[Air-l] Re: first post (An Internet Without Space)

Ulla Bunz bunz at scils.rutgers.edu
Thu Feb 12 18:51:56 PST 2004


I did a little experiment today - very unscientific and not statistical in the
least. However, I was made curious by Eero's comments about a new generation of
Internet users growing up who see the Internet differently than those people who
published on it in the 1990s. I do think that my students *use* the Internet
differently (i.e., most of them have never heard of Usenet, and of course, they
haven't used it). But does that mean they see it differently, or think of it
differently?

First of all, we made a list of metaphors that they associate with the Internet.
Interestingly, not a single one among the 39 seniors came up with the term "tool."
The one almost all identified as their primary metaphor or thought construct was
"web." When asked whether "web" as in "spider web" or "web" as in "world wide web,"
they seemed to agree that they think "world wide web" when they think "Internet." In
a way, one could conclude that they thus think of the Internet as an information
seeking tool, though none of them used the term "tool." Very intriguing!

Then I had them read a brief handout. I took most of Michele's original post about
space/place and her questioning of those metaphors. I took most of Eero's reply
directed to me where he introduces the notion of communication tool, talks about a
new generation growing up who doesn't much care about outdated fantasies of
cyberspace, and his reminder that the majority of Internet users use the Internet
without thinking too much about it or describing their usage in lofty terms (I'm
paraphrazing, obviously). Then I took Radhika's short post in which she refers to
the importance of context (historical, social, cultural, political, etc.) in which
the same data can mean different things.

I didn't take a stand on any of these, but instead had them discuss which ideas they
agreed with, which one's they didn't, and why. Here's the summary of the discussion:

The majority of students likes the idea of cyber*space*, chat *rooms*, URLs as
virtual geographic *places*, etc. because they like the analogy of cyberspace to
offline geographies. However, they do have a difficult time grasping the notions of
"community" as they don't tend to spend a lot of time in online environments
interacting with people they don't know. They think that part of the Internet is
definitely a tool, but that's not all it is, and that basic statistics (such as
usage numbers etc.) are interesting, but that they are meaningless without a
context.

The people have spoken! I am fascinated by the results of my very unscientific and
completely-void-of-numbers research! To me it sounds like at least according to my
39 students, there is hope that the Internet will continue to provide an online
environment in which interaction can take place for those who want that, in addition
to being a useful communication/information tool. As they pointed out, there's not
really one Internet anymore anyway. There's different components to it. Now, where
did I hear that idea before? Oh yes, in one of Steve Jones' speeches....

Best,
Ulla

-- 
Ulla Bunz
Assistant Professor
Department of Communication
Rutgers University
4 Huntington Street
New Brunswick, NJ 08901




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