Power and the internet
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/14779961011093336 |
| Published date | 09 November 2010 |
| Date | 09 November 2010 |
| Pages | 323-337 |
| Author | Vittorio Bertola |
| Subject Matter | Information & knowledge management |
Power and the internet
Vittorio Bertola
The Innovation Group, Turin, Italy
Abstract
Purpose – Starting from the end-to-end principle, a founding element of the internet’s technical
architecture, the paper aims to discuss its extension and effects at the social level. It shows how the
internet moves power from governments and private entities to individual citizens, restructuring our
societies and creating a new global stakeholder class – individual users of the internet. It connects the
advent of this stakeholder class with a traditional principle of internet governance, “rough consensus”.
It discusses advantages and risks of this change, suggesting that this shift of power might be beneficial
to solve deadlocks in the governance of global phenomena and to ensure that solutions pursue the global
public interest. Finally, it discusses how this social evolution can be protected from opposing forces,
countering the opinion that the freedom of the internet is intrinsic and not needing regulatory supports.
Design/methodology/approach – The paper builds upon observation of case studies, such as the
struggle between the industry and users over peer-to-peer music downloads, and upon the author’s
first-hand experience in global internet governance processes.
Findings – The paper formalizes a social expression of the end-to-end principle and demonstrates the
need for such principle to be recognized and protected by regulation, to preserve the social model
described in the paper and its benefits.
Originality/value – The paper explores the connections between the technical, economic and social
architectures of the global network, providing support for understanding the political dynamics of the
internet and other global phenomena, and for designing effective governance processes to address
them.
Keywords Internet, Governance, Globalization,Politics
Paper type Conceptual paper
1. Purpose and approach of this paper
The internet is an instrument of change; technology, economy, and society have been
transformed in depth by its adoption. These transformations have been often studied in
isolation;however, there is meritin attempting to draw a continuingline across thehistory
of the internet, andto explore the relationships between its architectural featuresand the
type and direction of change that it determines as it reachesnew sectors of society.
As the internet becomes ubiquitous and broadly adopted, it promotes change at the
heart of the social structure: in politics, and in the distribution of power across society.
The purpose of this paper is to match manifestations of this change with what we
learned from the history of the internet, and make hypotheses on how the patterns of
innovation associated with the architecture of the internet, as already detected at the
technological and economic level, act at the political level.
The hypotheses will be supported by presenting brief case studies involving
collective action and social phenomena in different parts of the world – events that were
enabled by the internet that have political relevance and that appear to follow the
patterns described in the paper. As there would not be room for a complete discussio n of
each case, references to scientific studies or news reports are provided for each of them.
The conclusions will lead us to the thesis that power is being redistributed from the
centre to the edges, into the hands of citizens, with a benefit to global democracy
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
www.emeraldinsight.com/1477-996X.htm
Power and the
internet
323
Received 19 January 2009
Revised 20 April 2010
Accepted 5 August 2010
Journal of Information,
Communication & Ethics in Society
Vol. 8 No. 4, 2010
pp. 323-337
qEmerald Group Publishing Limited
1477-996X
DOI 10.1108/14779961011093336
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