National Borders on the World Wide Web

Abstract

The internet is often seen as a significant contributor to the globalization of culture and the economy. It is also seen as an inherently international medium, unimpeded by national borders and removed from the jurisdiction of the nation-state. This paper argues that although geographic borders may be removed from cyberspace, the social structures found in the `real' world are inscribed in online networks. By surveying 4000 web sites, it is determined that the organization of the world wide web conforms to some degree to traditional national borders. Web sites are, in most cases more likely to link to another site hosted in the same country than to cross national borders. When they do cross national borders, they are more likely to lead to pages hosted in the United States than to pages anywhere else in the world.