The Internet:Mass Communication Gets Personal

Resource Textbook:Ralph E. Hanson, Mass Communication: Living in a Media WorldComic: Duty Calls, http://xkcd.com/386/

In this lecture:• Development of the Internet.• Birth of the World Wide Web.• The Media and Online Entertainment• Internet and Society

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 then

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

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. Doug Englebart.

• Hypertext. Ted Nelson.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.

Who is on the Web?• Traditional news media: CNN, USA Today, NPR• Movies and television: Hulu, Netflix, YouTube

movie Trailers and Youtube stations.• New media: Slate, Huffington Post, Daily

Beast• Aggregator sites: Google, Yahoo, AOL

Video Games as Mass Communication• Mario and Sonic—Video game stars• Video game consoles as media content

devices• 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• Death of Neda Agha-Sotan

Cyberspace• Taken from word cybernetics—the science

of communication and control theory.• Originally used by William Gibson in a 1982

magazine story – then in Neuromancer.• 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

Digital Media – Ethical Issues• Social Justice • Privacy• Intellectual Property (Fair Use)• E-Commerce (Online Gambling)• Free Speech• Computer Abuse• The Environment

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?