The Web as a Space for Local Agency

Abstract

This article approaches the Internet in terms of the metaphor of space and examines the web as a terrain for social agency in the local context. The main concern is how the global Internet is currently being used for locally oriented purposes, particularly with the kinds of actor roles that locally oriented web spaces construct for users and the modes of interaction these spaces enable and encourage. Finally, consideration is given to how the web could be developed as an arena for dialogical collective processes where it is possible for citizens to take up a role which includes public deliberation and participation. The article is based on the assumption that the spatial metaphor would be empirically more fruitful if understood and employed in a down-to-earth manner that relates locally oriented web spaces to issues of physical localities and also takes notice of the locally established practices of public communication.