{"id":38150,"date":"2020-08-17T11:30:19","date_gmt":"2020-08-17T16:30:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.publicbooks.org\/?p=38150"},"modified":"2026-01-16T20:17:58","modified_gmt":"2026-01-17T02:17:58","slug":"reading-resources-the-internet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.publicbooks.org\/reading-resources-the-internet\/","title":{"rendered":"Reading Resources: The Internet"},"content":{"rendered":"

Since the internet went public on August 6, 1991, it has infiltrated nearly every domain of human life. The network of servers that now links about 3.4 billion people across the globe has profoundly affected the way that people live, work, form communities, and create culture. While it is a truism to say that the web has brought people together, internet access is neither universal nor uniform, and familiar forms of oppression and exclusion have taken on new contours in cyberspace.<\/p>\n

During the current COVID-19 pandemic, those who have the privilege of internet access seem to be doing more working, socializing, browsing, consuming, and procrastinating online than ever. In that sense, this historical juncture brings to the fore key tensions that have always existed at the internet\u2019s core: it is at once democratic and exclusionary, marvelous and terrifying, full of promise and rife with dangers.<\/p>\n

Our new podcast, Public Books 101<\/i>, has probed this tension from many angles. Our host, Annie Galvin, and our 10 guests have considered such questions as: Where did the internet come from? Whose interests was it built to serve? What is it doing to individuals, societies, and cultures? And what can we learn from Silicon Valley\u2019s history as we envision more equitable technologies for the future?<\/p>\n

In our podcast series Public Books 101: The Internet<\/i>, we brought together 10 of the field\u2019s top scholars and writers to discuss the internet from many angles. We envision the following package\u2014which includes podcast episodes, discussion questions, and related readings\u2014as a teaching resource that could be useful in courses that cover the internet, social media, and\/or digital technologies. The package could also serve as a resource for scholars who are working in fields adjacent to the internet, or for anyone who is curious about what the internet might be doing to humans on psychological, social, spiritual, and political levels.<\/p>\n

As our guest Lauren Michele Jackson says in episode 4:<\/p>\n

If you work on, write about, or think about the contemporary [era] in any way, you have to contend with the internet. Even if you don\u2019t write about the internet, you have to contend with its existence and it as a means of storytelling, of language formation, of narrativizing the way that people are making sense of the world around them.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The following reading list, like our podcast series, is divided into five parts. Each part contains the podcast episode as well as work written by our guests, books and articles that our guests have recommended, and relevant Public Books<\/i> articles. To accompany each podcast episode, we have included discussion questions that build on our guests\u2019 ideas. If the podcast were assigned in a course, these questions could be used alongside the audio to prompt written reflection or classroom discussion.
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Listen to the Podcast:<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n

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