Re: [Air-l] key terms/concepts for understanding the web
Lovely thread! 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? I know these were not dominating the suggestions, but they kept popping up, mixing with concepts like interactivity. And I could be totally wrong, so feel free to vivisect me. Ildiko Kaposi
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? I know these were not dominating the suggestions, but they kept popping up, mixing with concepts like interactivity. And I could be totally wrong, so feel free to vivisect me.<
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 just two thoughts from a social anthropologist who is also a cyberethnographer denise Denise Maia Carter, School of Comparative and Applied Social Science, University of Hull, UK http://www.denisecarter.net denisecarter@denisecarter.net
the question also is are we "revamping" and if that is indeed what we are doing, and just adding on a prefix of cyber - Are we examining the specificities and complexities of what happens when its cyber-something.... or just doing makeshift terms and theorizing so we can move with our academic merit sheets. my 2 cents. r At 07:49 AM 1/31/2003 +0000, you 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? I know these were not dominating the suggestions, but they kept popping up, mixing with concepts like interactivity. And I could be totally wrong, so feel free to vivisect me.<
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
just two thoughts from a social anthropologist who is also a cyberethnographer
denise
Denise Maia Carter, School of Comparative and Applied Social Science, University of Hull, UK http://www.denisecarter.net denisecarter@denisecarter.net
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Re: common terms in cyberspace I will just add that the most common terms, virus, code, login, newbie, server, network, etc. have already been defined or at least as a good primary reference one might look at the New Hacker's Dictionary, Eric Raymond, I believe he updated it in 1998. Many web terms came from unix terms, it's not nec. to know unix but the defintions have been there and broadly distributed among hacker/computing communities for some years now. cyber of course, from Norbert Weiner's cybernetics (1948), also quite a vintage derivation. I did think that cyber was greatly influenced by sci-fi and other terms greatly influenced by hackers (I mean good hackers here) and if we mean something different then we need, as the previous post said, different language or at least qualifying what we mean, where. Denise ===== "I want to focus on my salad" (M. Stewart. 2002) 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
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?
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:
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
you can only attribute this second paragraph to me - on the whole i agree with your sentiments regards denise
Denise Maia Carter, School of Comparative and Applied Social Science, University of Hull, UK http://www.denisecarter.net denisecarter@denisecarter.net
I am not sure of the origin of the base, "-graph",
graph - writing/drawing they used graph because you metaphorically sent each letter of a written message individually, so the other person could write it out at the end. that is either from the book information ages or from a book on andrew carnegie's proposed simplification of spelling in the english language, apparently he would have saved much money on telegraphs if source was spelled sors and similar things. though his argument was put forth as a populist move, making things easier for the workers, etc. it is interesting bit of history nonetheless. last i checked you could still send a per letter telegraph via western union. jeremy hunsinger jhuns@vt.edu on the ibook www.cddc.vt.edu www.cddc.vt.edu/jeremy www.cddc.vt.edu/jeremy/blog () ascii ribbon campaign - against html mail /\ - against microsoft attachments
participants (6)
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Denise Carter -
Denise N. Rall -
Ildiko Kaposi -
jeremy hunsinger -
Layton Montgomery -
radhika gajjala