Social justice and Internet technology

Abstract

This essay is the honorary “Steve Jones Internet Research Lecture” for 2015, presented at the International Communication Association meetings in San Juan, Puerto Rico on 23 May 2015. Internet technology is understood in social terms not just as tools. As a social/cultural phenomenon, the new media’s core ethical norm arguably becomes social justice. The global dynamics of the Internet system requires an international definition of justice as intrinsic worthiness, rather than the standard idea of justice as right-order legality determined by nation-state conventions. This understanding of justice is defended against relativism which claims that values are culture specific.