[Air-l] Tuesday events

[Laura Gurak]

September 11 and the Internet


People have been asking me to comment on the uses of the Internet since
yesterday¹s horrific events. I must say that like everyone else in this
country and around the world, I am in shock. I am experiencing this event
more as a human being and U.S. citizen than I am as a scholar and critic.
And, I think it may be too early for us to know what roles the Internet is
playing. It will be weeks, even months, before we can look back with even
some perspective.

Still, it is apparent that the Internet is playing am important role as an
information source. Both traditional sites, like cnn.com, and
non-traditional sites, such as the many Web sites springing up in response
to yesterday, are available to anyone around the world. As is always the
case with the Internet, its speed and reach have brought photographs and
stories, both amateur and professional, to the entire world. People who have
gone back to work today are no doubt spending as much time surfing the Web
as they are trying to bring some sense of normalcy to their workplaces.

The Internet is also a site where misinformation can and does flourish and
where, often, emotions run high. We must be careful not to let the speedy
nature of Internet communication lead us to rumor-spreading or anger against
entire groups of people. We should use the Internet at this time as a place
for community and debate and not for hatred.

I have seen on the news that U.S. intelligence agencies are looking for ISP
logs, email messages, and other digital evidence as part of their
investigations. These days, there is always an Internet angle to any
criminal act, and we will have to wait and see what if any role the Internet
had in the communications of the terrorists.

It occurred to me yesterday that this sort of strike is the kind of thing
the Internet was originally designed to withstand. You can take out one
node, but you can¹t take down the entire network when such a network is set
up like a web rather than a top-down hierarchy (or as a friend of mine liked
to say, a vine growing along your garden fence, sending shoots in all
different directions, versus a nicely trimmed tree). So while we may have
lost the physical sites where many major financial transactions took place,
I like to believe that the heart of these transactions are digital,
backed-up, and inspired, ultimately, by confidence in our inventions and
economy. Companies that have lost hundreds of people and floors of office
space have taken to the Web to post words of comfort and reassurance. Like
the Internet, our economy cannot be taken down with the loss of one site. We
must continue to believe in ourselves as we focus on how to reopen the
markets and make the world more secure.

This of course sounds so empty, in a way, and says nothing about the people
whose lives were lost, those who will suffer terribly for the rest of their
lives because they lost loved ones, and all of us are affected in other
ways. The use of cell phones gives us insight into the terror and final
moments on the highjacked planes. Word of these cell phone calls were posted
on the Internet quickly, and already we have heard the moving and brave
stories of what people said in their final moments. Because of one set of
calls, we now appear to know that brave people were able to avert at least
one of the planes, crashing into a field rather than a building of people.

That is really all I have to say today. My thoughts right now are with the
victims, their families, and all of humanity. It is an unthinkable thing
that has happened. All the dot-com hype of the past two years suddenly seems
so silly and meaningless to me.

Peace to all of you.

Laura Gurak


----------------
Laura J. Gurak, Ph.D. Associate Professor
Rhetoric Department, University of Minnesota
1994 Buford Ave., St. Paul, MN 55108  v 612-624-3773
also--Director, Internet Studies Center -- www.isc.umn.edu
Faculty Fellow, Law School
gurakL at tc.umn.edu   http://www.rhetoric.umn.edu/faculty/LGurak/