Vol. 47 No. 186 (2017): Political Economy of the Internet

At least since Snowden, the Internet has lost its reputation as a decentral and democratic space beyond hierarchies. As the material infrastructure of the Internet shows, a small number of huge nodes concentrate the entire transatlantic data streams. Also, the political economy of the Internet is increasingly shaped by oligopolies and – just like the geographical space – by connections and boundaries as well as centres and peripheries. Focusing merely on data security and protection and the control of the activities of secret services often conceals the fact that we lack critical analyses of the political economy and the materiality of the Internet. Against this background, PROKLA 186 explores the Internet in its material and immaterial foundations, as a field of capital accumulation and as a contested political and economic terrain.