[Air-l] Internet as medium with different sub-media or channels?

[Sarah Stein]

Just to add another element to this interesting discussion 
thread--Langdon Winner's "Do Artifacts have Politics?" talks about 
how the pure "function" model of technology supports the argument 
that hardware/infrastructure is "just a tool --or 'just a delivery 
system'--and it is only in the uses to which it's put--or 
content/messages that are created--that we can discern social or 
political impact." His discussion of technological systems that 
embody in their design power and authority that favor certain 
interests and modes of social order is enlightening.

Sarah Stein
Associate Professor, Dept of Communication
Chair, Teaching, Learning & Technology Roundtable (TLTR)
N.C. State University
Raleigh, NC 27695-8104
>elw at stderr.org wrote:
>>  there are certainly a lot of layers to this.
>>
>>  some packets [s/packets/communicative acts] are, by their very existence,
>>  messages.  (e.g., ping packets or ICMP packets or syn/ack packets...)
>
>Quite literally! The computer scientists conceive the whole internet as
>a layered entity (the physical layer, data link layer, network layer,
>transportation layer, etc.). Is it possible that we in internet research
>need to likewise formulate a layered conception of "medium?"
>
>In a sense, there are many who only see the hardware, not
>differentiating between, for example, web surfing or IMing -- it's all
>just "stuff on the computer." For others, finer distinctions become
>important. Etc. Perhaps our difficulty in determining where the "medium"
>exists is our confusion over which layer of the thing on which we ought
>to focus???
>--
>Mark D. Johns, Ph.D.
>Assistant Professor
>Department of Communication Studies
>Luther College, Decorah, Iowa
>http://academic.luther.edu/~johnsmar/
>-----------------------------------------------
>"Get the facts first. You can distort them later."
>      ---Mark Twain
>_______________________________________________
>The air-l at listserv.aoir.org mailing list
>is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org
>Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: 
>http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
>
>Join the Association of Internet Researchers:
>http://www.aoir.org/


-- 
Sarah Stein, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, Dept of Communication
Chair, Teaching, Learning & Technology Roundtable (TLTR)
Box 8104,  N.C. State University
Raleigh, NC 27695-8104      
Ph: 919-515-9740; Fax 919-515-9456