ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of key concepts covered in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book offers a wide scope and original examination of the field of Internet studies. The gradual and ongoing shift from techno-deterministic to socio-centric approaches to the Internet signifies that the Information Society, which has been marked by the advent of the Internet and other information and communication technologies (ICT), is defined along economic, technological, spatial, occupational and cultural lines of development. It takes a time-rich approach by intermingling past, present and future accounts, considering the development of the Internet and its study as running along a time continuum where the past matters for the present and the present matters for conclusions and hypotheses made about the future. Empirical accounts are much inspired by concrete theoretical frameworks and even abstract ideas, whilst there cannot be theory that is not informed by empirical findings or observations of and insights into segments of reality.
