Reflecting Moose

Prior to taking Interactive Media I never appreciated the full capabilities of Web 2.0. After reading and discussing the innovations to cyberspace, it's amazing to see how far the technology has come in such little time. I think about other forms of media that have progressed over hundreds of years while the Internet essentially evolved in a couple of decades. 

Social networking is the current fad in the cyberspace community. I find it fascinating how essentially our entire country is trying to figure out how to utilize this new phenomenon. You have the American people, celebrities, and corporations all adapting to this new way of utilizing technology. I'm curious to see how long this sensationalism lasts. I've learned to respect Twitter and all of its capabilities, but I'm not entirely comfortable with how much attention it's receiving. I'm cautious about the amount of time my generation spends on the computer. There are more and more reasons to constantly check your profiles and there are also so many different ways to check. The Internet is at the touch of our fingers and I wonder how much that pulls us away from reality.  While I respect technology, I'm also wary of its consequences. I'll be curious to see how it all plays out.  

Thoughts on The Reading

Chapter 1 explained how people are becoming more and more connected but at the same time more alone. Even though people are emailing, interacting with others through social networking websites, blogging and updating their status' regularly to keep their friends and family informed about what is going on in their lives, people are increasingly becoming distant from others. The more we interact with computers, the less we are interacting with others. This chapter mentions how people do not even know their neighbor's name several times explaining that even though people communicate more they seem to have forgotten the fundamentals of social interaction - the physical aspect of meeting others. The argument of whether or not people are interacting with each other less and less can go both ways. People go to work, spend time with their friends and family, and go to school - all of which involve social interaction. I do not think interaction with others via cyberspace has eliminated the physical contact that people have, but rather extended it through an additional medium. However, social interaction has definitely changed due to cyberspace. People connect with each other through the internet and to an extent that has decreased physical interaction. Oftentimes we will just send an email instead of making a phone call. Could that be because we do not have time? because its more convenient? because it avoids direct confrontation? It could be a combination of all. Nevertheless, it is important to remember that there are people out there - our neighbors do have names. Chapter 2 focused on cyberspace and stated that cyberspace involves: people controlling devices through computers that give them the feeling of feedback as if the devices were parts of their own body, suggesting that the cyberspace is an extension of the self. This chapter also mentions the convergence of technologies. Through various forms of technology people can take pictures, watch videos, dictate to their computers, read books digitally and many other things. The reading explains that cyberspace content is "non physical" only to the extent that people do not interpret messages, designs and commands. Moreover, language itself is meaningless without the interpretations of the minds. Hence, suggesting at cyberspace involves a physical medium aside from that one that includes the wires, computers and everything else in between that connects millions of people across the world to each other.

Cyberspace and Control

The reading for this week focused on who controls cyberspace. Chapter 3 started out with an analogy, comparing cyberspace to the Harvard Yard and then explained how cyberspace, unlike the Harvard Yard, involves more than just physical space. Also, the chapter suggests that cyberspace is divided into two classes, namely, those that value of cyberspace and inherently good, and an end in itself; and those hat see cyberspace as a means to a particular end. Chapter 4 explains the issues of control with cyberspace. With so many users from around the world, how does a person or an entity regulate something like the Internet? How does someone enforce copyright laws in cyberspace? Two possible solutions proposed in this chapter were limited protection combined with a rather extended period of protection, or broaden protection combined with a ore limited period of protection. Cyberspace brings up a concern about the control and freedom. The amended Copyright Act of 1976 explains that, "Copyright protection subsists in original works of authorship fixed in any tangible medium of expression." However, with cyberspace it is difficult to apply and enforce this law it is increasingly difficult to find fixed, predictable, and tangible shapes. The chapter provides four reasons with examples to explain why enforcing copyright laws will be difficult: it is difficult to police who copies what and distinguish whether or not it is authentic, the concepts of originality and authorship are making less sense in the context of digital expression, it will not work for economic reasons, and because the structure of the Internet is constantly changing. Chapter 21 provided anthropological examples and examples from religious history to explain how information campaigns depend on concretizing living myth with fixed data.The chapter explained how when a public relations person describes a group of people as a targeted market removes communication with equals from the equation. Similarly, advertising focused on creating needs rather than fulfilling needs.

Where In the World is Cyberspace?

The first part of the reading focused on the many different definitions of cyberspace. The one that struck a cord with me came from Howard Rheingold's in which he said, "the conceptual space where words, human relationships, data, wealth, and power are manifested by people using CMC technology"

When I think of cyberspace I don't think of a physical place, but of a large virtual space where almost anything is possible.  The kicker in Rehingold's definition is the CMC technology. I think that the internet revolves around computer-mediated communication. The communication between individuals in this virtual arena is what drives it. Without people interacting with one another in this realm, it would be useless. I'm not just talking about the human relationship aspect of communicating. Words, data, wealth, and power cannot exist without some sort of communication between people or in the very least other computers.  Even if there is no human interaction taking place, the transferring of information from one area to another is apart of the this CMC technology. 

One of my main complaints about the internet these days, is society's reliance on using CMC technology.  In the beginning of section 2, the point is made that telecommunications were created as a substitute for face-to-face interaction. However, our society has changed the internet from being a substitute to a full fledge alternative.  It feels like face-to-face interaction is no longer the primary mode of communication. People prefer to talk to their friends and family via text messages, instant messages, and email. Cybernetworks and cyberplaces have become more than just alternatives, they have become the preferred areas of interaction over physical locations and transportation. 

My problem with this lack of physical interaction is that it I think it makes us less human and more like robots. I understand there are people who are socially awkward, but when people prefer to interact with others solely through telecommunications, I think that's a problem. Society is becoming less and less physical and that worries me. I also think that all of this information that is being spread through this virtual arena will eventually come back and haunt us. Take Facebook for example. There are millions of college students who have poured their lives out and their most personal information onto a website that can be viewed by practically anyone. Our generation is becoming too comfortable with cyberspace, people are putting too much information into the great wide open. Look at Michael Phelps. No one is safe. 

The Gaslight Anthem - Even Cowgirls Get the Blues

Communication & Cyberspace

After reading the various understandings that professionals had of the word cyberspace, I can't seem to agree more with Howard Rheingold. He basically states that "cyberspace is not identical with computer media, but rather is the context in which such communication occurs; nor is it the same as the computer network. but instead is the sense of place created through such networks." When I would think of a definition of cyberspace myself I picture a broad amount of data in a computer, sort of like in the movie The Matrix. Maybe I'm actually not so far off with the name since the word Matrix actually means the sum total computer network of networks. The Matrix is also known as the Net and also the Internet. Interestingly, I never thought that the term Internet was mostly only used in the U.S. and refers to the specific network that has been supported by the U.S. government.
I found the term telepresence very interesting from the reading. I recall hearing it before but I ever actually knew what it referred to. Telepresence basically allows the person who is using the system to act from a distance, which interestingly is used to operate even activities in outer space. The text on Surveying the Electronic Landscape: An Introduction has really opened my mind and eyes to terms I was never fully exposed to but I knew must exist (since I know operations that result from them do).
I was never aware of how many words actually start with cyber-. One particularly refers to something that I must admit frightens me a bit. It is cyberplace. Cyberplace refers to cybernetworks that include anything ranging from a virtual office, school to electronic versions of actual locations. I subconsciously take part in each one of those listed above-- work conference website, blackboard for school, and Google map. However, actually thinking about it reminds of what might possibly happen if this technology keeps expanding. Will the computers and cybernetworks replace human interaction? I may sound a bit old school but I believe these substitutes may actually take over.

"In this reality, to which every computer is a window...."

Communication, to me, is a form of survival. We, as humans, must be able to exchange thoughts and ideas in order to progress as people. Nowadays, we use cyberspace more frequently to communicate with others outside of our social network, but it was not until the mid-19th century that we could communicate instantaneously with the use of the telegraph. As time passes, we keep evolving; new ideas arise, people change, and our forms of communications are becoming more and more advanced (I only wish I was able to know what our next step would be towards enhancing communication that much further), but for now we have our beloved "cyberspace". I take the internet for granted to be honest. I am so used to being able to connect with one of my peers at the drop of a hat that I did not realize the actual steps that were taken in order to get where we are now! (I believe this excerpt from the reading talks about life from and after the mid-19th century) :

"Telecommunications continued to evolve and grow with the development of the telephone, radio, and television, and innovations such as cable television, satellite communications, and fax machines".

As we evolved as people, so did our meanings of the term "cyberspace". The term evolved due to it's growing popularity starting with the term's originator, William Gibson (1984). His idea of cyberspace was used in a much more science-fiction novel sense while others began to take the term seriously, including Michael Benedikt in 1991. Benedikt described cyberspace like a global network of information. After reading this, I believed his idea's were really ahead of his time. Yes, I read that his concept remains unrealized and unreal, but that isn't my point. The point is that without communication, these two people would have never even heard of each other, nor would have come up with such a concept, or any concept for that matter.

Okay, Okay! I know you guys are probably getting sick of reading the facts, but this is what I really enjoyed about the reading. I love learning about the past and how we got to where we are today. These two people (Gibson and Benedikt) were really the first to give cyberspace any meaning, and that is what I found to be the most interesting part.

In conclusion, if we don't know or understand our past then we will never be able to predict what the future may hold.