[Air-l] Internet definition & ANT

[James Downing]

Hi ,
Would like to add this to the ANT and the internet discussion

A cosmosgram to circulate amongst the circulations.
This text I am typing by the time it reaches you and everyone else, has gone through various changes. It has started its journey of circulation. It is now both a thought and a product. It is digital .It travels from A to B while staying at point A. It is available through a network. There is no far/ close, outside/inside that exists on that network. This text could have started as a word document and have been cut and pasted by me into the box. It wasn't but it could have been. So as all the packets aggregate to make up what you and others now see on your screen this thing (thought and product) already has been transformed. 
Now it is visible to you. Think of the manipulations you can make of this object. The further transformations! It now resides on the server that hosts this site. It has been stored. It already has history. You have called it up. My artifact has politics! It is part of my world as I type excitedly knowing that soon it is going to be part of yours as well as all who see. The machines have already had to engage with it, and now it is your turn. You must see it by now, my cosmogram. My thoughts race ahead of my fingers as I dream of the gestalt (ah ah moment) you will have. Then sink as I tell myself ah ah will be so what. Never the less I press on with my offering. It already has effected me, now it is going to effect you. Good, bad, indifferent, who cares. My gift, my cosmogram. 
Too late, like trying to catch the wind, I press submit. Once captive of me it now circulates. It is no longer mine! It’s now a cosmosgram. 
You have already judged me. This thought has no content. Well to that I say, this is not mine at all. I disown it. It may bring me into disrepute. It has already exposed my deviance. Hasn't it? This circulation of mine is now dear reader part of your circulations. It may be copied cut and pasted wherever you will. It may be e-mailed. It may end up on the hard drive. Already its life is being mapped and recorded. I am doing that myself. This object of mine, this thought without content is an "other" as far as I am concerned. I am worried now. What if my supervisor learns that I have published a thought without content? It is no longer just me is it? The reputation of the University may be at stake.” How many other students at R.M.I.T University publish thought without content?" the opposition leader asks in the House. This artifacts politics have turned ugly. 
But I am not my thought! I know what happened. Yes yes that's it. You see in the transformations all the content must have been separated from the thought. It’ s been lost. But I can find it. You will help me won't you? That's it! We can all find it together so thoughts with content will rule once more. A triumph of pure reason


Hope you didn't mind
Kind regards to all
Jim Downing 



>>> Julian Hopkins <julianh at help.edu.my> 18/10/06 1:24 PM >>>
Hello All,

As usual I come late in the day into this - I think it's the time zone
difference and the fact I get this in 'digest form'.

Anyway...

Definition of the internet, I once tried this and came up with four elements
rather than a definition as such:

1) The physical network of cables, servers and hardware 
2) Email, chatrooms, and other types of person-to-person text based computer
mediated communications (CMC).
3) The World Wide Web (WWW): the collection of online electronic documents
and databases held in Internet servers – mostly in the form of websites.
4) Software: the browsers, programmes and protocols that enable the
transmission and retrieval of electronic data in formats that permit the
accessing and operation of elements 2 and 3, above.

* This seems similar to Robert Cannon. Also: the idea of it being an
agreement is very interesting. And I would very much agree with Christian
Fuchs who said " Without meaningful human knowledge and social activity the
internet is a dead block, useless."  

'Internetting Overall an Internet
practice may be identified as any activity related to the Internet –
however, analytically, it is important to isolate particular aspects that
are differ in kind from other similar types of activities, which I shall try
to do now - what I mean by that is - for example - an email is essentially
the same as a letter, but the consequesnce of the speed, one-to-many
possibilitiess, etc. are the differences that makes it relevant to call it
an 'internet practice'.


ANT: 
Miller & Slater affirm the Internet as an ‘actant’, allowing for ways in
which the Internet has agency. However, one criticism that might be made of
the authors is that they have failed to properly explore the possibility
that a 'meta-culture' [this is from an old piece, I was imagining some kind
of culture/social realm defined by internet-specific practices] and the
local culture proper to the person’s lived offline life articulate and
dynamically construct each other. We can see another aspect of this in the
way in which companies have to integrate the ‘front office’ with the
‘back-end’ of the company, or in cybercafés: people present at such
‘intersections’ should be the focus of detailed investigation.
Miller and Slater. “The Internet: an Ethnographic Approach.” Oxford: Berg,
2000

Regards,

Julian

++++++++++
Julian Hopkins
Senior Lecturer
HELP University College - ADP
Kuala Lumpur
tel: +60 3 2095 8791 x2913
email: julianh at help.edu.my 
web: http://www.help.edu.my

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