Another brief point on this is the historical aspect. Whenever a new technology emerges, it is described in terms of existing technologies or concepts. The term, "movie", is a shortened form of "moving picture". Automobiles were earlier called horseless carriages. Even the term, "automobile", comes from adding the prefix, "auto-" to the term "mobile", much like adding "e-" or "cyber-" to IT terms. The practice of adding the prefix, "tele-" to indicate a signal transmitted over a distance goes back more than 100 years (telegraph, telephone, television). I am not sure of the origin of the base, "-graph", but "-phone" (audio) and "-vision" are farily obvious.
Denise Carter wrote:
first thought - don't we continually revamp old concepts anyway - the way in which we experience things is constantly changing? second thoughts - adding cyber, digital etc to old concepts and applying them in new ways makes the internet familiar, and allows us to experience things (and explain them) in terms of our everyday lives
you can only attribute this second paragraph to me - on the whole i agree with your sentiments regards denise
Denise Maia Carter, School of Comparative and Applied Social Science, University of Hull, UK http://www.denisecarter.net denisecarter@denisecarter.net