Introduction - Global Geographies of the Internet - page 5

1.3 Outline of this Volume
Given the enormity and rapid growth of the internet, there is no feasible way this
slim volume can capture every detail of its geography and implications. Rather, it
attempts to sketch some of the fundamental contours that define the internet,
primarily at the global level. Much of the focus is on countries in which the
internet is most heavily deployed, i.e., the economically developed world,
although studious attempts are made to address its mounting implications in the
developing regions of Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Central to the arguments
presented here is the uneven geographical significance of the internet: if we are to
avoid simplistic technological determinism, a social and spatial contextualization
is necessary, which escapes the aspatial ''one-size-fits-all'' view so common in
popular discourse.
Chapter 2 notes the origins and development of the internet and its contem-
porary global geographies. Because its history has been abundantly explicated
elsewhere (Hafner and Lyon 1996 ), there is no need to recapitulate this story in
depth here. Rather, it begins with the infrastructure that makes the internet pos-
sible, the world's grid of fiber optics and satellites. Then it turns to the rapid
growth in internet users and their uneven distribution around the world. It delves
into the complex issue of the digital divide, in which social inequalities are rep-
licated in cyberspace. Finally, it offers a regional overview of internet usage
around the world in the hopes of demonstrating that its geography cannot be
understood independently of the varied local and national contexts in which it is
embedded.
Chapter 3 focuses on the political limitations of cyberspace, i.e., internet cen-
sorship, a topic that has received woefully inadequate attention (Warf 2010 ).
Governments around the world vary greatly in the extent to which they limit
freedom to access information over the web, ranging from North Korea, where it is
essentially illegal, to almost unfettered access in Western Europe and North
America. Because the internet is as much a political as it is an economic and social
phenomenon, appreciating the nature and extent of censorship is vital to under-
standing its geography and uneven growth. It ends with the argument that the
internet offers the possibility of a Habermasian free speech situation, one in which
truth claims are adjudicated on the basis of persuasion and consensus rather than
power.
Chapter 4 looks at the economic implications of the internet in the form of
electronic commerce, or e-commerce. Although the internet's origins were largely
military and academic in nature, it has become thoroughly commercialized. From
''e-tailing'' to the decentralization of back office functions, from web-based uni-
versities to Voice Over Internet Protocol, the internet has revolutionized how
business is done, lowering transactions costs, enhancing competitiveness, accel-
erating product cycles, and facilitating the globalization of small businesses. The
chapter also offers a region-by-region overview of the uneven geography of e-
commerce around the world.