The internet has fundamentally transformed society in the past twenty-five years, yet existing theories of communication have not kept pace with the digital world. This book focuses on everyday effects of the internet—including information-seeking, big data, and the growing importance of smartphone use—to explain how the internet surpasses traditional media. Synthesizing global perspectives, Ralph Schroeder posits a theory on the internet’s role, and how both technological and social forces shape its significance.

The World Wide Web has now been in use for more than 20 years. From early browsers to today’s principal source of information, entertainment and much else, the Web is an integral part of our daily lives, to the extent that some people believe ‘if it’s not online, it doesn’t exist.’ While this statement is not entirely true, it is becoming increasingly accurate, and reflects the Web’s role as an indispensable treasure trove. It is curious, therefore, that historians and social scientists have thus far made little use of the Web to investigate historical patterns of culture and society, despite making good use of letters, novels, newspapers, radio and television programmes, and other pre-digital artefacts. This volume argues that now is the time to question what we have learnt from the Web so far. The 12 chapters explore this topic from a number of interdisciplinary angles – through histories of national web spaces and case studies of different government and media domains – as well as an introduction that provides an overview of this exciting new area of research.