The net can be seen as “open architecture” in the sense that it is constantly open, and there are no plans for it to finish being built. Additionally, it is open for all users of the internet to add and build on. In my opinion, the internet has become more “open” as it has progressed because the online population are constantly contributing to the internet as a whole, networks are expanding. “The quantity of human labour and ingenuity that has gone into building net-based communication systems in a very short space of time is unprecedented.” (Lister page 164.) This quote sums up how the expansion of networks and online communicating or CMC has worked in unison to create such a massive online construction. XXXXX
Within this construction I think there is something that could be described as a hierarchy of authority within the structure of the internet today. Big businesses and more established sites will have more power within what they are adding onto the internet, they are the sites which were able to initially start building upon the foundations of the internet. However, with the large expansion of different networks more and more sites and networks are able to contribute to the “architecture”. There is so much information on the internet; unlike other media information is supplied in so many more ways rather than just one channel.
In relation to Lister … Is the internet just one big architectural base? Or has by users being given their chance to build upon this base, created many more?
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Good question at the end there...
ReplyDeleteI imagine the Internet to be one big architectural base, but one that has many sub-bases coming off it.
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Big businesses with their well developed sites do have great power, but I also think that peoples' personal sites (such as these on blogger) combined can have just as great a power depending on what is communicated/published on them.
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The more the Internet develops, the more chance of these little sub bases being built upon, thus expanding the Internet's one big base.
Yes I would too say there is only one real base as the internet, but it has been built in such a way it expands is so many different forms! XXXXX Also, social sites are having a great deal more of an impact on this 'architectural base' that what they did a few years ago.
ReplyDeleteHi, -about power.
ReplyDeleteDon't you think that the real power now is making info findable? This is in part why Google is now more powerful than Microsoft. Another level of 'finding' is knowing how to promote your site -and being able to afford to do it. Yet another is being able to identify 'quality'.
If you think of the Inet as like a road/rail/waterway system and sites as like places on the system with info as like goods being stored or transported, it's easy to see that anyone might get on the 'road' and go anywhere -but what constitutes an attractive destination, or a worthwhile product to carry isn't about the roadway, or any single element of the system.