James Slevin, The Internet and Society

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Situating the Net
Slevin’s Antidote to Techno-Determinism
Lincoln Dahlberg
James Slevin, The Internet and Society, (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2000) 266 pp.
ISBN 0 7456 2086 8.
The internet is often portrayed somewhat paradoxically as both integral to the development of
contemporary society and yet out of direct human control. A bio-evolutionary element
frequently accompanies such techno-determinist rhetoric: the social transformation associated
with the internet is a natural process and a force of human progress. In this autonomous-
evolutionary understanding, debate about the role of the internet in society is largely
irrelevant. Governments, industries, organizations, and citizens are simply advised to connect
up to and keep up with the rapidly changing techno-sphere. Failing to adopt and adapt to the
internet’s evolution will mean falling behind, or being left completely out of, the unfolding
information society. Internet research and academic commentary sometimes resembles this
techno-determinist rhetoric. Cyberspace is believed to bring about such radical changes to
social relations that any previously useful concepts and understandings are rendered obsolete.
New tools of analysis and ways of thinking are needed. These will be revealed, so the
argument goes, by the phenomena itself, rather than by way of the rational-critical processes
of social investigation developed from investigations of offline life.
Such techno-determinist, naturalistic, and somewhat mystical rhetoric obscures the human
interests and social forces behind the internet. An antidote of situated sociological analysis is
needed to overcome this asocial, ahistorical thinking. Slevin’s book, The Internet and
Society, offers such an antidote. Slevin (p. ix) insists from the outset that ‘we can only
understand the impact of the internet on modern culture if we see that symbolic content and
online interaction are embedded in social and historical contexts of various kinds.’
Furthermore, and given such embeddedness, Slevin argues that it is not necessary to discard
our offline social theory and concepts in order to develop a robust sociological approach to
the internet. Rather than start with an empty tool kit, assuming that the internet is an alien
phenomena that makes redundant all our previous understandings, we can reflexively employ
familiar social analysis when evaluating cyberspace. Slevin demonstrates the usefulness of
social theory in internet analysis by critically employing aspects of the work of Bourdieu,
Habermas, Bauman, Schiller, and Castells. Of particular interest to Slevin are the ideas of

Anthony Giddens and John Thompson. Their theoretical models and concepts become the
basis for the book, extended by Slevin to provide a robust and sophisticated analysis of the
internet and society.
The book begins with a discussion of modern technological developments and a brief history
of the internet, which highlights the socio-cultural embeddeness of online association. Slevin
(p. 6) then draws upon Thompson’s media theory to analyse the internet as a socially-situated
phenomena, ‘as a new modality of cultural transmission.’ Slevin then builds his analysis,
critically exploring the relationship between the internet and areas of contemporary life that
have become prevalent within internet literature. These social aspects are comprehensively
dealt with in consecutive chapters and include the internet’s relationship to community,
organizations, the self, public life, and globalization.
Slevin develops his evaluation of the implications of the internet for cultural transmission by
way of exemplars of cyber-practice and critical reference to other analyses. He consistently
emphasises the locatedness of the internet and demonstrates the weaknesses of approaches
that abstract cyber-culture from everyday life. Slevin’s discussions invariably start with the
wider social context. They then turn to the internet, drawing upon Giddens’ and Thompson’s
various concepts and theories to build a sociological analysis of how the internet fits within,
changes, or reinforces contemporary cultural and social trends. Following Giddens and
Thompson, internet culture, as part of contemporary society, is conceived of as an extension
of modernity rather than part of a postmodern condition. Slevin (p. 10) sees the internet as
contributing to ‘a shift into a period in which the consequences of modernity are becoming
more radical, and more universal than ever before.’ These consequences include intensifying
globalization (with associated time-space distanciation), the emergence of post-traditional
forms of organization, and the expansion and intensification of social reflexivity. However,
these consequences, along with their associated symptoms (including uncertainty, risk, and
fragmentation), are not out of human control. The development, deployment, and uses of the
communications technologies take place through social institutions and decision-making
mechanisms. Public policy can, and does, influence the direction of the internet. Given the
possibility of guiding internet developments, Slevin provides in his concluding chapter a
useful exploration of the options available for proactive responses to the challenges the
internet brings.
Slevin’s analysis is well developed and compelling, demonstrating the ongoing explanatory
power of social theory with regards to the internet. I would, however, question whether his
commentary is overly dependant upon a particular explanatory framework. Slevin seems to

have pre-decided the best way to go about understanding the internet and the most useful
concepts to use. His social theory of the internet largely follows Giddens’ and Thompson’s
understandings of the offline world, with certain modifications to accommodate aspects of
cyberspace not accounted for in their work. In fact, there are times when Slevin’s discussion
becomes so absorbed in developing and defending Giddens’ and Thompson’s perspectives
and concepts that the object of the book – the internet – seems merely a mechanism to
illustrate or explore aspects of their theories. This is most obvious in Slevin’s consideration
of democracy, which wanders into a theoretical discussion about models of deliberation
without finally coming back to an analysis of the prospects of the internet contributing to the
public sphere. This is not to say that Giddens’ and Thompson’s social analysis are not useful.
But it does raise the question of the appropriate relationship between theory and ‘fact’ in such
an investigation, a problem no doubt requiring ongoing negotiation and careful reflection.
More indepth empirical research, and some discussion of the way in which cyber-practice
informs theory, would possibly have helped provide balance for Slevin’s analysis. However,
this question of balance is open to debate and should not detract from the usefulness of this
book as a theoretical framework that invites ongoing development through further research
and reflection.
This book deserves much praise. Slevin provides a well reasoned and systematic account that
illuminates the social situatedness and significance of the internet within contemporary
society. Moreover, Slevin demonstrates how present social theory can be effectively
employed in a field where many commentators are busy attempting to invent swanky new
concepts. Selvin has, then, offered a work that contributes to the greater understanding of the
internet in society and that provides a valuable basis for further theoretical discussion and
empirical investigation.