Cultures of the Internet : Virtual Spaces, Real Histories, Living Bodies

Cultures of Internet examines the arrival of e-mail and online discussion groups, and considers the prospect of an `online world′ - a playground for virtual bodies in which identities are flexible, swappable and disconnected from real-world bodies. The book traces the rise of virtual conviviality and how it supplements the physical encounters between actors in public spaces that are abandoned to the homeless.

The book is distinguished by a critical and social tone. It presents systematic descriptions of the development of the Internet, its history in the military-industrial complex, the role of state policies leading, for example, to the creation of Minitel, and the building of information `superhighways′. It also explores the development of this technology as a commercialized leisure form and a forum for underground political organization and critique.