ABSTRACT
Between 1992 and 1996, the Internet went from being an experiment in connecting computers to being the inevitable next step in delivering the digital “revolution.” This change in perception was not just a recognition. It was an act of social construction, setting the stage for the major reorganisation of global communications over the next two decades. The Internet as we know it was constructed with a species of elite cultural imagination. Building on earlier work, this essay elaborates the causes and character of the particular “structure of feeling” that emerged during this period. The resulting habits of thought can be seen in a number of subsequent developments, from the rapid build out of Internet infrastructure in the late 1990s, to the net neutrality debates and to design choices favouring intense, always-connected interaction. The essay concludes by suggesting that technologies are best understood, not so much as agents in their own right, but as thought-objects for the collective enactment and exploration of hopes, desires and political visions.
