[Infowarrior] - The Arrival of the Internet to Israel: The Local Diffusion of a Global Technology

[Richard Forno]

The Arrival of the Internet to Israel: The Local Diffusion of a Global  
Technology

http://www.sociothink.com/

Abstract:
http://www.sociothink.com/abstract.html

Full PDF:
http://www.sociothink.com/

This subject matter of this study is the first decade of Internet  
connectivity in Israel. This study looks into the infrastructure, the  
physicality, the bureaucracy, and institutional aspects of the  
Internet. It is about the struggles between the various actors  
involved in bringing the Internet to Israel and other relevant actors,  
and decisions that were made by the state and non-governmental  
organizations, such as the Inter-University Computing Center, as part  
of that process. It is not about the things that people were doing  
with the Internet, or the meanings that the general public attributed  
to it. Rather, it focuses on the nitty-gritty of the arrival of the  
Internet to Israel and its diffusion around the country: which  
connections were made? When? What problems were involved? It also  
investigates the social, political, and cultural background against  
which the Internet can be seen to be spreading throughout the country:  
what kind of regime did Israel have in the mid-80s? And in the  
mid-90s? How might these changes be related to the introduction of the  
Internet-not in the sense that one caused the other, but in terms of  
the broader processes of change that characterized Israel during those  
years, such as globalization and liberalization?

This study focuses on the technology of the Internet: on the cables  
and wires that carry the Internet around the world; on the legal and  
administrative processes that are called into play as the Internet  
reaches a new country. Thus, while not driven by a new social  
phenomenon such as Internet dating or the uses of social networking  
sites, this study nonetheless sheds light on the social contexts in  
which the processes described in the course of this dissertation are  
embedded. By not taking the technology for granted, this study shows  
that the infrastructure behind the Internet is also a social  
phenomenon with a political economy, no less than the social and  
cultural forms that are based on that infrastructure.

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