Abstract
In Cached: Decoding the Internet in Global Popular Culture, Stephanie Ricker Schulte analyses the Internet from the political and cultural perspectives which have allowed the technology to reshape and influence economic and political life mainly in the United States, and Europe with mention given to the Middle East.
The author argues that technology is flexible and is therefore not a fixed, ‘static medium’, influenced and propelled by the development of the technology itself. In this way, the argument which is developed in the book broadens the field of Internet studies by building on work done in the science studies to dismantle technological determinism which has represented Internet studies in past decades (p. 7).
Schulte describes the guiding methodological approach for the book as one which stitches together what Bruno Latour calls the ‘three great resources of the modern critique – nature, society, and discourse’ taking the Internet, then, as a ‘quasi-object’, or one that is ‘simultaneously real, discursive, and social’ (p. 9). This book unfolds within five chapters elaborating various themes. Chapter 1 ‘The War Games Scenario: Regulating Teenagers and Teenaged Technology’ begins with a consideration of the 1983 film War Games and the way it was used by journalists and politicians to present news and policy debates regarding the Internet. In this way, it helped politicians and the public alike to view the Internet as a space for engagement among teenagers in the American context (p. 12).
Chapter 2 ‘The grows up and goes to work; User-friendly tools for productive adults’ addresses networking and illustrates the ways in which this represented a symbol of national economic power and productivity. In this chapter, the author notes that it was during the mid–late 1980s and early 1990s that computers began to be re-cast in a more hopeful light, and in this way, it became associated with human progress. Specifically, it was seen as a tool for enabling the United States to maintain its global economic dominance (p. 17).
The subsequent section of the book ‘From Computers to Cyberspace: Virtual Reality, the Virtual Nation, and the CorpoNation’, discusses the emergence of the modern Internet in the early–mid-1990s as a symbol associated with globalization, contributing to the weakening of the state, while acting to preserve the nation, through a globally, American influenced cyberspace. This was made possible through CorpoNations such as America Online, as well as through corporations functioning transnationally, outside the power of the state while retaining their national, corporate identities (p. 112). The chapter also considers the Internet as both a global as well as a distinctly American space with its identity deriving from the way the Internet is organized, allowing the United States government to retain control of Internet addresses and the assignment of domain names (p. 18).
Schulte juxtaposes American and European conceptualizations of the Internet from a policy perspective in ‘Self-Colonizing eEurope: The Information Society Merges onto the Information Superhighway’. She points to differences in the way in which the technology was perceived in both regions during the 1990s noting that for the United States policymakers, news media and popular culture producers, the Internet was viewed as a new frontier with the promise to usher the United States into a new era of global economic dominance (p. 136). Within Europe, however, these similar entities viewed the Internet as a technological choice and as a public utility which should be provided by the state, through its support of national telecommunication corporations (p. 136). Schulte notes that despite this divergence in policy in the 1990s, both regions subsequently converged in their approaches to the Internet as Europe ‘Americanized’ its Internet policies by increasing competition, eliminating support for national telecommunication corporations, while the United States on the other hand ‘Europeanized’ its Internet policies by increasing state support in attempts to bridge the digital divide (p. 137).
In the concluding section of the book Schulte discusses ‘Tweeting into the Future: Affecting Citizens and Networking Revolution’. In it, the Internet is seen as having reemerged as a representation of democratic space and one which creates international freedom in light of the creation of blogs and social networking. The argument is presented that the Internet continues to be a forum for fluid, democratic participation, unlike the radio and the television media (p. 19). One of the interesting points made in this regard was the case of the 2011 uprisings in Egypt which policymakers and the news media referred to as the ‘Facebook Revolution’, as the Internet was framed as democratic, as promoting nation building, as it empowered Egyptian citizens in the revolution against a corrupted government and inefficient media (p. 158).
This book illustrates that during the period of the 1980s and the late 2000s, the Internet developed as a key player in the global economy, as one of the most transformative technologies in the United States, as well as in world history (p. 168). It prompts readers to analyse the discourses defining and redefining their relationship to Internet technology and to consider the ways in which these discourses perpetuate or intersect with broader concepts such as democracy, neoliberalism, citizenship and nation (p. 168).
Schulte presents a timely analysis of the Internet in popular culture and the strength of the book lies in its ability to weave together the historical factors influencing the development of new media technology. The book is presented in a well-structured narrative which makes for engaging reading as a result of the stories presented. This is further enhanced by some of the practical examples linking the themes of history, popular culture, technology and citizen participation and activism which are placed in a historical and theoretical framing.
This book can be used to complement literature on new media technology and society and can be placed in conversation with the works of Henry Jenkins and Yochai Benkler. However, one of the weaknesses of the book is what can be considered the incomplete treatment given to the ‘global’ context when considering ‘global popular culture’ as the title of the book suggests. A discussion of other regions of the world would have added a truly global flavour and contributed to further depth and breadth of this book.