Christina Folkard
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The Medium is Shaping Us
Traditional systems of writing are no match for the web
The traditional systems of writing and publishing, that apply mainly to newspapers, books, and magazines has been supplanted by a new content provider- the internet- and its web authors. Nearly 13 years ago now, Time magazine ran an article explaining that the internet would never go mainstream because “it was not designed for doing commerce, and it does not accommodate new arrivals.” Another reputable traditional writing source ran an even more doubtful headline in February 1995: “The Internet: Bah!”. Today, these traditional authors may or may not have lost their skepticism but their media have changed beyond recognition.
Presently, at any web terminal, you can become an author or interact with the screen. Publishing takes place everyday and everywhere with no definite boundaries or publication dates. There are no strict rules and documents move in all ways and vary greatly in form. There are no more traditional authors. Anyone, anywhere can host a website or gain access to other publications on the web.
The Internet is radically enhancing our access to information. It has given us all the opportunity to share our ideas with the world.
You can click on any hypertext and be sent across the internet to an amazing video or soundtrack, a constantly updated encyclopedia, minute by minute weather forecasts and breaking news, satellite images, real estate listings, virtual worlds, sports scores, library catalogues, picture albums--all included in this interactive index of the web. With today’s participatory Web sites, like A World Community of Old Trees, children around the world can e-mail their art work to create a collaborative project. Their work becomes part of a global digital gallery of images and personal text. Indeed, they can send in text files of their personal stories and poems and sound files of their favorite songs.
A platform for speech has allowed anyone’s voice to thrive online, freed of limitations inherent in other media that was once created by traditional gatekeepers. There is no censorship and copyright guidelines that are associated with traditional forms of medium. People become their own editors and are free from the restraints followed on the printed page.
The web is also available to any individual outside the mass media realm. One does not have to go through a publisher or media institution and readership can be found all over the globe. Certainly this can be seen in countless personal pages as well as small family network sites and small businesses that are facilitated by web hosting services and advertising providers.
Everything on the internet is public. Blogging itself has transformed journalism, personal, and professional communities into completely unrestricted places to do business and communicate. More and more corporations today are now launching blogs. According to a survey done by Backbone Media, the top three priorities for starting the blog are:
1: ‘another way to publish content and ideas'
2: 'Thought leadership'
3: 'Build a community'
Today, the internet has provided a platform for people to publish ideas, display leadership abilities and build a stronger community. To view the complete table of all the advantages and results along with the total calculated percentage for each response, click here.
In response to this opened environment however, it is not surprising that guidelines would be created. The American Management Association's published a book called Blog Rules in July 2006 in order to clarifying the risks and rights bosses have when battling employees over e-Mails, ims & blogs.
However, the Electronic Frontier Foundation defends the Internet as a platform for free speech and believes that when you go online, your rights should come with you. This is important in preserving the Internet's open architecture. It is critical to sustaining free speech. As written in the censorship section of the website, “if laws can censor you, limit access to certain information, or restrict use of communication tools, then the Internet's incredible potential will go unrealized.”
Hyperlinks have created a new level of interaction and involvement that was once unimaginable. In addition, it promotes a non-hierarchical and non-linear way of expressing and thinking. People are able to transform reading into a navigating and learning process. Clicking on links provides an always changing asymmetrical data flow. Unlike books and printed documents, hypertext has no chronological order. There are no chapters, sections, outlines, etc. Hyperlinks, have provided a seamless and effortless connection for people on the web to navigate with. Anyone can annotate, amend and improve or upload, download and interact with any webpage out there.
There has been an large increase in global unity of publishing once inconceivable just 20 years ago. The exponential growth of the internet has increased the different kinds of information available and has made access to the most foreign and primitive places attainable. If you chose to travel to a small town in Spain, years ago you may not have any idea what it would be like until you arrived. Today, local newspapers government publications and other medias are easily accessible and effortless to obtain, by internet users along with videos and up-to-date images from your desired location.
People may not need to read traditional publications anymore to follow up on what is happening in the war at the moment. Rather can click on numerous videos from soldiers abroad providing footage of each days events and individual stories.
This new medium can also learn about you. In traditional writing sources, we learn only from the source itself. Taking what we please from the published data and providing our own opinions on the stated text. Today, the internet is a little more crafty, and in my opinion ingenious. The new medium learns just as much about you as you learn about it. As you surf the web or click on links, the web tracks your results and past visitations of readings and sites. Some hosted sites such as MSN create a very personal profile for you so next time you log on, it will suggest specific sites to visit or articles and links to read. Ultimately in the end, it shapes what you see and read.
People have ventured out from their walled communities and into the internet’s public space. As written by Philip Elmer-Dewitt on March 15, 2005 “It's a process similar to the one that created the suburbs and replaced the great cities with shopping malls and urban sprawl. The magic of the Net is that it thrusts people together in a strange new world, one in which they get to rub virtual shoulders with characters they might otherwise never meet.” Ultimately, people who use the internet are challenged to battle, join or wage in order to control a certain portion of the net. Parents may carve out a safe place on the net for their children to interact with while college students may join private study groups online. Grandparents may be able to immediately see the first pictures of their new born grandson on a family album site while video gamers gain access to competitors in an interactive way once never conceived.
As Marshall McLuhan speaks about in his ideas of the medium- new media change people’s perception of the world. The internet can and will ultimately change the way we perceive and think about things in this world. What separates us from reality and the abstract world of the net is merely a complex system of electronic circuitry and binary codes. We readily suspend our disbeliefs and dive into the ocean of the internet world without reservation- typing, talking, shopping, drawing, learning, gaming, staring for hours on end, all connected by this web of people. However, although we may embrace these new global innovations and worldwide ways of communicating, the sea of intellect has and will continue to flourish in a whole new realm of competition.