[Air-l] terminologies and handles

[Bram Dov Abramson]

Jillana Enteen <jillana at jillana.net>:
> This is not to discourage specific considerations--which should use
> terms as specifically as possible. At this point, studying "internet
> use" may be too broad--www or IRC or mobile-to-mobile SMS, located in
> a particular moment and among specific users speaks more to the point.

Indeed, "Internet use" would have to exclude mobile-to-mobile SMS, for
most current implementations of "Internet" and "mobile", and so it might
not be broad enough.  Similarly, the conflation of computers and networks
and Internet would probably mean leaving things like non-networked PDAs,
and digital books, and things of that ilk behind.  Perhaps on that broader
stage we are talking about, erm, "media", and especially digital media.

I had remembered CMC, on the other hand, as especially about what used to
be (still is?) called interpersonal communication.  I confess I usually
slip into "social software" for that range of the online world, although
it doesn't conventionally catch, say, SMS either.  ("Conventionally"
because, if we thought too much about software on mobile phones, it'd
surely lead us into wishing more mobile-service-provider-offered phones
were designed to let us load our own software, and that would surely be
astray.)

Interpersonal media?  Person-to-person communication -- a hijacking of
P2P?  Our terminological future is full of possibilities...

Betty Hanson <betty.hanson at uconn.edu>:
> I am searching for a label for ethnic communities that are created by
> either the Internet or satellite television.

That -- ethnogenesis as singly or primarily the result of Internet and
satellite television participation -- sounds intriguing, and I'd love to
hear more.  But Stuart Hall talked about "new ethnicities", and a lot of
interesting work has been done under that rubric.  It doesn't foreground
communications medium as you seek, but perhaps it is worth considering, or
incorporating.

cheers
Bram