Histories of the Internet: Introducing a Special Issue of Information & Culture

We explore the gap between broad conceptions of the Internet common in daily life and the rather narrow framing of most existing work on Internet history. Looking at both scholarly histories and popular myths, we suggest that the expanding scope of the Internet has created a demand for different kinds of history that capture the development of the many technological and social practices that converged to create today’s Internet-based online world. Finally, we summarize the articles in this special issue that collectively demonstrate that there is more than one history of the Internet.