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entries, the articles are sites which refer to other sites, along paths which anindividual is free to travel. The circulation which puts these objects into close relationship is facilitated by the heuristic fertility of the analogies. In physiology, Diderot, relying on the fibrillary theories of Haller and Bordeu, delivers the genetic concept of the network in terms of points and lines. The network guarantees a generalized communications model in which all the parts are linked and integrated on an equal level but still autonomous and free of the authoritative supervision of one unique command procedure. Since the organism is polycentric, its integrity must rely upon collaboration and concensus, and in the egalitarian division of competence and power of all the parts; each one of which, due to the network linking it to the others, is capable of deregulating the whole. It is this same ideal that Diderot, drawing from the same meta- phoric source (spider webs, bee swarms...) develops in his political works, since the network promotes the idea of an organization which regulates and causes private and public interests to correspond. The relations of domination and obedience cancel each other out to the advantage of multilateral exchanges between rulers and ruled, by means of a set of conductive channels which will serve as the relay between individual liberty, the spirit of initiative and the participation of citizens in the plan of civilization. The success of this new social model of linkage will be measured according to the degree of socio-economic mobility and the circulation of goods and persons. Three times, then, the network is the form that provides new intelligibility for Diderot's thought and, by stressing a topology of knowledge, life and politics in terms of link and flow, results in a re-equilibration of the functions and mediating authorities within a configuration that is a-hierarchical, decentered and fluid.

The information highway, and networks like Internet, aim to provide direct access to a potentially unlimited stock of information, and they intend to do this through standardized procedures. This is their real goal, rather than simply increasing the rapidity of the communication process. Thus they seem to operate a double process of rupture - with an initial elaboration (contextually situated) of the data involved (demateriali- zation of supply) and with the experimental process of know- ledge which leads to questioning (deserialization of demand, or inquiry). Both thus create a fictitious context in which a universal and timeless "right" to information is supposed to occur, within a general process of simulation of the real world. This leads to an eradication of the process of information of the practical social system, transporting it into a uni-demensional world of simulacrum: this is the very image which the major science fiction novels have always given us, dominated by a huge, omnipotent computer.

This text presents the results of exploratory research carried out on the concrete use of Internet by a population of researchers. Different investigational modes were put into operation: statistics on the flow of messages in transit at one of the server sites; follow-up on certain discussion-groups; a questionnaire distributed by electronic mail service. Two major lines of research were given particular consideration: the impact of Internet on professional or private social networks; and electronic mail as a specific form of communication. The data treated here bring out the importance of local communications in the exchanges of electronic mail, which links up to the generalization of long-distant exchanges, making Internet an important method for managing relational systems. In addition, the forms of the messages, and the discourse of the actors, tends to support the hypothesis of a specificity of this type of communication which is presented as a hybrid of earlier forms.