This book examines the growth and geography of the internet from a political economy perspective. It illustrates that cyberspace does not exist in some aspatial void, but is deeply rooted in national and local political and cultural contexts.

Today, roughly 2 billion people use the internet, and its applications have flourished in number and importance. This volume will examine the growth and geography of the internet from a political economy perspective. Its central motivation is to illustrate that cyberspace does not exist in some aspatial void, but is deeply rooted in national and local political and cultural contexts. Toward that end, it will invoke a few major theorists of cyberspace, but apply their perspectives in terms that are accessible to readers with no familiarity with them. Beyond summaries of the infrastructure that makes the internet possible and global distributions of users, it delves into issues such as the digital divide to emphasize the inequalities that accompany the growth of cyberspace. It also addresses internet censorship, e-commerce, and e-government, issues that have received remarkably little scholarly attention, particularly from a spatial perspective. Throughout, it demonstrates that in cyberspace, place matters, so that no comprehensive understanding of the internet can be achieved without considering how it is embedded within, and in turn changes, local institutional and political contexts. Thus the book rebuts simplistic death of distance views or those that assert there is, or can be, a one-size-fits-all, cookie-cutter model of the internet applicable to all times and places.

Concise summary or origins, growth, and contemporary geographies of the internet International review of digital divides Regional analyses of internet censorship, e-commerce, and e-government worldwide Includes supplementary material: sn.pub/extras

Autorentext

Barney Warf is a professor of Geography at the University of Kansas. His research and teaching interests lie within the broad domain of human geography. He has also studied a range of topics, such as international producer services, the internet, fiber optics, the satellite industry, offshore banking, military spending, political geography, religious diversity, and corruption. He has authored, co-authored, or co-edited eight books, three encyclopedias, 60 book chapters and more than 110 refereed journal articles. Currently, he serves as editor of The Professional Geographer, co-editor of Growth and Change, and editor-in-chief for geography for Oxford Bibliographies On-Line.

Inhalt

1: Introduction.- 2: Origins, Growth, and Geographies of the Global Internet.- 3: Global Internet Censorship.- 4: Global E-Commerce.- 5: Global E-Government.- 6: Social Media.- 7: References