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Buffeted by the current barrage of media attention to the so - called information superhighway, now is a good time to analyze clearly and carefully the social, legal, and ethical implications of developing international communication networks. This book aims to accomplish such a goal, both by placing present changes in a theoretical and historical framework and by exploring new dimensions of those changes, partly through a variant of participant observation. Indeed, the book itself represents a novel departure in academic collaboration facilitated by new communications technology, a "Global Authoring Network" or GAN.
The book is divided into four parts. The "Overview" explains concepts such as network, cyberspace, and virtual community and sets out contexts for discussions that follow. This varies from fairly naive technological determinism through to sensitive commentary (from Harasim) rooted in Canadian communications theory. The second section, "Issues," examines some of the challenges presented by new network configurations: challenges to conventional understandings of law, work, cross - cultural contact, and security. Section three is on "Applications." This describes and to an extent analyses a number of experiments, ongoing communicative practices, and institutions and their problems in Europe, North...