Net@40: Not Your Father’s Internet: Redefining Digital Culture. Intel’s Dr. Genevieve Bell and UC Berkeley’s Dr. Abigail De Kosnik in Conversation with NPR’s Laura Sydell

Not Your Father's Internet

In 1998 Americans represented nearly three quarters of all Internet users; today they are less than fifteen percent. The complexion of the Web - its users, their desires, their languages, points of entry and experiences - has subtly and not-so-subtly changed. All these new online participants bring with them different values, social norms, and styles of expression. Today's Internet is increasingly a reflection of the world's cultures and its governments, which often have very different ideas about how to shape what happens online.

Join NPR's Digital Culture Correspondent Laura Sydell, and her guests for an engaging discussion about the changing face of the Internet. The many pioneers who built our networked world had a great variety of visions-- and hopes-- for how it might turn out. But nobody could predict all the ways this new mass medium has evolved in the real world of billions of users. Today the Internet may be like a large city with rich and poor neighborhoods, dangerous corners, and gated communities that Netizens must navigate at their own risk.

We'll examine this evolution from a global perspective: What is the Internet becoming? Has its open architecture become so frightening to some users that they would prefer to return to closed networks? How will varying ideas about privacy, identity, anonymity and democracy shape the Internet of the future? Is the free and open Internet our fathers fought to build over the objections of commercial giants, soon to be shaped more by corporations and governments than by individual creativity and the free flow of ideas?