(Survival Basics)
by Rob B. Marqusee
Part II: What Can Be Done with the Internet and Why Do We Want to Do It?
Preface
We are observing something akin to religious fervor when it comes to the Internet. After all, how often do we personally witness a complete transformation in the form of communication media? It can be said that we are the only generation in human history able to sit back in our armchairs and literally watch a societal evolution at the speed of an electronic byte: from the Industrial Age to the Information Age. The Internet has all the promise of greatness for the future, magnifies all the failings of our culture, and raises all the fears and doubts of the unknown.In our practical world, however, what can be done with the Internet is limited by what people actually want to do with the medium (social-market demand), the economic resources, devices, and infrastructures necessary to provide certain services (commercialization), and the attempt of lawmakers to regulate what society deems as appropriate communications. These subjects will be addressed in Part III and Part IV of The Internet: What Everyone Should Know (Survival Basics).
The Internet as a Comprehensive Media
Since there is really no conceptual limit to how we can communicate on the Internet, use of existing Internet tools, such as electronic mail, is limited only by one’s imagination. It would be fruitless to simply provide in this article a list of things we can do with the Internet. A full appreciation of the new medium and what each of us is able do with it can only be understood if we grasp the nature of the medium itself. Once its nature is understood, then we can have fun thinking of all the possibilities with the available tools at our disposal.The Internet is a comprehensive media because it includes all previous forms of communication media; that is, it is possible to manipulate and deliver print, graphics data, audio, video, radio, television, and telephonic functions over the Internet. The term cyberspace, made popular by William Gibson in his book entitled Neuromancer (1984), means this electronic place where all forms of communication can be initiated, controlled, and subject to response from another user on the computer network; that is, it is interactive. (See: http://www.algonet.se/~danj/gibson1.html).
Characteristics of this medium also include: near instantaneous delivery of information, it is ubiquitous and can be accessed at the relatively small cost of a local telephone connection (cable and satellite will be included soon). It is the potentiality of this low-cost medium to be within all our grasp, without geographic and political boundaries, that feeds the Internet frenzy. For many, it is more than a communication medium; it is an identity, an electronic world.
Imagination in Application of the Medium
Survival Basics strives to present the tools of the Internet in an understandable and manageable context. It is impossible for imaginations to soar if we get lost in the proverbial trees. The tools have existed as independent functions on the Internet for many years; however, the relatively recent developments of the World Wide Web and Virtual Reality as integrating platforms provide a better context for discussing many of the functions being utilized and developed on the Internet today.
Electronic Mail (Email), Newsgroups, Chat (IRC)
The use of email is now more popular in volume than the U.S. Mail. Email is an electronic message that can be written using an email computer program or word processor and then sent with or without an attached file to one or more electronic mailing addresses. Example: sending or receiving a letter to or from your relative, who also has a computer and access, living at the other end of the country.One could view email as an evolutionary advance over previous ways of delivering letters and electronic documents. From the pony express to the US Mail to overnight delivery services and facsimile machines to the widespread use of email. A low-cost medium, email can be used to quickly communicate with large number of individuals.
A better definition, highlighting the nature of the medium, may be that email is one element of the Internet, either used alone or together with other Internet functions, which instantly conveys "whatever can be the subject of print," either to or from one or many people. A person could regularly receive email from their favorite clothes catalog merchant with the latest special values, from a news service with instant updates to news and weather, and from a satellite office with the latest revision to a business document. They could also email an order for an electronic online magazine or newspaper subscription. There is no limit to the subject matter of print.
As indicated above, a user can attach a file or electronic document to an email message. This makes it easy to send or receive large documents, graphic images (such as a digitized photographs or art), or any other type of file (such as digitized audio or video clips). A physician in Boston could send a digitized Chest X-Ray file to a specialist in Los Angeles for analysis.
A popular use of the Internet is to read, initiate, or respond to messages that are organized and posted on public electronic bulletin boards (better know as newsgroups) according to topic and rules of operation. These newsgroups are generally maintained on a news server and can be accessed through use of either a separate computer program or can be an integrated function within a World Wide Web browser. Newsgroups are similar to what are known as forums on commercial online services.
Basically, one can think of newsgroups as similar in function to a typical newspaper’s classified section but without the time, expense, and geographically limited audience associated with traditional media. There are over 15,000 newsgroups that cover almost every topic imaginable; from newsgroups permitting the offering for sale of items to the personals. FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions) are posted explaining the rules of a particular newsgroup.
The interactive benefit of the medium derives from the fact that each user can contribute to the group. Threaded responses to a message are organized and logical responses can be made in the form of email directly to the individual or messages posted to the newsgroup. Participants can be physically located all over the world adding to the pool of experience and perspective.
Advanced uses of newsgroups include: providing a worker with a digest of newsgroup postings most relevant to his or her job, the cross-referencing of newsgroups with hypertext links between a newsgroup and the World Wide Web, and setting up local newsgroups which can act as a community focus. The most beneficial newsgroups are tightly administered to assure that messages are relevant to its purpose.
Obviously, the newsgroups are a tremendous resource for linking up with experts from around the world or just next door on any subject: from finding a heart donor to bulletins regarding missing children, to discussing the pros and cons of political candidates to discussing comparative religion, and so on. More information can be obtained from the newsgroups news.announce.newusers and news.newusers.questions.
Internet Relay Chat (IRC) is the Internet’s equivalent to the recent media-hyped chat rooms of the commercial online services. The IRC facilitates real-time conversations between two or more participants via computer keyboards and screens using a separate computer program. Information regarding the IRC can be accessed from newsgroup alt.irc. The IRC has been historically more difficult to access only because the commands, or Internet conventions, are somewhat cryptic to beginning users.
The truth is that IRC is one of the hottest areas of development now underway on the Internet. There is a natural marriage between real-time communication, with what is known as Virtual Reality or 3-D physical animations, with the new Internet telephony (e.g., iPhones) and developing video-conferencing technologies (e.g., CU-SeeMe). The beauty of IRC is that you can simultaneously communicate with a group of people on any topic of interest in real time without long-distance telephone charges (assuming local Internet access). The downside to this tool is that many of the group conversations are pointless.
Integrating Tool - World Wide Web
The World Wide Web, developed and introduced by Tim-Berners-Lee in 1989, is an Internet tool designed to organize and access documents by topic. These documents may integrate text, graphics, animations, telephony, audio or video components, as well as integrate other Internet functions. Word processing documents can be simply coded in HTML (HyperText Markup Language), placed on a HTTP (HyperText Transport Protocol) server, and accessed from the Internet using a URL (Uniform Resource Locator) address. What does this all mean?Surfing the Net is phrase that describes the basic World Wide Web function: a Web browser computer program once connected to the Internet presents a page which has certain words highlighted and hotlinked to other related documents on a computer server located anywhere in the world. A net directory points a user to documents on any subject which are themselves hyperlinked to each other to give the impression of surfing through cyberspace. For example, a grade school student could conduct research on Dinosaurs from documents located at universities, encyclopedia publishers, or from museums all tied together on the Internet with hypertext links.
The power of the Web derives from the fact that individuals have the same publishing power as governments and large corporations. A small businessman could publish a page on a local server containing the parts and prices of his wares, combined with audio and animated video describing how the part fits in an automobile engine. Museums, libraries, legislators, universities, researchers, authors, investigators, ad infinitum, can contribute to the Web content and, thus, provide the largest organized and connected information resource in world history.
Developments happen daily on the World Wide Web. Therefore, in order to keep this article relevant, here are some of the developments that are ongoing: radio stations, network television, news services and magazine publications broadcasting or providing content on the Web to supplement traditional media. In addition to documentation being provided, there is a big push to have applications operate over the net from a remote server, thus sparing the user the expense of purchasing a program; the user’s computer becomes a dumb terminal. The uses of the World Wide Web are limited only by one’s imagination.
No discussion of the Web would be complete without alerting the reader to other Internet functions which can be accessed via the Web. Web browsers can access FTP (File Transfer Protocol), Gopher, and WAIS, resources. For purposes of Survival Basics, it is sufficient to understand that there are documents which are not hyperlinked but are indexed and located on these type of servers and are the subject of a search. There is also the TELNET function, which allows you to remotely log in to and control a remote server over the Internet. FTP and email are popular functions integrated into Web browsers. They permit a user to download a file from a FTP server or send an email to the webmaster by a click of the mouse button directly from the Web page -- all without a user having to understand complicated protocols.
Integrating Tool - Virtual Reality
Virtual Reality is the presentation of three dimensional objects and spaces and a means for interacting in that environment, typically through a World Wide Web site using a companion viewer or VRML (Virtual Reality Modeling Language) browser. Simply stated, a browser depicts three dimensional space in which a user can navigate with a mouse.The ultimate objective of Virtual Reality is to create a parallel universe where individuals physically and audibly interact with each other in an electrically recreated physical space. The individual is represented in this cyberspace universe by an avatar who can interact with other avatars in real-time either by keyboard or actual telephony communications using a microphone plugged into the computer. A three-dimensional chat area as an extension of the traditional IRC.
It could be said that Virtual Reality is the ultimate environment for a user to create a virtual identity. But why do people want to live in that kind of electronic space; attempting to create a place where human interaction is physically represented yet still alienated from real flesh and bone of our earthly relationships? There are, no doubt, a lot of opinions espoused on this subject. In the broadest sense the exhilaration of transcending personal, physical, and time limitations is the primary motivator.
Beyond the online game and chat applications to this technology, there are commercial, medical, and educational uses for Virtual Reality: virtual shopping malls with talking sales persons, technologies used by the movie industry, medical and psychiatric applications for the handicapped, simulators for airline pilots, ad infinitum. The challenges for Virtual Reality in the future relate to graphic renderings, data compression technology; and, perhaps, most important of all, the creation of a community that feels human.
Philosophical Model for Understanding Internet Related Developments
A simple model can be constructed to aid your understanding of all developments that are occurring on the Internet and in related industries. As we have seen, use of the Internet medium is limited by one’s imagination. Therefore, the volume of developments associated with and subjects touched by the Internet can be a source of confusion. It is important to have the big picture.As we have already discussed, the Internet is global and knows no boarders; that is, it is a non-geographic world of communications available to the individual as well as to governments and large corporations. For the first time in human history, power is being transferred from the traditional geographic space, or real estate, to an unlimited electronic domain. The result: every discipline known to humanity will be, to some degree, effected by this new medium.
In spite of all this potential (i.e., the cause for religious type fervor), there are very real human limitations to the actual application of this new medium. To achieve its full potential, it will be necessary to understand and address these limitations. It is important that the Internet be easily accessible and secure. It is also important to determine what forms and uses of traditional media (e.g., books, newspapers, television, etc.) will retain greater appeal and why. How much and how fast can information be delivered over the Internet has been the subject of huge cash investments by the telephone, cable and satellite industries. Finally, global political responses will add to the human factors which will attempt to limit the potential of the medium.
In Hegelian terms we can say that the tension between the potential of the Internet and traditional limitations will provide the direction for successful development now and in the years to come; that is, there will be a synthesis of the dialectic between the antithesis (potential of the Internet) and the thesis (traditional limitations).
Where to Now
Part III and Part IV of Internet: What Everyone Should Know will investigate the commercial, social and legal implications of the Internet. The philosophical model, set forth above, may provide you with a simple structure in which to get a handle on all that is taking place in this exciting area.
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