This paper argues that maps of the Web's structure based solely on technicalinfrastructure such as hyperlinks may bear little resemblance to maps based onWeb usage, as cultural factors drive the latter to a larger extent. To testthis thesis, the study constructs two network maps of 1000 globally mostpopular Web Domains, one based on hyperlinks and the other using an "audiencecentric" approach with ties based on shared audience traffic between thesedomains. Analyses of the two networks reveal that unlike the centralizedstructure of the hyperlinks network with few dominant "core" websites, theaudience network is more decentralized and clustered to a larger extent alonggeo-linguistic lines.
展开▼
