The politics of the web: the case of one newsgroup

Abstract

The internet is often portrayed as a borderless liberal space of equal opportunities and unconstrained communication. By contrast, this article emphasizes the profoundly contested nature of the communication on ‘the web’. Based on a short period of close observation of one internet newsgroup, this study illuminates specific discursive strategies by means of which domination, cooption, resistance and exclusion enter the virtual space of internet communication. In addition, the liberal character of the internet is observed to be not so much due to the reign of liberal principles as due to the strategic advantage enjoyed by ‘liberal actors’ in newsgroup exchanges. Hence, the study illuminates major mechanisms of the ‘liberal domination’ in the net as well as the operations of power in contemporary liberal societies at large.