About the internet, Quebec and the Quebec internet. New modes of the digital regulation of culture
The Quebec internet is based on a rich and varied history, a fact that is even more surprising considering that it has garnered little sociological reflection so far. What is the “Web québécois”? What are the distinctive features of this microcosm? By adopting a perspective of communication inspired by political sociology, the article posits that the internet is first of all understood through its modes of regulation, that is to say, the capacity of the various actors to structure the flow of information. The Quebec internet appears as an ephemeral crystallization of unstable equilibriums that merits being subjected to various reality tests. Three examples serve to show how the Quebec internet exists only as a serie of oppositions that are at once deep, unstable and dynamic.