[Air-l] Definitions

[Nancy Baym]

Sam wrote:

>   I apoligze for a terribly inarticulate question. If the Internet 
>is defined purely as technology then with is the best term to 
>describe that which is not technology. I'm struggle with the concept 
>of space as used in social space, cyberspace, virtual space etc.
>
>   As scientist we seem to have a responsibility to operationalize 
>the terms we use.

A few thoughts on this. First, a lot of people on this list would not 
define themselves as "scientists" but as humanists, artists, 
practioners, and other categories, though that does not lessen the 
need for definitional clarity.

I would argue that, with the possible exception of those who are 
studying technical and macro-aspects of the internet (such as what it 
means to have 'access' to it, to be literate in it, to enact policy 
to govern it, and many other topics), most of the research done by 
people on this list benefits or would benefit from speaking at a 
level of granularity far more specific than "internet." Beyond the 
technical, I think it's easy to argue that there is no single 
phenomenon that is The Internet and which, by extension, can be 
assumed to have unitary meanings and consequences. Given a public 
discourse climate that treats THE INTERNET as one big bad thing (or 
one big wonderful panacea), it's our responsibility to clarify that 
there are many diverse and incomparable phenomena hiding beneath that 
label. MySpace is not parent-child email is not hotsexypornsite.com 
is not www.ku.edu

The questions about "space" (I remember an interesting discussion on 
this list on that topic before, you might search the archives) are 
far more useful when thinking about some kinds of online phenomena 
than others. If you're trying to get at an essentialist definition of 
one internet-mediated virtual world that exists apart from the rest 
of life, I don't think it's there to be defined.

Nancy