Netizens in combat: conflict on the internet in Indonesia

In exploring some of the ways in which the Internet is being used in Indonesia, we take our cue from Manuel Castells' seminal two-volume study, The Information Age, in which he argues that "the social dimension of the Information Technology Revolution seems bound to follow the law of the relationship between technology and society proposed . . . by Marvin Kranzberg: [that] technology is neither good nor bad, nor is it neutral" (Castells 1996, 65). Castells concurs that the "actual deployment [of technology] in the realm of conscious social action, and the complex matrix of interaction between the technological forces unleashed by our species, and the species itself, are matters of inquiry rather than of fate" (Castells 1996, 65).