what is the Web?

[JQ Johnson]

Librarians interested in an historical perspective on the Internet might
want to look at the spring issue of <i>Press/Politics</i>, for the story
titled "De Tocqueville and the Internet."

The following summary is quoted from The Chronicle of Higher Education's
listserv, 29 April 97:

 When Alexis de Tocqueville visited the United States from France 
 in 1831 to study the workings of democracy, he was surprised 
 by the huge range of inexpensive newspapers, journals, and 
 newsletters. Unlike in France -- where postage taxes kept 
 newspaper prices high and circulation limited -- American 
 newspapers offered a forum for political debate and provided a 
 notion of unity and national purpose that de Tocqueville 
 believed were essential to democracy. The American news media 
 have become much more commercialized and standardized since de 
 Tocqueville's day, but the Internet, some say, "offers a revival 
 of Tocquevillian ferment," writes Glyn Davis, an associate 
 professor of politics and public policy at Griffith University, 
 in Australia. "The same restless energy once found in American 
 journals, the same profusion of sources -- and the same variable 
 quality of message -- have found a new domain in cyberspace," 
 Dr. Davis writes. Yet, he notes, the Internet does not reach 
 most American homes, and many people who use it do so for 
 entertainment, not political exchange. (The journal may be 
 ordered from MIT Press, 55 Hayward Street, Cambridge, Mass. 
 02142-1399; journal-orders at mit.edu)


JQ Johnson                      Office: 115F Knight Library
Academic Education Coordinator  E-mail: jqj at darkwing.uoregon.edu
1299 University of Oregon       voice: 1-541-346-1746
Eugene, OR  97403-1299          fax: 1-541-346-3485