Both human- and computer-based efforts shape the way people exchange, explore and prioritise their voices. As a result, digitised linguistic and geographic materials become the necessary conditions for the way online speech areas (or Net Sprachraum) are made and interconnected . This concept of online speech areas fills the gap, and resolves some tensions, between the concept of “networked individualism” and “nationalised cyberspace”, pointing to some of the significant recent Internet development, including Chinese-speaking and Arabic-speaking Internets, as net speech areas that play central roles in realising and shaping the way how the Internet is truly inter-connected, both within and across, languages and regions. Continue reading →