Postmodernist study of the internet

Michael S.H. Heng
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Michael S.H. Heng: Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Faculteit der Economische Wetenschappen en Econometrie (Free University Amsterdam, Faculty of Economics Sciences, Business Administration and Economitrics

No 4, Serie Research Memoranda from VU University Amsterdam, Faculty of Economics, Business Administration and Econometrics

Abstract: The point of departure is that the activities associated with the Internet are organizational and societal activities taking place within a given historical context. As such they can profit from sociological theories such as postmodernism. Postmodernism can be seen as a reaction to some signal failures of modernism and the modernity project. It is very much a socio-cultural and philosophical system of thoughts which sprouts in a post-industrial society. The relevant elements of postmodernism used here are: (a)power is diffuse, (b) there is no grand theory to make sense of reality, c) the world is fragmented and chaotic, (d) information technology has an ambivalent character. It is argued that postmodernism offers a fruitful way of understanding and explaining the range of possibilities and challenges that accompany the advent of the Internet.

Keywords: The Internet; Modernism; Postmodernism; Sociology of computing (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Z10 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1998
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:vua:wpaper:1998-4

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