Joanne (or others), as a newbie to the academic study of the Internet, with no tech background, could you explain to me what difference between the two is? Up till now, i've commonsensically used "the Internet" to denote, essentially, everything that i can access or receive and anyone i connect with when i "go online" (connect my computer to data that is not on my computer's harddrive). In other words, i've used "the Internet" to denote the sum of all that's online. I've always assumed commonsensically that "the world wide web" simply denotes the network of computers that are "online" (all or part of the time). Since what's online has to rest (or am i missing some basic tech fact?) on some computer, and since to access what's on a particular computer, that computer needs to connected to other computers, "the World Wide Web" and "the Internet" as i understood their meaning refer to the same referent. also, up till now i also thought of "cyberworld" as an a term interchangeable with the other two terms, but that leaves me with no term to denote the "life-world" of people online, as distinguished from "the Internet" as defined above. Could "cyberworld" be used to denote this "life-world", or will that be another gross carelessness with definitions (i can almost feel Thomas Hobbes standing behind me getting ready to slap me ... ) thanks, Reuven Shlozberg Political Science University of Toronto
Reuven, The Internet, technically speaking, is a network of networks (an internetwork) all of which interoperate using the protocol known as TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol). Each computer has an individual Internet Protocol (IP) address, although one computer can act as a host for numerous subsidiary IP addresses. So in order to be on the Internet, a computer needs two things: (a) connection via TCP/IP; (b) and IP address. Within those two simple restrictions, numerous types of data transfer and intercommunication have come to be associated with the Internet (and they all operate under those two principles as well): among them are electronic mail, newsgroups, instant messaging, file transfer (FTP), and the World Wide Web. The World Wide Web is a set of data transfer and display technologies developed by Tim Berners-Lee at CERN in the late '80s and implemented in the early '90s. The Web operated "on top of" (if you will) TCP/IP and uses the protocol known as HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol), which determines what happens when a user clicks on a hyperlink. HTTP works in conjunction with HTML (Hypertext Markup Language), much enhanced by other markup and display languages) to give us the nice displays we get in our Web browsers (which are technically called HTTP clients). So: The Internet is the big one, and the others, including the Web, operate as part of it. Anything that uses IP networking is also part of it, including such newer things as VoIP (Voice over IP), used for telephony. Hope that helps. Neil Randall Joanne (or others), as a newbie to the academic study of the Internet, with no tech background, could you explain to me what difference between the two is? Up till now, i've commonsensically used "the Internet" to denote, essentially, everything that i can access or receive and anyone i connect with when i "go online" (connect my computer to data that is not on my computer's harddrive). In other words, i've used "the Internet" to denote the sum of all that's online. I've always assumed commonsensically that "the world wide web" simply denotes the network of computers that are "online" (all or part of the time). Since what's online has to rest (or am i missing some basic tech fact?) on some computer, and since to access what's on a particular computer, that computer needs to connected to other computers, "the World Wide Web" and "the Internet" as i understood their meaning refer to the same referent. also, up till now i also thought of "cyberworld" as an a term interchangeable with the other two terms, but that leaves me with no term to denote the "life-world" of people online, as distinguished from "the Internet" as defined above. Could "cyberworld" be used to denote this "life-world", or will that be another gross carelessness with definitions (i can almost feel Thomas Hobbes standing behind me getting ready to slap me ... ) thanks, Reuven Shlozberg Political Science University of Toronto _______________________________________________ The Air-l-aoir.org@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/
Neill, thanks for the quick response.
So in order to be on the Internet, a computer needs two things: (a) connection via TCP/IP; (b) and IP address.
Can my computer connect to other computers or receive data not on its harddrive not via TCP/IP? If not, then my initial understanding of "the Internet" was correct? Reuven Shlozberg Political Science University of Toronto
Can my computer connect to other computers or receive data not on its harddrive not via TCP/IP? If not, then my initial understanding of "the Internet" was correct?
It's entirely possible to be connected with another computer, and in fact entire networks, without using TCP/IP, in which case you're not technically on the Internet. However, connections *entirely* without a TCP/IP segment are increasingly rare in both corporate and non-corporate settings. However, it's still not correct to say that simply being able to connect to another computer puts you on the Internet. You need, for instance, an IP address. That said, it's safe to assume at this stage that, when you connect a personal computer to a remote resource such as an information store, you are probably on the Internet. That's how widespread it's become. Neil
Hmm... 'Media' doesn't cut it, cause Barry's talking about all the two way media. Which is more like 'communication'. Just saying media actually includes too much. Digital doesn't cut it, because cell phones are usually digital. Neither does social, since ALL media are social (including one-way media such as a static web-page). Internet gets us back where we started. So my vote is with "online communication" Regarding the meta-issue of whether we would benefit from such a word, I think it is fair to say we will. I think the goal is to discuss a situation where many people are using computers (loosely defined) to interface with other people. Unlike a telephone, the social affordances of a computer are not clearly defined (except perhaps, that it affords text communication given the big keyboard which comes standard with every computer). The relevance of this discussion becomes clear when we assert that there is something qualitatively different about two-way communication over TCP/IP. Or perhaps something qualitatively different about communication that is mediated by software design in addition to hardware. TCP/IP is not the raison d'etre of the Internet, only the current necessary condition. If it was magically switched tomorrow, there are millions of people who would not notice the difference. Furthermore, in the short period of time where I tried a Vonage VOIP phone, I didn't consider it Internet communication, even if it was communication over the internet. There was no software component. So, it seems that software, that is really at the heart of this issue (at least for me). So now, having asserted that its the fact that its software, and we are referring to online 'two-way' communication, I propose the eminently silly word 'softalk' - pronounced 'soff-tok', if you want something a little more exciting than 'online communication'. (or perhaps we reasert social software?) Take Care, BERNiE Bernie Hogan Ph.D. Student Department of Sociology [NetLab, Knowledge Media Design Institute] University of Toronto -- Reply to Bernie.Hogan@Utoronto.Ca
Hi, it's rather simple: 1) There is the Internet, the "big" inter-connection of networks and any item being connected to it. 2) The Extranet, which means all networks which are not part of an internal network 3) The Intranet, this is the one you're using within a specific location (office, etc.) - it's even protected (firewall, etc.) You see, 2 and 3 are subgroups of 1. Concerning the WWW, this is a *service*/application of the Internet, using the hypertext transfer protocol (http://) in order to enable access to text, pictures, sounds, and other combinations of multimedia by using webpages. So if you're talking about WWW, you're still talking about the Internet but just by using one specific service. There are much more people are not so much aware of (newsgroups, ftp, wap, etc.). If you'd like to read more about the WWW: http://www.w3.org/Consortium/history.html Best, Laurent At 02:54 20.03.2005, you wrote:
Neill, thanks for the quick response.
So in order to be on the Internet, a computer needs two things: (a) connection via TCP/IP; (b) and IP address.
Can my computer connect to other computers or receive data not on its harddrive not via TCP/IP? If not, then my initial understanding of "the Internet" was correct?
Reuven Shlozberg Political Science University of Toronto
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participants (4)
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Bernie Hogan -
Laurent Straskraba -
Neil Randall -
reuven shlozberg