Computer networks, real and imagined: Completing visions of communication in technology design, discourse, use, and policy

Technological systems of communication may consist of wires and software, but they are also a prescription for who is supposed to communicate with whom and why. This dissertation empirically considers the evolution of explanations of the Internet and antecedent computer networks using a social constructivist theoretical framework; it then contrasts these explanations with actual use.; It finds four persistent and polarizing understandings of what these networks are and “are for:” the liceotropic, collaborative, consummative, and anthropic. These are termed “visions” of communication, and were found across thirty years and four sites of inquiry using multiple methods: (1) the design process in these networks through archival research and oral history about two original network designs that prefigured the Internet in some way. (2) the popularization of computer networking and online services through discourse analysis of two computer periodicals over ten years. (3) the use of these networks through nonparticipant observation, open-ended interview, network traffic analysis, and content analysis at a public Internet access point at an inner-city children's library. (4) the public policies about these networks through the analysis of primary and secondary sources surrounding the role of government in the development of ARPANET, FCC debate about the regulation of computer networking, and the “National Information Infrastructure” initiative of the Clinton administration.; A progressive negotiation occurs between visions, with each attaining more or less legitimacy among different groups at different times. These visions were employed to convince some groups to adopt, they have been the basis of law and regulation, and they were the reason networks were designed in some ways and not others. This dissertation finds that the policymaking process provides a forum where a single vision may be fixed in law to the exclusion of others, precipitating long-term conflict about the network's purpose and the exclusion of users that do not understand a communication technology in one singular way, as actual use is not as polarized as discourse. This produces normatively and procedurally flawed communication policies and an unreasonable stigmatization of playful and social behavior.