William H. Dutton
William H. Dutton is Director of the Oxford Internet Institute, Professor of Internet Studies, University of Oxford, and Fellow of Balliol College, Oxford. He was previously a Professor in the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Southern California, which he joined in 1980. In the UK, he was a Fulbright Scholar 1986-87, and was National Director of the UK's Programme on Information and Communication Technologies (PICT) from 1993 to 1996. Bill is also Co-Director of the e-Horizons project of the 21st Century School at Oxford, Director and Principal Investigator of the Oxford e-Social Science node within the UK's National Centre for E-Social Science, and Principle Investigator for the OII’s Oxford Internet Surveys (OxIS).
The Social Future of the Internet
Technical forecasts of the future of computing and the Internet abound. As important as these technical perspectives are, these futures are increasingly bound to the evolving choices and habits of users and non-users and their societal implications. I will highlight some of the key ways in which the decisions of users are shaping the social role of the Internet and its potential to transform access to social, economic and political resources. In conclusion, I will identify the emerging politics of the Internet’s future – one that is shifting away from support versus opposition to the Internet to positions on alternative social futures of this burgeoning technological innovation.