Technology
The Internet has enjoyed increasing popularity among civilians over the years. This has accompanied the massive increase in popularity of home and business computer systems over the last decade. It is difficult to give accurately the exact number of global Internet users, due to the number of people who might connect via an academic institution or workplace. A US-based consultancy gives the figure at about 102 million people accessing the Internet in June 1998. This figure is expected to rise to well over 700 million by 2002.[1]
2.1 Connecting…
In order to connect to the Internet, users need to have a number of basic things. The first (and arguably most important) of these items is a modem, which transfers electronic information both to and from the computer by way of the telephone line. Without a modem (which is a contraction of ‘Modulator-Demodulator’, the technical name for the object’s function), the computer would be a stand-alone terminal, incapable of transferring or receiving data beyond its own drives.
The second necessity to connect to the Internet is an account with an Internet Service Provider (ISP) or On-Line Service Provider (OSP).[2] By using a modem to communicate with a Service Provider, an Internet user can access information or communicate with people in any location for the price of a local telephone call.[3]
Thirdly, in order to view or access information on, or communicate via the Internet, the user will also require some basic software, such as an E-Mail application, newsgroup reader or Internet browser. All the necessary software is usually provided by the user’s ISP. Upgrades (improvements) and alterations to Internet software can subsequently be made by downloading components from the Internet itself.
The last, and perhaps most obvious item required to connect to the Internet is a computer, although recent technological advancements have meant that it is now possible to use the Internet through a conventional television. [4]
2.2 The Geography of the Internet
There is a strange semantic twist at play when discussing the Internet - we can talk about looking at information on the Internet, or sometimes via the Internet. By using a word such as ‘on’, the Internet becomes regarded as a physical space. Allucquére Roseanne Stone, writing about the re-definition of the body in the medium of cyberspace notes that “[m]embers of electronic virtual communities [in cyberspace] act as if the community met in a physical public space … [and] the virtual space is most frequently visualised as … a three-dimensional space that can be mapped in terms of Cartesian co-ordinates”.[5]
If we were able to see it in its entirety, the Internet might look a lot like a bramble bush, or kudzu, with networks of roots which grow and spread in unpredictable ways, forming nodes from which other root networks sprout. Originally, however, it was thought that the geography of the Internet probably resembled a spider’s web. This apparent similarity gave a name to the most popular and rapidly expanding environment of the Internet, the World Wide Web.
It is now generally understood that the geography of the Internet is not neat or self-contained or ordered, but actually extremely dynamic and unpredictable - much like any network of human relations. This brings us to an important point; the main characteristics of on-line social environments.
2.3 Social Landscapes and Social Landscaping
The Internet consists of a number of distinctive social landscapes, which will be examined more thoroughly in the subsequent discussion of forms of Computer-Mediated Communication. In essence, however, these landscapes can be classified as follows: E-Mail (Electronic Mail) (including mailing lists); Newsgroups/Bulletin Board Systems (BBS); the World Wide Web; Internet Relay Chat (IRC). E-Mail, Newsgroups/BBS and IRC all function almost exclusively as methods of communication, which can be either private or public, synchronous or asynchronous.
The World Wide Web is more usually utilised for accessing information and/or entertainment and multimedia material using software known as a ‘browser’. This process is also known as surfing the Net, although the user is using only one aspect of the Internet - the Web. The World Wide Web consists of over one billion ‘pages’; information written or presented using HTML (HyperText Mark-up Language, the fundamental coding language of the Web) which enables it to be interactive. [6] These pages present and contain information on their own, yet they can also be grouped together to form a larger or more complex resource, usually known as a Web-Site or simply ’site’.
There are three basic types of Computer Mediated Communication (CMC) with which people interact socially on-line. The sociality of these environments will be discussed in much greater detail in chapter five. In preparation for this discussion, a brief overview of the technologies involved in each will be given below.
The first type of CMC is e-mail, which is asynchronous, in that it does not rely on another person or group of people being connected to the Internet at exactly the same time. It is also private, although identical messages can be sent to a number of recipients, giving the impression of shared, public information. However, since the mailed messages go separately to a number of different (private) locations or addresses[7], the medium is essentially private. Although the message may arrive very quickly indeed[8] (at least when compared to ’snail-mail’[9]), it is categorised as being asynchronous, because the recipient needs to check whether they have received any mail, and if so, download it from the server before being able to read it. This means that a message sent may arrive at the recipient’s mailbox within minutes, but may not be read for hours or even days.
A mailing list is a fairly popular if slightly out-dated type of social network, which is most closely associated with e-mail. A number of writers have compared mailing lists to Victorian correspondence circles[10], and the processes involved are certainly similar. However, in the case of mailing lists, the process is effected by a simple technology: all messages for inclusion in the mailing list are sent to one central address; the list-server computer, which only accepts messages from those who have joined the list. The computer at that address then automatically forwards the message to all the subscribers of that particular list. Journalist Jack Schofield points out that “[t]he main drawback is that you receive a stream of letters, which makes it hard to follow half a dozen discussions at once”.[11] This problem has been overcome by the use of conferencing software (see below).
The second basic form of CMC is chat, which is synchronous, and which can be public or private. The most famous chat system available to users of the Internet is called Internet Relay Chat, and is usually known as IRC. This form of Computer-Mediated Communication is based on fairly simple software[12]
and is entirely ASCII text-based, although other chat programs and software applications exist which can include colours, graphics or avatars[13] and even rudimentary animation. It is generally considered that “[t]he slower e-mail and text-based systems tend to be more interesting and more serious than the ‘live’ on-line chat systems”.[14]
The final category is conferencing, which can also encompass forms generally referred to as ‘newsgroups’ or ‘bulletin board systems/services (BBS)’ on USENET. This form of communication is asynchronous and delayed, as well as public, since individual posts (messages) are sent to a common ‘place’(like a bulletin board) by individual users.
In this way, the category can be likened virtual ‘letters to the editor’, especially since messages in this medium tend to be longer than in chat environments, and generally contain more forethought and grammar. The problems of following multiple discussions, encountered by users of mailing lists, is solved by the use of conferencing software, which separates messages into “threads” or topics. A user can then easily follow an individual discussion.
Although Newsgroups/BBS and conferencing are fundamentally very similar, there are a number of key differences which it is important to note:
- While anyone with access to the technology can read or participate in a newsgroup/BBS, often conference-based communities require users to become members - to register. This process usually involves creating or being assigned a username and a password, which need to be entered in order to access the conferences.
- Being a member of a conference-based community can involve a financial commitment, while newsgroups are generally free of charge. Belonging to the WELL, for example, requires a monthly fee of approximately £15 per month - equal to (and extra to) the cost of an account with an ISP.
- Newsgroups/BBS messages are posted via e-mail, which can lead to issues of privacy and anonymity. Conference posts are usually internally generated, meaning that although the member may provide a contact address, or profile, they can be known only by their ‘handle’ or username.
People writing about CMC in terms of anthropological or sociological inquiry are generally referring to synchronous or asynchronous public communication. A form of public, synchronous CMC not yet mentioned is MUDs (Multi-User Domains/Dungeons), which evolved from the popularity of role-playing games such as ‘Dungeons and Dragons’ in the early 1980s. A MUD in which participants have the power (through programming skills) to create an object-driven environment, is called a MOO (MUD Object-Oriented). Objects created may include props, landscapes, buildings or small ‘bot’ programs.
In essence, a MUD or MOO is a synchronous, virtual, text-based environment, in which participants combine conversation with creative writing and programming, and frequently formed the basis for ethnographic and psychological research on virtual communities until fairly recently.
Although MUDs and MOOs are a fascinating aspect of on-line interaction, the decision not to discuss them in this work was based on three considerations. First, the subject of MUDs has already been covered extensively in social research on the Internet, due to the comparative age of the activity. Secondly, MUDding often involves the comprehensive and complex creation of fantasy worlds with identities, surroundings, lives and so on. Research into the MUD social environment would require a thorough understanding of the programming skills needed to complete such a task, which this author regrettably lacks. Thirdly, the subject of parallel identities and cultures in MUD environments certainly deserves more discursive space than the constraints of this dissertation allow.
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