Domestication and regulation of online gambling and pornography

Abstract

This paper explores aspects of the dynamic relationship between households and the internet, particularly the accessing of online gambling and pornography. Attention is focused on two areas: domestication and regulation. In terms of the latter, the State is portrayed as having difficulty in keeping pace with technological change. Domestication refers to the process by which objects are incorporated by households. The final moment in the process of domestication is that of conversion whereby households make claims for themselves around the routines and usage of technologies for accessing online gambling and pornography beyond the domestic space. It is suggested that the rise of non‐commodity or gift‐based forms of exchange, predicated on file sharing, is significant. That is, the internet impacts on the moral economy of households in important ways, but of potentially greater significance are the ways households stand to make over the generalised system of equivalence and exchange expressed within the internet.