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Introduction to Mass Communication. For educational purposes only.
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• The Internet– So simple even a child can use it. But how do we define it? A
magical portal? A gathering place? A series of tubes?
• Since there’s no tubes, let’s come up with a better definition:– The Internet is a worldwide network of computers.
• That’s it. But this network has changed the world.
• It can now be found in almost any place on the planet, even a taco stand in Mexico.
• But it’s more than that – it’s also changed how we communicate. Instead of mass communication, we’re now communicating between some or many.
• OK, some basics:– Internet site -- Where
an institution or individual establishes its Web presence.
– This could be anything from the federal government or Exxon to your own personal blog.
– This is the site of an Internet company in Israel.
• To see how the Internet began, we need to understand about early computers, which sometimes took up a whole room. This is a Univac from 1951.
• Semiconductors changed that.
• They are small silicon chips that digitize any data as a stream of on-off switches -- 1 for on, 0 for off.
• Walter Brattain, Jack Bardeen and William Shockley devised them in 1947.
• Semiconductors allowed data to be sent fast. Microchips allowed them to work even faster with little space.
• Jack Kilby, a Dallas resident from Texas Instruments, invented the microchip as well as the pocket calculator.
• He won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 2000.
• Compression– Technology that makes
a message more compact by deleting nonessential underlying code.
– Used in phone wires, allowing 51 calls to be carried on same wire.
– Dramatically increased nation’s phone capacity without adding a single wire.
• Miniaturization– Computers went from
the size of a room to fitting on your lap because of miniaturization.
– One corporation says one day all information from past 10,000 years will be stored in a six-foot cube. Library of Congress would take up two inches of space.
• ARPAnet– Advanced Research
Projects Agency Network created by Pentagon in 1969 to exchange information between contractors and universities.
– This is a 1971 map of the network.
• NSFnet– National Science
Foundation took over from Pentagon in 1983
– Expanded no. of universities, institutions could have access to this “supercomputer” to exchange information.
– By 1988, user numbers doubled in three months.
• Data packets– Made Internet system
work more efficiently.
– Data packets are clumps of digital data broken out of a larger package for transmission.
– The packets are disassembled and reassembled in a way to maximize efficiency.
• Vint Cerf, Bob Kahn– The problem with the
Internet at the time was allowing all the networks to talk to each other.
– These two UCLA researchers devised the Transmission Control Protocol, or TCP, that connects individual computer systems to the Internet.
• Fiber optics– Developed by Corning
Glass in 1960s.
– Fiber-optic cable are glass strands that can carry data as light, which could be sent theoretically at speed of light, or 186,000 miles per second.
– Not only improved Internet, but cable TV and phone service too.
• Streaming– Fiber optics allowed
much larger amounts of material to be sent.
– It paved the way for streaming video.
– Streaming is a technology that allows playback of a message to begin before all the components have arrived.
• Commercialization– Mead Data Central, an
Ohio company, was one of first to find a profit source on Net.
– In 1973, it started Lexis, which was a database of legal decisions for lawyers to have quick access.
– Nexis in 1978 added databases of newspapers, magazines.
• Internet Service Providers– In 1980s, companies
began starting up that would allow the public to access this network of supercomputers for a fee.
– CompuServ was the first, and Prodigy was an early favorite.
– Soon, though, America Online, or AOL, became the dominant company because of its ease of use.
• Did Al Gore invent the Internet?– No.
– But he was a vocal proponent of it as a senator in the 1980s.
– In 1991, he spearheaded a bill that would expand fiber-optic network and encourage the Internet, or “information superhighway” as he called it, to thrive.
– In 1999, Gore said he “took the initiative in creating the Internet,” which people mistook for inventing it.
• Tim Berners-Lee– British engineer who in
1991 devised a system that would give an address to every Internet site in the world.
– System had three parts:• Universal resource
locators, or URL
• Hypertext transfer protocol, or HTTP
• Hypertext markup language, or HTML
• HTTP is the coding that allows computers to connect.
• It begins the URL, which is the address of the site itself.
• HTML is the language that’s used as code for Web pages, telling it when to bold or italicize text, or even what color or where images or video should be.
• These are HTML earrings. Head defines what the document contains.
• Hypertext was created by Ted Nelson.
• His 1962 book Literary Machines envisioned a time when people wouldn’t read in a linear way but interrupt themselves with related thoughts.
• The Internet allowed that to happen, and his term “hypertext” stuck.
• Web browsers– In 1993, Marc
Andreessen developed Mosaic, the first Web browser.
– The software easily allowed access to anyone’s Web sites.
– Later, he co-founded Netscape, the first browser that could be used on a Mac or a PC.
• Dot-com boom– Dot-com became
shorthand for Internet commercial sites because they ended in .com.
– The 1990s saw an explosion of new material and new interest in the Internet.
– As a result, investors poured in money and many millions were made.
• Dot-com bust– In 1999-2000, a
number of those Internet startups went under, causing a national recession.
• Google– The Bay Area
company bucked that trend not by adding new content, but by searching for other content.
– With the Internet growing exponentially, Google made it easy for people to search for what they wanted.
– Ads sold with searches helped make Google $50 billion in 2007.
• Wireless– Anyone could hook up to
the Internet, but in recent years, wireless technology has taken off.
– Wireless fidelity, or wi-fi, allows computers to receive Internet access through radio waves.
– Now Starbucks, hotels, conference rooms, libraries, rest stops have wireless. Even this room probably has it.
• Muni Wireless– Some see wireless
technology as a service to buy and sell on the open market.
– However, others see wireless as a public utility, such as electricity and water.
– Some communities have established citywide wireless access, including Addison, Texas, north of Dallas.
• Bandwidth– The space available in
a medium to carry messages.
– As more people use the Internet, bandwidth must expand to accommodate demand.
– Ultrawideband, or UWB, uses existing frequencies but with much less power.
• Mesh networking– Future wireless options
include dynamic routing, where every device acts as a sender and receiver for other devices.
– Mesh networking, another name for dynamic routing, could be 15 times faster than DSL service.
• Blogs– A Web site, generally,
personal in nature, on a narrow subject – short for “Web log”
– Blogs have put a great deal of power into the hands of regular people. Anyone can create a blog and have a voice on anything: movies, politics, the media – you name it.
• Josh Marshall– Author and creator of
liberal blog talkingpointsmemo.com.
– In 2002, Marshall hammered Senate leader Trent Lott for comments about Strom Thurmond.
– The writing created a groundswell against Lott, who ended up resigning his leadership position.
• Matt Drudge– Creator of the blog The
Drudge Report, which has become influential in Washington
– Broke story of Monica Lewinsky scandal affecting President Clinton in 1998
– Popularized aggregates of news, meaning list of links to other sites about what’s happening
• Markos Moulitsas– Better known to the
blogging world as “Kos” of the site Daily Kos.
– An Army vet and Web designer, he started a blog to galvanize liberals in 2002.
– Has now become most influential liberal blog, which includes fundraising for Democratic candidates
• Adam Brickley– Started Web site in
2007 helping draft Sarah Palin for Vice President, a year before she was actually picked.
– Blog started to raise profile of Palin.
– Once chosen as Republican VP nominee, Palin thanked Brickley for his work.
• Democracy vs. Accuracy– Blogging’s strength is that it’s the essence of democracy –
everyone can have a voice. It is Milton’s “marketplace of ideas” in its purest form.
– Weakness is that anyone can say anything, whether it’s true or not. As a result, it’s easy to mislead users with false information. Users have to determine whether a site or even a posting is believable.
• YouTube– Created in 2005 by three
former PayPal employees.
– Allowed users to display their own videos.
– Caused a pop culture sensation in mere months.
– Also led to constant fights over copyright infringement.
– Bought by Google in 2006 for $1.65 billion.
• YouTube Debate– Became so popular that CNN joined YouTube in a
2007 presidential debate. Questions were posted on YouTube by regular citizens.
• Convergence– Melding of print, electronic, photographic,
other media together into digitized form
• Digital Divide– The gap in accessing
information between those who can afford Internet and those who can’t.
– 72 percent of adult Americans have broadband access
– However, 46 percent of low-income Americans have it.
– In some parts of the world, the technology is unavailable.
• $100 laptop– One idea for bridging
the digital divide is the $100 laptop.
– The idea comes from a U.S. nonprofit called One Laptop Per Child that aims to give children around the world access to information.