"Much of my recent work questions the overall structure of hyperlink
connections on the World Wide Web. For example, I have followed a large
number of hyperlinks on the Web, charting whether they tended to be
international or domestic. I found that despite claims that the Web was
somehow diminishing national borders, for various reasons hyperlinks tended
to be guided by those borders. They did cross borders more often than
telephone calls or letters did, but only by very little. Instead, hyperlink
networks appear to map out social networks, providing an indication of
cultural or linguistic groups." Alex Halavais
http://alex.halavais.net/research.html