This textbook examines the Internet as a communication system - the single most pervasive, involving, and global communication system ever created by human beings, with a host of political, economic, cognitive, and sociocultural implications. The Internet crosses all cultural boundaries and is the fastest growing global communication system ever witnessed. The text explores the ways in which the technology of the Internet, beyond its specific content, possesses its own message-generating capabilities that dramatically and decisively affect its users. Focusing on the power of media theories, the text explains, describes, interprets, and evaluates the Internet in insightful, useful, and thoughtful ways. The concepts, processes, functions, and outcomes of the Internet as a global communication technology are used as a way of testing the validity and reliability of media theories, and media theories are used as a way of identifying the powers and limitations of the Internet as a communication system. An overview of the Internet's past and anticipated future is provided

Contents: Power and Meanings of the Internet as a Communication System - Traditional Media and the Rise of Digital Communication Technologies - The Past - The Development and Evolution of Digital Technologies - The Future - Predicting the Future of the Digital Revolution - Can or Should a Purpose Be Attributed to Digital Technologies Such as the Internet? - Business of the Internet: Marketing - Internet as a Knowledge and Information Generating System - Social Networking Sites - Connecting on the Internet: Pornography and Dating - Transcending Space, Time, and Class: Video Sharing, Video Gaming, and Praying Online - The Pragmatics of Communication - The Internet as a Coherent and Complete Societal System - The Internet and United States Politics - Privacy, Transparency, and the Internet in America - International, Corporate, and Radical Politics - The Future of the Internet and Web Reconsidered: Back to the Future With Tim Berners-Lee.