8/14/2019 Seminar Presentation - Cyber Culture
1/3
07DEC98MEDIAANALYSIS, ROBERT ANDREWS
SEMINAR ON CYBERCULTURE
> INTERNET
> A small part of 'cyberspace.'Q Collection of
interconnecting computer networks.
Made possible by two things: infrastructure and protocoi.>
Infrastructure is any possible communications medium, primarily
telephone lines
(which are themselves bounced off satellites, under the
sea).Protocoi is TCP/IP, which is the common language messages are
encoded by to bepushed down the wires.
> It's not about computers. But people using computers can
talk to each other whereverthey are, if they have some channel in
between and the software to mediate the taik,like using the
telephone.
> So, we have a system by which information on any machine is
available toanyone...
> WEB
> Up until the early 90s, the information was hard to get
to./$") developed a hypertext interface to make things
easier. He showed his idea to everyone else on the Net, it
propogated and became the
worldwide web.?^Wetnsiust an Interface to information on
computers, but such a nice one that it's
become a popular publishing, broadcasting and discussion
medium.> What hypertext does is let you go from one bit of
information to another with a
single clickon a link, no matter where it is stored.So, I can go
from to without having to know thecomplicated bits that happen in
the background.Good bit: I can also go from to just as easily.
> Search engines./h ^^?o>^7S) So, as weii as making things
easier to find, this has big implications...
> GEOGRAPHY
0 With this new medium, geography is no longer important.
Everywhere is asaccessible as here.> Most accurate version of
McLuhan's 'global village.'
. ^
> The rhythms of the Earth, like the sea and the moon, have
been replaced by aheartbeat synchronised by these media, a global
time.
> Maximise Fordist production.Q Daysleeper: Planet's rhythms
are internalised in the office, where the water sits
beside things like fax machines and computers, and, in fact, the
ocean becomes amachine... we can turn on and off our working
patterns 'nighf and 'day' aren't asimportant anymore.
> Abolished the natural rhythms of the planets@ So when we
can disconnect from geography/where are_we?'~^
& CYBERSPACE
> Term coined by Gibson in Neuromancer, godfather of
cyberpunk literature.@ Irony: cyberspace doesn't exist.
Representation of 'where' people gather to communicate with
these media.
8/14/2019 Seminar Presentation - Cyber Culture
2/3
> It would be pointiess to put up a map of the world, and
overlay the connectionpoints that is the antithesis of everything
it stands for, and the networks make anypoint on the planet as
cioseby as the one next to me. Enables...
> CYBERPUNKQ
Neuromancer = Bible. 'Consensualhaiiucmats'on'
> Starts with the idea that society can on!'/ get worse.The
plots inltiaiiy appear farfetched, but we can see the roots
today.Technology and communications media have advanced, but social
relations havecollapsed, leaving a space which can be occupied the
people who are really hot atusing the tools, inhabiting these new
spaces.If information is power, those who can get it (by whatever
means) are the heroes.
c? That's where Case comes in.Criminal of the future, savvy with
cyberspace and the street.
> Hacker, or 'cowboy' [or 'jockey'] new hero of the
newfrontier.But new... can literally be in cyberspace direct
connection to nervous system.Nervous system maimed by client he was
hacking for.
> Along comes a big new client, repairs him.Toxin sacs
dissolving in arteries... he must do hack.Goes back into cyberspace
to retrieve an AI which is based all around the worid.Gets help
from his dead former hacking mentor
personality frozen when he was
maimed inside cyberspace... riaillned [metaphysical!]> >
That's cyberpunk. Hitech, hicrime, emphasis on cyberspace, which I
mentioned
earlier.
> AS MEDIA TODAYd> Internet more conservative.
Lot of publishingbased content. Now, big companies.>
Interactive, twoway medium, almost have responsibiiity to
produce.
Readers/viewers can talk back to producer, or amongst
themselves.Q
Journalism abolished. Democratic, empowering.
Questions?Who is Positive / Negative?Where is the Internet
going?
