Lev Manovich does some theorizing along these lines (the Internet as database) in his book the Language of New Media. You would probably find in there a pretty cogent case for this argument. I think that it is something of a false dichotomy to think of it as either cmc or database, as people make vastly different uses of it. For my research, it is primarily a database. For my communication, it is cmc. A. Randolph Kluver School of Communication and Information Nanyang Technological University 31 Nanyang Link Singapore, 637718 (65) 6790-5770 Fax (65) 6792-4329
-----Original Message----- From: Denise N. Rall [mailto:denrall@yahoo.com] Sent: Monday, January 13, 2003 6:41 AM To: air-l@aoir.org Subject: Re: [Air-l] Internet as a database?
Dear Aoir's -
I have recently heard some conversation among the New Media crowd regarding the internet as a database rather than as a CMC, or communicative medium.
I know some properties of databases, storage, indexing, retrieval and so on. Of course the phone book is a database, databases are not medium-dependent, although usually today they are conceived of as digital rather than text-based.
I am interested to know any authors who are putting this view forward, and how the database model gains anything conceptually over CMC. I have stayed with CMC as a conceptual model because it allows for transport. I don't yet see in a database model where the transport segment lies. Someone said, distributed database but that, to my mind, only implies a variety of databases connected by some indexing scheme, and packets are distributed in quite another way.
I think we might keep this discussion on list if others find this provocative as it may prove very enlightening.
Cheers, Denise
===== "it's easier to use your mouse than your brain" Denise Rall, Sustainable Forestry Mentoring Coordinator & PhD student, School of Education, Southern Cross University, PO Box 157, Lismore, NSW, 2480 Australia Phone +61-2-6624-8627 Fax +61-2-6624-8637 Office (Tuesdays) (02) 6620 3577 Mob 0438 233 344 http://www.scu.edu.au/schools/edu/research/deniserall/index.ht ml
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