This thesis aims mainly at the representations, through words or images, which college freshmen make of the Internet. This paper has as a basic premise image as a visual representation, be it a drawing or a text, based on authors such as Ave Appiano, Erwin Panofsky, Jacques Aumont, Lorenzo Vilches, W. J. T. Mitchell, among others, who understand image and text as one unit. The research, developed with PUC-Rio students, used a methodological design developed over two successive periods. Firstly, an exploratory study was carried out on the use and the representations of different media, and, in particular, of the Internet, on the part of university students. Secondly, a qualitative investigation was carried out which used as data collecting strategies the focal experimentation groups proposed by Fern and Morgan and interviews. The data obtained through the query applied at the first stage of the investigation enabled eliciting the most frequent representations of the Internet, from a sample of 995 youths, which were used to trigger discussions carried out during the first part of the second stage, that of the focal groups whose members were chosen by intentional sampling. The second part of the group dynamics allowed the obtaining productions such as drawings or collages made by each and every member of the focal groups, representing what youths expect from the Internet. All these representations, expressed through words and/or images, were first analyzed specifically within each set. Based on studies such as those by Derrick de Kerckhove, Lev Manovich, Pier Cesare Rivoltella, Roger Fidler, Sherry Turkle, and Steven Johnson, an analysis was carried out of the crossing of all the empirical data collected; such analysis revolved around some thematic axes: the naturalization of the Internet, its symbolic representation in terms of speed, information, communication, entertainment, globalization, labyrinth and invisibility . The Internet is very present in the daily lives of these youths, which can be verified by the great attunement which they seem to have, besides a critical posture before the Internet, all taken as a unit. Positive and negative aspects of its use, its advantages and disadvantages, its limitations, its usefulness, even its dangers were elicited. This research also verified the evident change of daily school and social habits for these university students, confirming the importance of visual literacy, as defined by Donis Dondis, for this new manner of knowledge construction.