ABSTRACT
This conclusion presents some closing thoughts on concepts discussed in the preceding chapters of this book. The book has two central themes. The first is that a narrow, decontextualised focus on the technology of the internet leads to misperceiving its impact. The internet did not spread and rejuvenate democracy in the way that had been promised, partly because authoritarian regimes usually found ways of controlling the internet, but also because alienation from the political process limited the internet's emancipatory potential. The second central theme of this book is that the internet itself is not constituted solely by its technology but also by the way it is funded and organised, by the way it is designed, imagined and used, and by the way it is regulated and controlled. The internet was originally shaped, after its military conception, by the values of science, counterculture and European public service. This largely pre-market formation was then overtaken by commercialisation and increasing state censorship.
