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Book Review: Academy and the Internet

The internet is still a relatively recent phenomenon and the ways in which it can have an impact on research and academic discourse are both varied and profound. The task of documenting the impact of the internet in just one scholarly field is difficult. Moreover, the task of documenting the impact of the internet across multiple disciplines, while providing some form of commentary on the increasing ‘Balkanization’ (p. xii) between what used to be ‘porous’ interdisciplinary walls, is utterly ambitious and self-admittedly ‘unreachable’ (p. x). Yet the above two tasks are those assigned, first, to the individual contributors in Academy and the Internet and, second, to the volume’s editors, Helen Nissenbaum and Monroe E. Price. Difficult. Ambitious. Unreachable. But are these tasks worthwhile? The answer is ‘yes’. Academy and the Internet is part of the Digital Formations series (general editor: Steve Jones) and, as such, Nissenbaum and Price’s collection takes seriously the challenge of placing the internet – both an emerging and existing digital technology – in a critical perspective that puts the challenge forward to those working across a multitude of fields to continue the kind of innovative, cross-disciplinary investigation that was originally spurred by the possibilities of this new information technology. While the documentation of alternate scholarly approaches to the internet ‘as a subject, not as a technique’ (p. x) is the explicitly cited consideration of Academy and the Internet, it could be argued that by placing the essays together in the one collection, the readers’ ‘real’ scrutiny is placed very firmly on the academic fields themselves. Sociology, politics, history, anthropology, law, communication studies, computer ethics, economics, aesthetics and policy all go under the magnifying glass, as the contributors deliver (for the most part) comprehensive literature reviews specific to each field’s relationship with the subject at hand. Academy and the Internet is a comforting, confusing and useful volume. Comforting in the way that it provides a home (albeit one with ‘porous’ walls) for those who are attempting to straddle disciplines in order to understand their assigned research target. Confusing in much the same way (it would be nice – but not very exciting – after all, to be solely situated somewhere). And, most importantly, useful in the way that each essay very capably acts as a ‘one-stop shop’ review of its respective discipline’s dealings with the internet to date. New Media & Society 6(6)