling Alone, Online Together (Digital Formations v. 54). New York: Peter Lang.

45.

Thompson

(1990) Ideology and Modern Culture: Critical Social Theory in the Era of Mass Communication. Stanford, Calif: Stanford University Press.

46.

Van Dijk

(1996) Discourse, power and access. In: Caldas-Coulthard

Coulthard

(eds) Texts and Practices: Readings in Critical Discourse Analysis. London; New York: Routledge, pp. 84–104.

47.

Van Dijk

(2006) Discourse and manipulation. Discourse & Society 17(3): 359–383.

48.

Van Dijk

(2015) Critical discourse analysis. In: Tannen

Hamilton

Schiffrin

(eds) The Handbook of Discourse Analysis. 2nd ed. Malden, MA: John Wiley & Sons, pp. 466–486.

49.

Van Klyton

Soomaree

Arrieta-Paredes

M-P

(2018) The multistakeholder model of Internet governance, ICANN, and business stakeholders – practices of hegemonic power. SSRN Electronic Journal. Available at: https://gala.gre.ac.uk/id/eprint/20316/1/van%20Klyton%20%252c%20Arrieta-Paredes%20and%20Soomaree%20%282018%29.pdf

50.

Waye

(2015) Guarding online terroir: are gTLDs a threat? European Intellectual Property Review 37(9): 575–587.

Supplementary Material

Please find the following supplemental material available below.

For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.

For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.

0.00 MB

0.07 MB

0.16 MB

ICANN’s dotCommunities: Analysing the construction of DNS-appropriate communities in the new gTLD programme

Abstract

Keywords

Get full access to this article

References

Supplementary Material