3. The Consumption Junction Revisited: networks and context / Maria Bakardjieva

initially, the researcher seems as enthusiastic technology-determinist, however further reading discovers a non-determinist attitude, she is not after mcluhanist terms, but she is looking for some personal, social and cultural traces that are built through technology. the research, that was conducted in 1998-1999, aimed to analyze domestic internet use("domestication" of the internet according to silverstone's approach)- the user (as a net consumer) is being put in the centre of the research, and not the technology itself. she focuses on the integrtion of the internet into the everyday lives of ordinarry users and traces the dynamic use of the net: is the use stable? what is its social significance? how subjects changed the medium through discovering its potential properties? how people use the net for creating new alliances and relations afforded by the trchnology? The medium has been domesticated and integrated into the user's system of values, goals and routines. The internet tkes place in everyday life, public discourses, organizational practices, experience of peers and new relations in the surrounding world. Except for using the term "warm expert" to describe internet or computer technology expert (professionalist), who shares his / her experiences, interests and knowledge with other users, she distinguishes between three types of net users: 1. some users remain in a strictly instrumented relationship with the internet- the spectrum of their applications are relatively narrow, they have a particular goal, technology is nothing more than a means. 2. those who have intense relations with the internet are deeply interested in the technology and the way it works- their goals are lying beyond technology itself and the devote time foe being updated of the recent developments. For them the net is significant for varied sorts of activities (work, leisure, education, socializing etc.). 3. those who are excited by the technology of the internet and computers- they are submitting to their technology passion, it chalanges them. amplifications and reductions: the researcher states that internet have many avdantages as disadvantages, possibilities and limitations. so, do people get addicted to the intrnet or just use it as a tool? the right use, she states, will shape the instrumental use of the net, hence it can yield technological indeterminism.