Re: [Air-l] Re: Internet History/Stages, was Internet in Everyday Life (Frank Thomas)
Maria, I am somewhat uneasy to call something like a technoinfrastructure an "actor". For me, an actor is someONE you has the capacity and the will to act. Artefacts can not act by themselves but have inbuilt rules. The question for me then is: who built which rules in the artefact, who was ecluded in using it, which are the "costs"=efforts to use it, who covers for the cost, etc. So, in any case, the artefact is a socially constructing being, not an actor by itself. Of course, artefacts shape the opportunity and constraints structure of humans (and organisations) that use them. But this is not the result of an independent will. This is the result of social decisions about the use (or non-use) of specific material characteristics. Also, I would add to your list economic factors, for instance business models, user tariffs etc. and operational guidelines. The latter is often not considered in sociological discussions of the construction and use of an artefact but it may become the most important part of it as the rules decide how to use the artefact. And, of course, there sometimes is a nice struglle about the rules. Think of the French telecom engineers who conceived the minitel as a centra server model and who were surprised that users linked terminals not to the server for database retrieval but to link through to communicate with other end terminal users. This was the birthday of the messager services on minitel which had their strongest use when someone invented minitel rose (I guess you have to translate "someone" into: male, below 30 years, single, trained in science or engineering, ...) . So, the fellow enginners were strongly against this morally incorrect use of a marvel of communication technology. I don't know who made the decision to allow messenger services even when they transported porn, I guess, no prejudice, this must have been people from the finance department. Look into the works of Volker Schneider and his comparison with the British videotext and the German Btx services (together with Graham Thomas and Thierry Vedel). Did you integrate the videotext services as a precursor in your description ? Cordialement Frank
Re: Maren Hartmann's comment - "And yes, there therefore seems to be both - a) a change somewhere in the late 1990s (but not necessairly related to the dot.com crash only)" I have to add that, unless we are simply discussing the Internet as accessed through the WWW then there are two distinct phases to the Internet based on the most logical component - how we see at the level of the user interface. To compare my days on the Internet as a unix-driven text-based device of "vi" "rn" and "ftp" is hardly the same internet that I access and view today through http and html. To me, (I've written one unpublished paper called "The Internet, the WWW and Cyberspace") these are not at all the same locations -- because how I experience it, subjectively, cognitively, aesthetically, it's not the same place at all. (I won't address cyberspace, a really ugly thing as Phil Agre points out in his recent book, "the limits of cyberspace"). To me the Internet is before the WWW and what we have now is, really a bastardization of the Internet as viewed through the WWW, or the Web. Both the Internet and the Web appeared WAY before the dot.com crash, if that's significant, fine, but I can't see it as an epistemological moment, more like an obvious result of advanced capitalism that worked its way through to the obvious conclusion. I'm sure someone here will put me straight on this ;-) 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.html __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com
While it's important to be aware of, and take into consideration, the different forms of interface and experience of the internet, it's a tricky thing. I've argued that we often play fast and loose with the term "internet" when we actually mean something else more specific (web, email, p2p, etc.) and that we should be more precise therefore. But what level of precision is required ought to be a consideration of those engaged in the work and ought to be made clear in explication of the work. That is, if one is studying email use, a consideration should be whether or not the type of email software used is something that may bring with it sufficiently important difference to make a difference in the study, and that consideration ought to be reflected in some fashion in discussion of the study. This is not specific to the internet, but is something that media studies generally have largely not taken up. Does it matter, for instance, whether one is viewing television in black and white or in color? On a big or a small screen? Or can we put together all "television viewing" into one large category? The same is the case in radio - the experience of radio varies greatly depending on, for instance, the type of loudspeaker, size of the radio, whether it may be in a car or not, etc. The answer to such questions, of course, is "it depends," and that is not an incorrect answer, I think. But it does point out on the one hand the need for specificity, and on the other hand the need to consider the level and degree to which specificity matters under particular circumstances. Sj At 9:55 PM -0800 11/27/02, Denise N. Rall wrote:
Re: Maren Hartmann's comment - "And yes, there therefore seems to be both - a) a change somewhere in the late 1990s (but not necessairly related to the dot.com crash only)"
I have to add that, unless we are simply discussing the Internet as accessed through the WWW then there are two distinct phases to the Internet based on the most logical component - how we see at the level of the user interface.
To compare my days on the Internet as a unix-driven text-based device of "vi" "rn" and "ftp" is hardly the same internet that I access and view today through http and html.
To me, (I've written one unpublished paper called "The Internet, the WWW and Cyberspace") these are not at all the same locations -- because how I experience it, subjectively, cognitively, aesthetically, it's not the same place at all.
(I won't address cyberspace, a really ugly thing as Phil Agre points out in his recent book, "the limits of cyberspace"). To me the Internet is before the WWW and what we have now is, really a bastardization of the Internet as viewed through the WWW, or the Web. Both the Internet and the Web appeared WAY before the dot.com crash, if that's significant, fine, but I can't see it as an epistemological moment, more like an obvious result of advanced capitalism that worked its way through to the obvious conclusion.
I'm sure someone here will put me straight on this ;-)
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.html
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Agree, this is deeply important. However, must take issue with "media studies generally have largely not taken up." What we are discussing here is nothing less than McLuhan's seminal observation that "the medium is the message". Today, there are huge differences between interaction with the Internet through the web, email, or chat. There are some smaller differences between interaction with the web through Explorer, Mozilla, and Opera. Some related references: Marshall Mcluhan: http://livinginternet.com/i/ii_mcluhan.htm Norman Coombs famous "Liberation Technology" linked at: http://livinginternet.com/r/r.htm Licklider papers: "Man-Computer Symbiosis" (1960), "The Computer as a Communications Device" (1968) linked at: http://livinginternet.com/i/ii_licklider.htm Licklider's famous "advantages of message systems" quote and paper reference: http://livinginternet.com/e/ei.htm Cheers, Bill At 08:46 AM 11/30/02 -0600, you wrote:
This is not specific to the internet, but is something that media studies generally have largely not taken up....
participants (4)
-
Denise N. Rall -
Frank Thomas -
Steve Jones -
William Stewart