Founded in 1999, it is an international, member-based support network promoting critical and scholarly Internet research, independent from traditional disciplines and existing across academic borders.
AoIR was formally founded on May 30, 1999, at a meeting of nearly sixty scholars at the San Francisco Hilton and Towers, following initial discussions at a 1998 conference at Drake University entitled "The World Wide Web and Contemporary Cultural Theory: Metaphor, Magic & Power".
[1] The inaugural conference was organised by Nancy Baym, Jeremy Hunsinger and Steve Jones at the University of Kansas in 2000, and attracted 300 scholars.
[2] As the Chronicle of Higher Education noted, its rapid growth during the first few years of its existence marked the coming of age of Internet studies.
AoIR holds an annual academic conference, as well as promoting online discussion and collaboration through a long-running mailing list.