From the Initial Celebration to the Current Disappointment, the Evolution of the Internet beyond Determinisms

Abstract

In the first phase, the eruption of the Internet was embraced by academics who saw it as a way of involving young people in politics who had suffered from disaffection and rejection. They emphasized its emancipatory, horizontal, and participatory qualities. Decades later, a wave of disenchantment, apathy, and rejection of platforms has swept through the academy. The previous generation of technological determinists, who welcomed it with open arms, left the arena to their counterparts: the ones that claimed that we had no chance of participation and perpetuated industrial age exploitation. In this article, we will present the two opposite visions, but first, we will briefly review the Internet’s beginnings, its motivations, and its technical characteristics in order to better understand the two antagonistic positions.

Keywords

• social media
• political participation
• pseudo-participation
• technological determinism
• critical theory 2.0