ABSTRACT
The architecture of the Internet is by definition an imagined space—we are no more able to feel, touch, or survey its expressive contours than we are able to represent its totality. In an attempt to explicate such abstract spaces we often turn to the realm of metaphorical language to provide ourselves with mental maps, diagrams, and structural imagery. Politicians thus regularly debate the merits of laws regulating the information superhighway, while online users continue to communicate in dungeons, salons, and chat rooms. The most traveled—or in the vernacular “browsed”—portions of the Internet are likewise metaphorically described as worldwide “webs,” data-mined by programmable spider-robots (Elmer, 1997).
