Digital information networks are expanding the scope of the global information economy, but the sociology of international interactions shaping these networks is understudied. Technology is not merely an apparatus, its instruments reflect and shape prior human understandings regarding the problem to be solved and the means for doing so. Whatever the technology, we need a historical sociological context for understanding its origins and effects.

The Internet stands out as an important conduit facilitating commercial exchanges these days. The telegraph and telephone did the same in a bygone era and, arguably, continue to do so. Global rules underlying these media are important: without rules, networks would neither interconnect nor expand.

Shortly after the invention of the telegraph, twenty European states signed a convention in Paris in 1865 “after two and a half months of arduous negotiations” to lay the foundations of what later became the International Telecommunication Union (ITU).