Hi Denise and others A few comments on the idea of the internet as a database, which has recently been brought forward by Manovich - and a suggesting to think of the internet as a meta-archive instead. There are many issues at play here. Manovich (2001) (not unlike hypertext theorists from the early 90's) contrasts the database as a cultural form with narrative. There are some interesting points about this in his 'The language of new media' but generally I am sceptical of his argument. One reason is that his notion of database is so general that it fits any kind of archive or collection containing recorded human expression. A second objection is that comparing narrative (movies and novels) with collections/archives, which what is really done conceptually, seems like comparing apples and oranges. Denise, you construct a dichotomy between CMC and Databases claiming that one is about distribution and the other about storage. I think it is more appropriate to think about different modi of communication/archiving where both dimensions are present. One of the interesting qualities of the internet is exactly that it creates (from a media historic point of view) a new relation between storage and distribution. One way to take this issue further is to regard the internet as an archive (not a database): a meta-archive constituted by many archives. One among many interesting qualities of this meta-archive, is exactly that distribution is build into the medium as a general potential (in principle any point on the net can be accessed from any other point). Taking of the net as an archive in other words, demand that you consider its qualities with respect to distribution I would venture. Along the same line the archival dimension of most forms of communication on the net (email, chat etc. etc.) would be interesting to explore. Anything communicated through a computer is stored if only for a few seconds, and very often this storage capability is used to create 'archives', which differ from earlier paper-based archival forms. Think about the mailboxes that any one of us accumulate and sometimes order compared to paperbased letters. That's all for now - I hope it shows a shared interest. Best, Rune ________________________________________________ Rune Dalgaard | MA, Ph.D. Candidate | Information and Media Studies | Aarhus University | Denmark runed@imv.au.dk | http://www.imv.au.dk/medarbejdere/runed
From: air-l-request@aoir.org Reply-To: air-l@aoir.org Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2003 12:01:03 -0500 (EST) To: air-l@aoir.org Subject: Air-l digest, Vol 1 #606 - 3 msgs
Date: Wed, 15 Jan 2003 14:40:44 -0800 (PST) From: "Denise N. Rall" <denrall@yahoo.com> Subject: Re: [Air-l] Internet as a database? To: air-l@aoir.org Reply-To: air-l@aoir.org
Dear Aoir's -
Thanks, Jeremy and others for replying. It's also good to think about the split between comm & DB as differnet aspects of the net. I am not really trying to take this on academically, so to speak, but to understand it for myself.
I guess it's the problem of transport that is still bothering me. I can see that cmc helps out with the transport idea, because communication always includes some sort of broadcast/reception, send & receive model. I've never thought of DBs that way.
I did think, however, of the power of the query. It is clear that the query starts the transport mechanism for internet, that as one inputs or clicks on an address, that invokes TCP/IP for server to send the file to the desktop making the query.
So the query would work as a sort of mechanism to activate the database, that model works out great for the search engine.
How one arrives at the database, especially a proprietary DB as you were talking about, it doesn't seem to be a send & receive option but with the query invoked, maybe that makes sense, but . . .
Ok, maybe I'm the only one interested in this . . .
Denise