Hi Sam, I believe that there are many books out there that define the Internet (or "internet") from its historical origin (e.g., ARPARNET, network of networks) and from sociological perspectives (e.g., Steve Jones's edited books). In the meantime, I particularly like Annette Markham's work that examines the actual users' understanding of the Internet and their experience of it in a ground up fashion. Markham, Annette N. 1998. Life Online: Researching Real Experience in Virtual Space. Walnut Creek: Altamira Press. The book is almost a decade old and I know that she's been updating it. She also discusses how we researchers (qualitative researchers more specifically) can conceptualize the Internet or Internet communication to better utilize it for our specific research goals. Markham, Annette N. 2004. "Internet Communication as a Tool for Qualitative Research." In Qualitative Research: Theory, Methods, and Practice, 95-124. Ed. David Silverman. London: Sage. http://faculty.uvi.edu/users/amarkha/writing/silvermandraft.html In the meantime, about a couple months ago we had a thread related to this question. Jillana Enteen started a thread about the differences among CMC, ICT, and digital communication. Revisiting the thread may be helpful: http://listserv.aoir.org/pipermail/air-l-aoir.org/2006-July/010219.html Cheers, Han On 10/16/06, Sam Tilden <tildensam@yahoo.com> wrote:
I know this is a trivial question! Does anyone have a really good definition of the Internet.
The only ones I have speaks only to the technology.
Sam
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