Chapter 10 The Internet: Mass Communication Gets Personal.

Chapter 10The Internet:

Mass Communication Gets Personal

What is the Internet?

• “A diverse set of independent networks, interlinked to provide its users with the appearance of a single, uniform network.”

• A mass medium incorporating elements of interpersonal, group, and mass communications.

Development of the Internet

• How do we make incompatible computers talk with each other?

• How do we share information?• Can we maintain military communication after

nuclear war? (But this system was never built!)

Packet Switching

• 1964: Paul Baran develops decentralized computer network for Air Force.

• Messages are broken into small data packets.• Packets are sent independently across the

network.• Receiving computer reassembles message.• But Air Force doesn’t build this network.• Donald Davies proposes similar civilian network

for Britain. Also not built.

How Packet Switching Works

ARPAnet

• Pentagon’s Advanced Research Projects Agency

• Networking incompatible computers across the country

• Went online in 1969, same year as the moon landing

Connecting Incompatible Networks

• ARPAnet led to multiple packet-switching networks

• How do you link them together?• Bob Kahn and Vint Cerf created rules for

networks to communicate with each other

The Internet

• TCP/IP—Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol How data are transmitted and how computers can locate each other.

• InternetInternetworking of networks.

Interpersonal Communicationon the Internet

• Electronic mail (e-mail)A message sent from one computer user to another across a network.

• Instant message (IM)An e-mail system that allows two or more users to chat with one another in real time.

Group Communicationon the Internet

• ListservsAn Internet discussion group made up of subscribers that use e-mail to exchange messages between members of the group.

• UsenetThe original Internet discussion forum that covers thousands of specialized topics.

Mass Communicationon the Internet

• Predecessors of the Web• Hypertext

Material in a format containing links that allow the reader to move from one section to another and from one document to another.

Tim Berners-Lee and the Web

• Enquire Within Upon Everything• Wouldn’t it be a good idea to be able to share

documents located on computers anywhere in the world?

• Created the World Wide Web and gave the software away for free.

Major Components of the Web

• Uniform resource locator (URL)The address of the content placed on the Web.

• Hypertext transfer protocol (http)The standard set of rules for sending Web content over the Internet.

• Hypertext markup language (HTML)The programming language used to describe the content on Web pages.

Key Web Principles

• One address to take users to a document.• Everything should be accessible/linkable.• Any type of data should be available on any

type of computer.• The Web should be a tool for interaction, not

just publication.• No central control.

Accessing the Web

• Mosaic—The first graphical Web browser• Growth of high-speed continuous (broadband)

access to the broadband Internet access• Expansion of mobile access to Internet

Who is on the Web?

• Traditional news media: CNN, USA Today, NPR• Movies and television: Promotion of short-

head content and distribution of long-tail content

• New media: Slate, Huffington Post, Daily Beast• Aggregator sites: Google, Yahoo, AOL

Video Games as Mass Communication

• Video game consoles as media content devices

• Mario, Sonic and Master Sergeant—Video game stars

• New venue for advertising• Profitable part of popular culture• Major element of media synergy

Giving Individuals a Voice

• Online media makes everyone a publisher.• Wikipedia

A crowd-sourced encyclopedia.• Weblogs (blogs)

A collection of links and commentary in hypertext form.

• Is search a medium?

Long-Tail Online News

• Citizen journalism• Sharing news through social media• Mobile phone video

The Hacker Ethic

• “Access to computers should be unlimited and total.”

• “All information wants to be free.”• “Mistrust authority—promote

decentralization.”• People should be judged by skills, not by

“bogus criteria such as degrees, age, race, or position.”

Cyberspace

• Taken from word cybernetics—the science of communication and control theory.

• Originally used in 1982 magazine story by William Gibson.

• Gibson also coined cyberpunk—a style of writing and movies that deal with the blurring of the lines between humans and computers.

Community on the Net

• Less than 25 percent of world has Internet access.

• Digital divide: Affluent communities have more access to Internet than do poorer and rural communities.

• Mobile media starting to bridge gap

Conflicts Over Digital Media

• Controlling online content• Privacy and the Web• Is the online world where we want to be?

Media Convergence

• Bringing together traditional legacy media with online media

• Reverse synergy:When you get the worst of both by combining old and new media

• Moving from media outlets to brands:Is the New York Times a newspaper or a brand of news?