On Mon, 09 Feb 2004 Eero Tarik wrote:

But there does appear to be rebellion afoot if my own class is any indication. We want numbers to research, we want to look at data - not read about someones fantasy / guess in 1990.

Eero, I have to admit to not really knowing exactly what it is that "internet studies/research" does and does not look at, could you suggest the kind of data (quantative i assume from the ohter mails) that is not being looked at and should be? ren www.renreynolds.com terranova.blogs.com ---- Original message ----

Date: Mon, 09 Feb 2004 19:53:49 +1030 From: Eero Tarik <et@tarik.com.au> Subject: [Air-l] Re: first post (An Internet Without Space) To: air-l@aoir.org

thanks for that Denise, very interesting.

my gut feeling of all this, the pocket sized edition would be...

... that internet studies/research needed a home and was able to slot itself into the Arts/ Humanities area in some universities. With very little real information to go on, because it was a field of study in its infancy, the focus needed to be more philosophical, looking at concepts rather than data. This is where we find many Internet Studies courses today. ( I realise this is not universal)

But there does appear to be rebellion afoot if my own class is any indication. We want numbers to research, we want to look at data - not read about someones fantasy/ guess in 1990. And I suspect that in order to be relevant, and I do believe in the need to be relevant in scholastic endeavour (even though others dont agree), this field of study will turn more towards real number crunching, rather than worrying about "cyberspace" and "cyber communities".

I think the new generation of students will force change as people who are less tolerant of "cyberisms" graduate and influence academia. I also think this new wave of Internet Studies scholars will drive the area into a more commercially focussed future as they understand the opportunities to be gained by excelling in the research of real data.

However...the internet as we know it may not last more than another decade, it will be replaced by something else, but I imagine that whatever replaces it will still be a communications tool.

So perhaps rather than concentrating on the "internet" part of this equation, all the little bits that are floating around in the academic world in related areas should pull themselves into one universal school of communications study so that they not only allow for greater diversity of study but also protect their own academic industry from the inevitable technological change.

There will always be some form of human communication technology, but who knows what it will be from one decade to the next. A department called The Center for Internet Studies might look a bit stupid when the internet has died overnight and been replaced by a chip in our heads.

To answer the question posed by the CFP I would see the solution being the evolution of a monster Division/School of Personal Communication Sciences where the rapidly evolving areas of personal communication like the internet, mobile phones, pay TV etc can all be studied comfortably at "home" without needing to find a temporary arrangement in some other division and I would see this evolving in a more global sense through an online Division rather than being an individual battle for status at every single university. How this would be put together in flesh and blood terms I leave to the geniuses of organisation.

Thus, when the internet dies and is replaced by something else there is still a home for those who want to study the new emerging technology.

just my 10 cents worth.

see ya

Eero Tarik Adelaide

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