Interesting links, questions and discussions

Subject: the converged multimedia form – the Internet

This chapter deals with the converged and converging structures of the contemporary Internet. As a multimedia form, the Internet blends graphic, video and audio elements into a new cacophony of potential and possibility. The Internet also provides forms of communication that transform the problems of time and space that plague institutions, organizations, communities and social movements.

One of the great success stories of the Internet is Google. Google’s history as well as its unique corporate structure are worth exploring further: this is the company that realised that the Web was fundamentally about the movement of information and, what I have described elsewhere as informational news.

It is very useful to contextualize the history of the Internet and the World Wide Web. One of the best timelines can be found online – the Hobbes’ Internet Timeline by Robert H ‘obbes’ Zakon.

In chapter four, we talk extensively about E-vite, a company that has worked through the private and the public domains of what the Internet is essentially about and generated a very profitable business. Other businesses, through collecting information about the people who use their particular website or Internet service, sell that information on to other Internet companies. Peter White has called this a transactional space, where any transaction or exchange is a point where new information can be developed and sold. The result is the mountain of spam that we receive. The IBM site has a brief history of spam with many links to the most notorious cases and discussions. Computer viruses and worms have plagued the relatively free flow of information as well and some like Brian Krebs of the Washington Post have compiled a history of where the terms came from and what constitutes a computer virus. C-know.com also provides a listing of the most serious infestations as well as providing links to more complete discussions of certain viruses.

In contrast, there is a great deal written about the openness of the Internet and a number of organizations are devoted not to security issues but releasing the Internet’s potential. For instance the Electronic Frontier Foundation has presented and defended Internet liberation for more than a decade. Open source programming is the basis of the Linux operating system. See Europe Shareware for an opening into this research.

An interesting and naturally provocative history of file sharing company Napster can be found at James K Fausz’s site. Likewise a more recent short document on file sharing can be found on Sean McManus’s site. Axel Bruns has written extensively on the emergenceof resource center sites and is also a good place to study the emerging webs of information developing via the Internet.

This chapter in New Media Cultures provides some analysis of the transformed public sphere through a study of the 2003/4 Howard Dean campaign for the presidency of the United States. An interesting article on the marketing of Dean is presented by E-week. Some other sites dedicated to Howard Dean’s campaign include Dean for America which has an archive and a myriad links to other sources.

Discussion Points and Questions

The Internet is a blend of the public and the private. Further investigations of the role of the personal web site, the weblog and the webcam sites are needed. Are these forms of narcissism? Are they appeals to fame and publicity? How do they relate to past forms of personal statements such as diaries or even the presentation of the self via a front garden or a mantel-piece display in a home? Has there been a fundamental change in the way we relate to the presentation of the sel? How does this Internet implicate itself in the construction of contemporary identity?

Some Primary Sources on the Net
Sebastian Pacquet has provided a background on blogs, entitled Personal Knowledge Publishing and its uses in research. A rather haphazard weblog on weblogs is produced by royby.

Webcams are more difficult to research online; but some primary sources are good starting points. Look for the way they are used to advertise individuals, the way that they are used for a kind of voyeurism and the very common way in which communities use them to promote their own locations for tourism.

Another area of inquiry is the Internet economy. Think through the kinds of companies that have done very well via the Internet. Explore the private and public natures of these companies (that is, do they invite personal discussions on their web sites?) Are the companies that provide a service that has normally been handled much more privately (like E-vite’s work) now doing so via some sort of online program? What makes a particular industry more comfortable in their online status – for instance why does pornography sell so well via the Web? How do companies that provide free email/chat rooms make their money? Do further investigations about how information about users is collected and sold online.