I have a chapter in the new Geographies of the Internet volume in the Routledge Studies in Human Geography series entitled “Ethnographic research and the internet.” It is available via the Routledge site here and, ideally, your campus library!

Special thanks to Barney Warf for inviting me to contribute. It was already a challenge pushing this long-term project through the process with Routledge, and I’m sure the pandemic hasn’t made things any easier.

I’ll paste the book description and table of contents here:

This book offers a comprehensive overview of recent research on the internet, emphasizing its spatial dimensions, geospatial applications, and the numerous social and geographic implications such as the digital divide and the mobile internet.

Written by leading scholars in the field, the book sheds light on the origins and the multiple facets of the internet. It addresses the various definitions of cyberspace and the rise of the World Wide Web, draws upon media theory, as well as explores the physical infrastructure such as the global skein of fibre optics networks and broadband connectivity. Several economic dimensions, such as e-commerce, e-tailing, e-finance, e-government, and e-tourism, are also explored. Apart from its most common uses such as Google Earth, social media like Twitter, and neogeography, this volume also presents the internet’s novel uses for ethnographic research and the study of digital diasporas.

Illustrated with numerous graphics, maps, and charts, the book will best serve as supplementary reading for academics, students, researchers, and as a professional handbook for policy makers involved in communications, media, retailing, and economic development.

Table of Contents

1 Introduction Barney Warf

PART I Conceiving the history, technology, and geography of the internet

2 Is cyberspace there after all? Aharon Kellerman

3 The World Wide Web as media ecology Michael L. Black

4 Robustness and the internet: a geographic fiber-optic infrastructure perspective Ramakrishnan Durairajan

5 The history of broadband Elizabeth Mack

6 The mobile internet Matthew Kelley

7 Geographies of the internet in rural areas in developing countries Jeffrey James

8 Geographies of global digital divides James B. Pick and Avijit Sarkar

PART II Political economy of the internet

9 The geography of e-commerce Bruno Moriset

10 Online retailing Emily Fekete

11 Finance and information technologies: opposite sides of the same coin Jayson J. Funke

12 E-tourism Irene Cheng Chu Chan and Rob Law

13 The state and cyberspace: e-government geographies Barney Warf

14 A geography of the internet in China Xiang Zhang

PART III The internet in everyday life

15 Google Earth Todd Patterson

16 Augmented Reality: an overview Mark Billinghurst

17 Twitter Matthew Haffner

18 Neogeography Wen Lin

19 Ethnographic research and the internet Tyler Sonnichsen

20 Cyber-spatial cartographies of digital diasporas Michel S. Laguerre

21 Wearable internet for wellness and health: interdigital territories of new technology Monica Murero

22 The Internet of Things Anurag Agarwal and Bhuvan Unhelkar

Index