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

[William Bain]

Equally humbly seeking further information in relation to Bob Rehak's very interesting contribution (and expressing my appreciation to those who posted the related things), I quote again (apologies again for the awkward form & single quotes) what Bob wrote: 

'My question, then, is this: if packet transmission methods are 
specialized according to different end needs, then doesn't this argue 
for the presence of the internet as a medium, in the sense that its 
protocols are made to serve specific expressive functions? If all 
packets are not created equal, then we can't reduce the model to "the 
packet doesn't care what data it carries."

'To return to the analogy of the printing press, perhaps the press *is* 
just a tool for replicating content -- but if its design includes the 
ability to handle different fonts, colors of ink, sizes and types of 
paper, etc., then the "hardware" is materially implicated in the 
medium's expressive activity.'

I'd like to comment that I see nothing illogical (or technologically unsound?) about calling the Internet a medium, which it seems to be, (and in a/some layered form). But while "the 'hardware' is materially implicated in the medium's *expressive* activity" does it follow that the hardware can be assigned an *affective* activity?
   
  In the spirit of the seeker,
   
  William Bain, UAB, Barcelona

		
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