The Myth of the World Wide Web

This chapter deconstructs the myth-building process lying behind the hagiographies of both the Web as a medium and its inventor Tim Berners-Lee. This specific analysis highlights the epic narrative pattern adopted both by the Web’s inventor and his intellectual supporters to tell the biography, thus the life-path, of the Web. Then, the chapter stresses the link between the imaginary of the World Wide Web and ‘old’ imaginaries related to media such as broadcasting, telecommunication and transportation networks; this part highlights the essential role played by those media frequently excluded from the dominant narrative of Internet history. In particular, the chapter shows how old media metaphors and concepts provided a set of references for the Web’s promotional phase also playing a key role for the conceptualization and development of the new system. A theoretical integration of these complementary perspectives will be eventually advanced at the end of the chapter in order to rethink the Web. This part stresses how the analysis of narratives and historical sources is essential to deconstruct and rethink those cultural and social processes associated with the dissemination and promotion of the most ‘revolutionary’ networking technology of our time.