Good series of questions.

I guess the interesting thing to me is why the hell people 
need to construct using the Internet as a spatial thing 
in the first place?

We don't talk of 'phone space' or 'TV space'.

So if I can cheat here, I'd say Cyber'space' is affected 
by the intersection of at least four factors. 

Firstly, by the use of offline space 
Secondly, by the use of the 'locale' for the reduction of 
communicative ambiguity.
Thirdly, by the structures of communication employed online and
Fourthly, by the use of space metaphors as a topos for persuasion, 

Offline space effects online space in that it gives the routes for 
wires, and the relevant social boundaries which affect the 
composition of the different types of offline groups (ethnic, 
class, politcal or subcultural, etc) which influences the composition 
of online groups, and the ways that people interpret each others 
messages. 

These offline space factors determine ease of access, delay, time 
of day people are online etc and therefore also affects the 
population composition of online groups which in turn gives the 
sense of the group's space through the emails or message they emit. 
(ie this is a way of saying onine groups develop cultures, and these
cultures are not independent of the offline world)

Offline the 'locale' often gives indications of expected behaviour, 
(ie bank, public park, person's home etc) which allows interpretation 
of communication, and a similar idea becomes important in the 
construction of Cyberspace, as is the distinction made between 
locales of public and private action - and the behaviour allowed 
and expected there.  The ambiguities which arise are part of the 
dynamics of onlilne life.

Online 'space' is also created by the structures of communication 
(ie whether the online forum is a Mailing List, MOO, Newsgroup etc) 
and the patterns of naming and exchange which eventuate.  
For example, people on a List define list locale by the volume 
and style of their posts and this might be quite different from 
other lists - giving it a sense of place and hence (to us) a sense of space.

The involvement of communicative organization in the construction 
of space means that List space differs from MOO space and from 
Web space and has consequences for the kinds of social action 
and conflict which can easily eventuate.  

Online social space in many ways revitalizes the metaphorical 
similarity between topic and place which features in the 
rhetoric of Aristotle (ok :).  Topos determines the method of 
persuasion, or poetic figuration which determines the nature of 
place which in turn determines topos.  Topos (topic) is a tool 
of persuasion in rhetoric theory. 

People making political arguments about the Internet, or commercial 
organisations trying to exploit the Internet, often try to define 
it as a particular type of place to mobilize the persuasive topos 
associated with that locale. ie whether it should be free or 
controlled, or how people should behave. 
For example I was on a list once where people were arguing whether 
the list was like a lounge room or a pub, in order to say what 
kind of behaviour was appropriate or allowable.

to self promote.  I wrote about this at length in:

"Cyber-space or Cyber-topos: the Creation of Online Space", 
Social Analysis, Special Issue on the Cultures of Cyberspace, 
No. 45(1), pp81-102. 

which may be completely irrelevant :)

jon




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