Re: first post (An Internet Without Space)
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 A department called The Center for Internet Studies might look a bit stupid when the internet has died overnight and been replaced by a chip in our heads.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
<snip> 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". <snip> Eero, I wouldn't want to get into the ontological differences between quantitative/qualitative approaches but I think it's worth bearing in mind that there have been some extremely 'numbers' based Internet research projects - both inside and outside of Computer Science. One of the most obvious areas is, in fact, the visualisations of the spatiality of cyberspace (see Martin Dodge's excellent http\\www.cybergeography.org site). I wouldn't want to suggest that these are more than performative 'imaginings' of cyberspace(s) but you can't deny - they're based on numbers. Paul.
"Everything that can be counted doesn't necessarily count; everything that counts can't necessarily be counted."- Albert Einstein ..........Alex Kuskis ----- Original Message ----- From: "Paul Bevan" <ppb98@aber.ac.uk> To: <air-l@aoir.org> Sent: Monday, February 09, 2004 4:40 AM Subject: RE: [Air-l] Re: first post (An Internet Without Space)
<snip> 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". <snip>
Eero,
I wouldn't want to get into the ontological differences between quantitative/qualitative approaches but I think it's worth bearing in mind that there have been some extremely 'numbers' based Internet research projects - both inside and outside of Computer Science. One of the most obvious areas is, in fact, the visualisations of the spatiality of cyberspace (see Martin Dodge's excellent http\\www.cybergeography.org site).
I wouldn't want to suggest that these are more than performative 'imaginings' of cyberspace(s) but you can't deny - they're based on numbers.
Paul.
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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".
Hi, I'm afraid you are 50 years late. For "real number crunching", computers do a much better job than people - no need to worry about that. But for thinking about (and analyzing and discussing) concepts, there is no match for human beings, at least for now. Rgrds, Luiz Carlos Baptista lucabaptista@sapo.pt lucabaptista@hotmail.com
Dear Eero and others, I read our posting with interest.. but got a bit confused and puzzled... as an offspring of the rather intensive debate on Space/Cyberspace/Setting/whatever you seem to bash all of this and afrgue for a more practical research on INternet issues... why not, besides it being already there, I can not follow the point of that all of this discussion is useless - you did not say so, but it clearly sounded like that. In order to understand what we are researching, how we conceptualize the object of our studies, it seems far from necessary to abondon this kind of thinking and debate, but put it in perspective and combine it... I might did get you wrong, but I would argue in favor of such a debate and therefore the necessity of such a roundtable.. also covering your critique of the whole debate... best nilz ps.. btw... are going to propose such a roundtable... how are we organizing it.. ?? -- Dr. Nils Zurawski Universität Hamburg Inst. für kriminologische Sozialforschung Allendeplatz 1 20146 Hamburg Germany tel. +49 (0) 40 42838 6185 fax. +49 (0) 40 42838 2328 Projekt zu Videoüberwachung: http://www.uni-muenster.de/PeaCon/zurawski/ueberwachung
At 07:53 PM 2/9/2004 +1030, you wrote:
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".
Ah how familiar this sounds - not enough people in your class, obviously, understand the importance of debate, analysis and being informed of how many social , political, historical, cultural and epistemological (and I dont even need to see Ontological...;-)) issues mediate the "data" - the design of the numbers that emerge. The question is who's fantasy to these numbers emerge from? Numbers and "fantasies" are not mutually exclusive by any means. Relevant to who? r
Eero, i know you're an aussie, and that your discourse conventions are a bit different than they are stateside, but you're coming across in this message as pretty rude.
study will turn more towards real number crunching, rather than worrying about "cyberspace" and "cyber communities".
rebellions that do not work through an understanding of what their precursors were inevitably seem to fail. several people appear to be engaged in this discussion with you, currently. and, by the way, there are plenty of people here who crunch the numbers through one set of methods or another.
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.
be aware that your 'new generation of students' is a loose agglomeration that doesn't even share common research methods, much less opinions about abstract concepts. second: 'scholarship' and 'commercially focused' have traditionally been diametrically opposed. with reason. and could you define real data, please - either you're making a 'slap' at the rest of the community, or you've gotten your head stuck somewhere unmentionable...
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.
this is a bluesky argument. people have been arguing that the 'net is a passing fad since sometime in the mid-1980s. (!!!)
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.
AoIR is sort of a public face for the 'invisible college' of people interested in internet-related research.
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.
... in other words, "i don't really understand how universities around the world work, so i will put out this grand idea and let someone else figure out how to implement it"? jesus.
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.
there are list-folk who're on their third and fourth 'careers' - people always find something useful to do with themselves as their interests change or evolve. :) elijah
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.
there are list-folk who're on their third and fourth 'careers' - people always find something useful to do with themselves as their interests change or evolve. :)
...and this is why there is a great body of scholarship on the emergence, adoption (or lack thereof), integration, etc. of communication technologies within specific social/ cultural/economic/historical conjunctures. The research that's been done, and continues to be done, on the telephone, the telegraph, writing, printing, television, radio, the phonograph, various portable personal communication devices, and on and on is absolutely crucial material for those working in various areas of internet studies. This research tradition might also be seen as including, in the U.S., the Payne Fund Studies on the emergent technology of motion pictures in the late 1910s-early 1920s and Carl Hovland et al's study on different listener reactions to the radio broadcast of "War of the Worlds" in the late 1930s. Or what about Lazerfeld's "People's Choice" study in which the groundwork for the idea of "opinion leaders" and the theory of two-step flow was laid? That was done at a time when people's primary news media in the U.S. were radio and newspapers, before TV and the internet, but I just saw a newspaper story in the last week about a study on Net opinion leaders. There is a significant history of researchers having the understanding and tools to address emergent technologies, and to make connections -- examining both differences and similarities among technologies -- between those technologies and what we know or don't know about other communication technologies and complex societal relationships. I would think that much of the research now being done on the internet will be an incredibly useful contribution to understanding whatever forms of communication technologies follow, and that this will shift in research, if it happens, will represent as much a kind of continuity as it will a rupture. Holly -- Holly Kruse Faculty of Communication University of Tulsa 600 S. College Ave. Tulsa, OK 74104 918-631-3845 holly-kruse@utulsa.edu
Porn industry seems to have a different take on Internet appropriation: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/08/business/yourmoney/08porn.html
participants (9)
-
Alex Kuskis -
Eero Tarik -
elijah wright -
Holly Kruse -
Luiz Carlos Baptista -
Nils Zurawski -
Paul Bevan -
Radhika Gajjala -
Robert M. Tynes