Please get started, if you haven’t already done so, with your study and reading of chapter 9 “Digital Media: Widening the Web.”
Here are some notes/comments related to that chapter.
The man who invented the World Wide Web, widely known as the eighth major mass medium of communication, keeps a pretty low profile. Some have described British physicist Tim Berners-Lee as a kind of geeky genious. Bet few if any of you had ever heard about him before taking our course. Nevertheless, know who he is and what his motives were for inventing this revolutionary new mass medium of communication.
The inventor of the World Wide Web, in my opinion, deserves as many plaudits as Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell or the Wright brothers. But for Berners-Lee, you wouldn’t be reading this message from me right now!
If you’re Web savvy, and I presume that many of you are, you’ll become reacquainted (through reading chapter 9) with such important terms as HTML, HTTP, convergence, links, public domain, SMS, social network, podcast, blog, Net neutrality, intellectual property rights, file sharing, cloud computing, data compression and touch technology.
Other important material/areas covered in this chapter are noted in the list of “Key Terms” at the bottom of page 202 and at the top of page 203.
Be sure, too, to be able to answer the “Critical Questions” at the end of this chapter on pg. 201.
Providing a technological framework for the World Wide Web have been: Media convergence and how miniaturization and digitization technology came together; fiber optic cables; and broadband (high speed) online service.
Important public policy issues connected with the World Wide Web include: 1) whether the government should guarantee everyone has Web access; 2) whether the Web should be policed/filtered for objectionable content; 3) whether the Web crosses the line between the public’s right to know and the individual’s right to privacy; 4) creating a false sense of intimacy and interaction among users. Some also refer to this as high-tech/low touch society or culture: and 5)copyright/intellectual property rights (Time permitting, we may briefly discuss these crucial public policy issues during class.)
No one really knows where the Web is going and/or what it might morph into in the coming years. Some scientists are hard at work on digitizing sense of touch or smell or tactile sensation (see discussion of Touch Technology on page 199.) What of the possibilities concerning slipping into some sort of special garment, hooking our garment-dressed selves to a Web-connected computer and then . . .? This is not pie in the sky stuff. It’s already under development.
Oh, by the way, notice how “Web” is always capitalized. Make sure you always capitalize this important medium of mass communication.
How many of you use social media? Here's a brief clip of how social media have rapidly evolved on the Internet:
Enough for now.
More about the Web in another post from me. Keep checking my blog.
Larry Timbs
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