Annette N. Markham
This paper provides a critical, cautionary stance toward the future structure
of “Internet Studies” as a field. A social constructionist reading
of the process of organizing reveals the ways in which apparently obdurate structures
are constructed and negotiated through everyday discursive practices. Subsequent
structures and practices function ideologically to control organizational members
in a concertive fashion by shaping and directing the conceptual frameworks for
inquiry and action in a seemingly natural way. Definitions and metaphors construct
conceptual boundaries of meaning for the field of inquiry, delimiting and protecting
over time what counts as Internet and Internet Studies. Over time, origins of
knowledge are hidden within the structure of the organizations and a culture
of unobtrusive control emerges. Unless radical measures are taken to reflexively
interrogate everyday routines and habitual ways of talking in academic environments,
the future field of Internet Studies will not transcend the traditions of the
academy but will be entrenched in and reproduce traditional structures and a
traditional scholarly enterprise.