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Underground Globalization: Mapping the Space of Flows of the Internet Adult Industry

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  • Matthew A Zook

    (Department of Geography, University of Kentucky, 1457 Patterson Office Tower, Lexington, KY 40506, USA)

Abstract

This paper develops a case study of the Internet adult industry in order to study the ways in which electronic commerce interacts with geography. Digital products, low barriers to entry, cost differentials, and sensitivity to regulation have created a pervasive and complex geography of models, webmasters, and consumers around the globe. With a series of specially developed datasets on the location of content production, websites, and hosting it is shown that the online adult industry offers people and places outside major metropolitan areas opportunities to become active purveyors of this type of electronic commerce. The roles of these actors, however, are not simply determined by a spaceless logic of cyber-interaction but by histories and economies of the physical places they inhabit. In short, the ‘space of flows’ cannot be understood without reference to the ‘space of places’ to which it connects. This geography also provides a valuable counterpoint to mainstream electronic commerce and highlights the ability of socially marginal and underground interests to use the Internet to form and connect in global networks.

Suggested Citation

  • Matthew A Zook, 2003. "Underground Globalization: Mapping the Space of Flows of the Internet Adult Industry," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 35(7), pages 1261-1286, July.
  • Handle: RePEc:sae:envira:v:35:y:2003:i:7:p:1261-1286
    DOI: 10.1068/a35105
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Hargittai, Eszter, 1999. "Weaving the Western Web: explaining differences in Internet connectivity among OECD countries," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 23(10-11), pages 701-718, November.
    2. Andrew Leyshon, 2001. "Time–Space (and Digital) Compression: Software Formats, Musical Networks, and the Reorganisation of the Music Industry," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 33(1), pages 49-77, January.
    3. Matthew A Zook, 2000. "The Web of Production: The Economic Geography of Commercial Internet Content Production in the United States," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 32(3), pages 411-426, March.
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    Cited by:

    1. Phil Hubbard, 2011. "World Cities of Sex," Chapters, in: Ben Derudder & Michael Hoyler & Peter J. Taylor & Frank Witlox (ed.), International Handbook of Globalization and World Cities, chapter 26, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    2. Balázs Lengyel & Ákos Jakobi, 2016. "Online Social Networks, Location, and the Dual Effect of Distance from the Centre," Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie, Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG, vol. 107(3), pages 298-315, July.
    3. Margarita Billon & Roberto Ezcurra & Fernando Lera‐López, 2009. "Spatial Effects in Website Adoption by Firms in European Regions," Growth and Change, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 40(1), pages 54-84, March.
    4. Krzysztof Janc, 2015. "Geography of Hyperlinks-Spatial Dimensions of Local Government Websites," European Planning Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 23(5), pages 1019-1037, May.

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