I came across the review of a new book titled The Internet Imaginaire, by Patrice Flichy; the review was written by Robert Blinn and looks interesting - perhaps The Internet Imaginaire is worth reading for a couple reasons:

1. semiotics - I don't know anything much about semiotics but the book has a lot about it:

"…work of Paul Ricoeur, one of the originators of the semiotics. For those unfamiliar, it is a discipline concerned with exploring the deeper meaning of signs and symbols, and is a staple of communications studies."

I could get into studying symbols.

2. Internet Imaginaire attempts to explain the origin and evolution of the Internet (and the reviewer suggests it succeeds at this goal):

".. I was even more amazed to discover that Flichy had succeeded notably in one aspect: explaining from a historical standpoint the foundation and origins of an extremely complex and globally interrelated phenomenon, the Internet. So if you've ever wondered quite where Al Gore is coming from when he proclaims that he "invented" the Internet, or what TCP has to do you’re your outgoing mail or precisely what IP implies, perhaps this is the book for you. Because once you jettison the baggage of semiotics, Flichy has written a very thorough historical expose on the originations and causes of one of the major paradigm shifts of our day, the Internet.

3. The Internet is explained in the context of popular culture:

"..In its second section The Internet Imaginaire examines the role of the Internet in popular culture. Here Flichy actually does begin to pull his initial (if confounding) argument together. Connecting futurists like Alvin Toffler, Cyberpunk authors such as William Gibson, and even open-source innovators like Linus Torvalds he describes the interaction between the Internet, politics and economics, going so far as to cite Canadian Marxist Arthur Kroker's announcement of the arrival of a "virtual class," where computer access and knowledge of "netiquette" would provide the foundations for a digital elite that would benefit from its connection to the worldwide knowledge base, leaving the unplugged disenfranchised. As our culture moves toward a knowledge economy, such prognostications may well be accurate, but I would view a knowledge-elite as far preferable to landed aristocracy and primogeniture."

I'll have to see when I have time to read such a book, but it looks interesting - perhaps worth the effort.