Postmodernism and the Web: Meta themes and discourse

How are we to make sense of the Web and our involvement in it? This is no l ight matter, for how we make sense of what was, and is, delimits what will be. Thus, as more and more individuals, organizations, and communities esta blish a presence in cyberspace, the question of how to enact the new medium presents challenges to practitioners and academics alike. How might symbol ic and economic activity be conducted and conceptualized? Different assumpt ions about the Web will result in disparate activities-and concomitant crea tion of different social, economic, and technological futures. The article outlines the discourses of modernism and postmodernism, and explores the ph enomenon of the Web using a series of postmodern themes-a rubric of praxes and thoughts that characterizes the information age. We conclude that postm odernism illuminates thinking in the new information medium, just as modern ism illuminated thinking in traditional physical mediums. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Inc.