INTRODUCTION

In a widely talked-about article, Harvard political scientist Robert Putnam (1995) bemoaned the recent decline of associational life in America; though some critics have suggested that this may not be the case if we look at the increasing use and civic potential of the Internet. Howard Rheingold (1993, p. 42), for instance, argues for the “social utopian role” of technologies such as the Internet in generating new virtual communities from the social atomization caused by modernization. Indeed, he suggests that the Internet may even bring about a new sociality or communitarianism to “revitalise the public sphere” (Rheingold 1993, pp. 12, 14).

But the argument that the Internet is creating a meaningful virtual civil society (even if it is seen as disembodied) would depend on its ability to generate social capital (James S. Coleman's term). However, no doubt Putman would see the Internet, along with television, as indicating a decline in social capital; namely those communal networks, norms, and social trust that support an efficient, cohesive society, and facilitate interaction among members. In this line of argument, it is not enough for the Internet (which has a history marked by a strong libertarian ethos) — like other electronic devices such as the telephone or fax machine before it — to encourage the organization of civic groups. Instead, Internet-based associations need to have the same qualities as associations in traditional civil society, with members interacting as if they were in a (real) Buddhist monastery, conference centre, or soccer stadium. In this sense, aside from simply being a technology, cyberspace, then, needs to be considered a place; at least a place out there, somewhere (even outside the state).