[Air-l] we need a new word?

[Ellis Godard]

The problem is your premise of "one and the same referent".  The idea that
we're all talking about the same thing is the problem, not the solution. The
search to pick one (new?) word enhances, rather than resolves, this
confusion. 

Some are interested in digital media, others in communications technology;
some in communications, and others in unidirectional services as well; some
in Internet-based services, and others in Internet technologies themselves;
some in computer-mediated technologies or activities, and others in non- or
supra-computer technologies or activities; some in "new" media, and others
in any media. 

Even for those talking about the same technology(ies), or service(s), or
activity(ies), interests vary widely. Me? I'm not interested in technologies
or services per se, but in what people do with them.

The umbrellas of AoIR and CITASA are intentionally, and justifiably, broad.
That doesn't mean we're talking past each other. But pretending we have a
same referent ensures that we will.

-eg 

> this may be a stupid question, but if we all use whatever
> different word we individually prefer to denote one and the 
> same referent, how can we talk to each other about that 
> referent without constantly talking past each other?
> 
> Reuven Shlozberg
> Political Science
> University of Toronto