Virtual Nation: The Internet in Australia

Front Cover
Gerard Goggin
UNSW Press, 2004 - Computers - 300 pages
The Internet is used by millions of Australians every day, but what do we really know about this exordinary phenomenon? How did the Internet develop in Australia? What have been the distinctive Australian contexts shaping the Internet? And what have been its implications for Australian culature and society?The first comprehensive book that digs beneath the surface of the Internet in Australia. Moving beyond the 'how to' books, Virtual Nation offers a surprising, thought-provoking, and rigorous introduction to a technology that we now can't do without. Featuring leading experts on topics spanning history, use, culture, policy, and future, Virtual Nation is indispensable for students, researchers, teachers, policymakers, technologists, and anyone interested in how digital technologies are transforming our lives The final chapter of the book invites readers to engage in a virtual round table--an online blogging network steered by contributors to the text, and literally putting the theory into practice.
 

Selected pages

Contents

User guide
1
Antipodean Internet Placing Australian networks
2
An Internet primer Technology and governance
13
History
29
The emergence of the Internet in Australia From researchers tool to public infrastructure
30
The Pegasus story A pioneering Internet venture
44
Net acceleration The advent of everyday Internet
55
Use
71
Cyphers of the virtual Australian Net art and the metaphysics of telepresence
146
Digital dreaming Indigenous intellectual property and new communication technologies
159
Reconfiguring journalism Syndication gatewatching and multiperspectival news
177
Net worth The unlikely rise of ABC Online
193
Policy
209
Evolutionary constitutionalism Australian law and the Internet
211
Domesticating the Internet Content regulation virtual nationbuilding and the family
229
Park life The commons and communications policy
242

Networks of influence Internet activism in Australia and beyond
73
home Australian family life and the Internet
88
Pornography and sexuality online Implications for Internet censorship policy
102
The Australian misinformation economy Rethinking electronic commerce
116
Culture
131
Make new friends and kill them Online multiplayer computer game culture
133
Horizons of expectation Imaginary trajectories of electronic government
258
Vision
273
Histories trends futures A round table on the Australian Internet
274
Index
292
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