Technotopia

Many technologies and practices that define the Internet today date back to the 1990s - such as user-generated content, participatory platforms and social media. Indeed, many early ideas about the future of the Internet have been implemented, albeit without fulfilling the envisioned political utopias. By tracing back the technotopian vision, Clemens Apprich develops a media genealogical perspecive that helps us to better understandhow digital networks have transformed over the last 30 years and therefore to thinkbeyond the current state of our socio-technical reality. Thishighly original bookinforms our understanding ofnew forms of media and social practices, such that have become part of our everyday culture.Apprich revisits a critical time when the Internet was not yet an everyday reality, but when its potential was already understood and fiercely debated.The historical context of net cultures provides the basis from which the author critically engages with current debates about the weal and woe of the Internetand challenges today's predominant network model.