[Air-l] key terms/concepts for understanding the web

Denise Carter denisecarter at denisecarter.net
Sat Feb 1 02:52:42 PST 2003


> Another brief point on this is the historical aspect.  Whenever a new
> technology emerges, it is described in terms of existing technologies or
> concepts.  The term, "movie", is a shortened form of "moving picture".
> Automobiles were earlier called horseless carriages.  Even the term,
> "automobile", comes from adding the prefix, "auto-" to the term "mobile",
much
> like adding "e-" or "cyber-" to IT terms.  The practice of adding the
prefix,
> "tele-" to indicate a signal transmitted over a distance goes back more
than
> 100 years (telegraph, telephone, television).  I am not sure of the origin
of
> the base, "-graph", but "-phone" (audio) and "-vision" are farily obvious.
>
> Denise Carter wrote:
>
> > first thought - don't we continually revamp old concepts anyway  - the
way
> > in which we experience things is constantly changing?
> > second thoughts - adding cyber, digital etc to old concepts and applying
> > them in new ways makes the internet familiar, and allows us to
experience
> > things (and explain them) in terms of our everyday lives
> >
you can only attribute this second paragraph to me - on the whole i agree
with your sentiments
regards
denise

Denise Maia Carter,
School of Comparative and Applied Social Science,
University of Hull, UK
http://www.denisecarter.net
denisecarter at denisecarter.net








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