Macro - Macro Emergence: Global Expansion of Participation and Policy

• In Event: 228 - Section on Sociology of Culture Refereed Roundtable Session
  In Refereed Roundtable 100min: Table 01. Comparative and Transnational Culture

Abstract

From the global level of analysis, this paper argues that the internet is like a social institution in ways that are similar to the institutional expansion of education around the world. There are two important aspects of the internet's expansion and development as an institution: the physical expansion through participation of individuals and the rationalized expansion into organizational processes through policy. Analyzing the engineering documents used to physically construct the internet, I outline evidence that the social construction was heavily embedded in world societal views. The internet develops into a social institution which applies meaning to people as individuals and also becomes a symbol whose metrics characterize the identity of populations.

Author

• Matthew Pearce, UC Irvine