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:
Some of the responses made me think though. Isn't it perhaps a slippery explanatory strategy for internet research to revamp old concepts by attaching the prefixes cyber-, virtual, digital, or e- to them?
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
Layton Montgomery layton@alum.mit.edu PhD Candidate Centre for Research Policy University of Wollongong Wollongong, NSW AUSTRALIA http://movies.yahoo.com.au - Yahoo! Movies - What's on at your local cinema?