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Revision with unchanged content. The work addresses the Internet as a terrain of techno-political controversies between various cultures with their interests and values, which have influenced the development of the Internet since the start. It describes the techno-political cultures of the Internet and addresses some structural changes of the Internet that seem to deviate from some of the pragmatic ideas that hitherto have guided the design of the internet. It examines the dynamics of the RFC/IETF/ISOC and the recent Internet Governance Forum as regulatory instances that are expected to handle the challenges of the Internet. It is argued that the Internet faces some structural changes that cannot easily be met or resolved through the procedures of IETF/ISOC and Internet Governance.

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is professor of Media studies at the Department of Media and Communication at the University of Oslo. He has published widely on digital media, social theory and ethics.

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