The technical code of the internet/world wide web

Using Feenberg's (1995a, 1995b) concept of the technical code of technological artifacts, this essay examines the evolution and current status of the Internet/World Wide Web. The idea of technical code—the cultural and social values and choices that become manifest in a technology's physical and structural forms—helps to isolate and uncover issues of design, usage, and policy that guide the Internet. In turn, the Internet/WWW can be seen in terms of the values, priorities, and assumptions that have literally become built into it. Based on this analysts, implications of the Internet's technical code and alternative outcomes are discussed.