CENTRE FOR THE STUDY OF DEMOCRACY MA International Relations and Political Theory Politics, Power an

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CENTRE FOR THE STUDY OF DEMOCRACY MA
International Relations and Political
TheoryPolitics, Power and the MediaThe
Internet Galaxy

• Giovanni Navarria
• 20/02/2006

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Todays Lecture

• aims at making clear to all of you
• What is the Internet
• What is the Network Society.
• What is the Internet galaxy.

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What is the Internet? (1)

• The Internet is at once a world-wide
  broadcasting capability, a mechanism for
  information dissemination, and a medium for
  collaboration and interaction between individuals
  and their computers without regard for geographic
  location. (Leiner et al, 1997.)

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What is the Internet? (2)

• The term Internet refers to the global
  information system that i) is logically linked
  together by a globally unique address space based
  on the Internet Protocol (IP) or its subsequent
  extension/follows-ons ii) is able to support
  communications using the Transmission Control
  Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) suite or its
  subsequent extensions/follows-ons, and/or other
  IP-compatible protocols and iii) provides, uses
  or makes accessible, either publicly or
  privately, high-level services layered on the
  communications and related infrastructure
  described herein. Federal Networking Council
  (FNC) on the 24th of October 1995

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What is the Internet? (3)
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What is the Internet? Types of Networks
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On the Blackboard

• Manuel Castells, The Culture of Real
  Virtuality', in The Rise of The Network Society
  pp. 327-375.
• Leiner et al, A brief history of the Internet.

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Net History 3 Characteristics

• 1) US government played a major role in the birth
  of the internet.
• 2) Not only science, but creative and bold
  imagination is at the base of its open networking
  culture.
• 3) The invention of many of its applications, one
  for all the World Wide Web, was accidental. The
  impact of these unintentional discoveries has
  often exceeded the expectations of their
  creators.

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Two Names for All

• Joseph Carl Robert Licklider
• Tim Berners Lee.

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Man Computer Symbiosis

• The philosophy behind the Internet is rooted into
  the study of the interaction between man and
  computers
• J. C. R. Licklider wrote in his 1960 worldly
  famous seminal and highly influential paper
  ManComputer Symbiosis, that the hope is that,
  in not too many years, human brains and computing
  machines will be coupled together very tightly,
  and that the resulting partnership will think as
  no human brain has ever thought and process data
  in a way not approached by the information-handlin
  g machines we know today.

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Lickliders Experiment

• about 85 per cent of human being thinking time
  was spent into a position to think, to make a
  decision, to learn something he needed to know.
  Much more time went into finding or obtaining
  information than into digesting it Licklider,
  1990,

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The World Wide Web (1)

• The WWW is based upon a defined set of three
  basic rules of protocols - the Universal Resource
  Identifiers (URIs or URL), the Hypertext Transfer
  Protocol (HTTP) and the Hypertext Mark-up
  Language (HTML).
• In the 80s, the Internet was a network of
  unrelated information resource and in order to
  make sense of that chaos, and finally to make the
  network accessible by everybody, what was needed
  was a userfriendly software capable to relate
  data, to create a space in which anything that
  is to say any bit of data could be linked to
  anything (Tim Berners-Lee . 1999 4)

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The World Wide Web (2)

• An ideal place where, in the words of
  Berners-Lee, people could easily express
  themselves, quickly acquire and convey knowledge,
  overcome misunderstandings and reduce duplication
  of effort. This would give people in a group a
  new power to build something together. The
  Intention was that the Web be used as a personal
  information system, and a group tool on all
  scales, from the team of two creating a flyer for
  the local primary school play to the world
  population deciding on ecological issues.
  (Berners-Lee, 1999 174-75)

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The Network Society

• A network is a set of interconnected nodes and
  a node is the point where the curve intersects
  itself. A network has no center, just nodes.
  Nodes only exist and function as components of
  networks. The network is the unit, not the node.
  (Castell, 2004a 3)

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The Network Society

• Being digital has now become the ontological
  condition, the sine qua non of existence for
  anyone living within the realm of the network
  society who is in is in a more advantageous
  powerful one could say position of who is out.
  If you are outside the network says Manuel
  Castells you don't even exist. In fact, more
  precisely, those who are left out inhabit what
  Castells calls the black holes of informational
  capitalism.

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The Internet Galaxy

• Manuel Castells argues we have now left the
  Gutenberg Galaxy and we have now entered a new
  world of communication the Internet Galaxy.
  (Castells 2001)
• At the basis of his argument there are two key
  factors 1) we live in the information age and
  2) the internet is the technological basis of our
  world.

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The Internet and the Public Sphere

• Is it the internet the new hope for a renewal of
  the public sphere?

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The Internet and PS

• the Internet is used to broaden the space of
  freedom where to articulate for instance the
  defence of human rights, and to propose
  alternative views in the political debate it is
  already the locus of a new public agora where
  people across borders, people from different
  cultures and different nations, are brought
  together and in that public agora they have the
  chance to voice their concerns and share their
  hopes.

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Internet and Public Sphere

• Early-enthusiasts of the internet have seen in
  experiences such as Minnesota e-Democracy
  project, Amsterdam Digital City and Slashdot web
  community the perfect examples of these rising
  public spheres.

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Internet and Public Sphere

• In fall 1994 a citizen group of computer
  enthusiasts created the Minnesota E-Democracy
  Project, an electronic meeting space where
  candidates could answer public questions and
  critique their opponents and where citizens could
  find detailed information on Minnesota politics,
  comment on the candidates, and discuss the
  democratic process. The initiative was the
  nation's first statewide political debate
  conducted in cyberspace. All the candidates for
  governor (and later the candidates for the U.S.
  Senate) participated in the electronic debate.

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Internet and Public Sphere

• De Digitale Stad (DDS) the Amsterdams Digital
  City (19942000) a community network, designed
  as a democracy enhancing tool, where electronic
  citizens would meet, learn, live and exchanged
  information.
• In brief a new form of public sphere combining
  local institutions, grassroots organizations, and
  internet technology in the development of
  cultural expression and civic participation
  whose dream was wiped away by the crisis of the
  dotcom companies.
• The early years of the DDS were of expansion and
  rising fame the Digital City with its digital
  citizens, digital squares, meetings and houses,
  was quite a successful experiment, realising the
  dream of a free commune over the Internet but
  the commercial interests over the dot.com boom of
  the late nineties, pushed the managers of the DDS
  to transform it into an holding (The Digital City
  Holding Pvt Ltd that would provide a series of
  commercial services through the web). This move
  caused a growing tension between the new role of
  DDS and the original goals of the community
  network (Castells 2001 152) This tension was
  the death of the DDS

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The Internet and Public Sphere

• The Slashdot web community is a website with an
  interesting motto news for nerds, stuff that
  matter. It is a good example of Habermas
  idealtypical model of public sphere
• Three major features of habermas model can be
  identified in it - universal access, rational
  debate, and a disregard for rank. see
  http//slashdot.org/about.shtml

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THE TOP FIVE MOST POPULAR INTERNET ACTIVITIES
(PERCENTAGE OF AMERICAN USERS)

• 2000 2001 2002
• E-mail and instant messaging 81.6 87.9
  87.9
• Web surfing or browsing 81.7 76.3 76.0
• Reading news 56.6 47.6 51.9
• Accessing entertainment information 54.3
  47.9 46.4
• Shopping and buying online 50.7 48.9 44.5
• The top 6-10 online activities for 2002 6.
  Hobbies (43.7) 7. Travel information (36.2)
  8. Medical information (35.5) 9. Playing games
  (26.5) 10. Tracking credit cards (24.2).
• Source UCLA (2003),

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The Internet in Everyday Life

• In The Internet in Everyday Life Barry Wellman
  and Bernie Hogan, quoting recent researches,
  sustain that computer networks actively support
  interpersonal and interorganizational social
  networks. Far from the Internet pulling people
  apart, online social networks often bring them
  closer together. And according to Wellman and
  Hogan, Internet users are more likely
• to read newspapers,
• to discuss important matters with their spouses
  and close friends,
• to form neighbourhood associations, vote and
  participate in sociable offline activities.
• The more they meet in-person or by telephone, the
  more they use the Internet to communicate.
• Extroverts are especially likely to embrace the
  ways in which the Internet gives them an extra
  and efficient means of community. However,
  introverts can feel overloaded and alienated

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Information on the Internet Is it Reliable and
Accurate? (Users Age 18 and above)
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Arpanet

• The very first large scale computer network was
  ARPANET, a project started under the direction of
  Robert Taylor, founded by the Advanced Research
  Projects Agency (ARPA) The first million dollar
  to build the Arpanet arrived on February 1966.
• The first four nodes of the ARPANET Network were
  University of California Los Angeles (UCLA),
  University of California Santa Barbabra (UCSB),
  University of Utah, and Stanford Research
  Institute (SRI) and the first installation, at
  UCLA, was set for September 1, 1969.

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The Arpanet in 1969
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The Arpanet in 1977
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The World Wide Web (3)

• From its birthday, Christmas Day 1990 , the Web
  has greatly evolved from being a simple
  browser-editor to a wider, metaphorical
  representation of our society and its potentials.
  It is not a computer or a single network, it is
  not a physical thing that existed in a certain
  place. It is a space in which information can
  and does exist. (Berners-Lee, 1999 39)

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Key Points

• Accidental the invention of many of the internet
  applications, one for all the World Wide Web,
  were accidents or, at the best, thought for
  individual use the original Berners Lee goal
  was to have a tool to map out every ongoing
  project at CERN and the resources connected to
  that project. The impact of the network and of
  these accidental inventions not only in the
  network, but also in every days life, has often
  overcome the expectations of their creators.

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Key Points

• Process of Commercialization in the last ten
  years, the business community has surely played a
  major role in the evolution of the Internet, in
  fact by starting a process of commercialization,
  or, to be more precise, an unmasked attempt of
  exploitation of the Web for commercial purposes,
  it has de facto speeded up the digital
  revolution.

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Some References

• Barry Wellman Physical Place and CyberPlace The
  Rise of Personalized Networking in the
  International Journal of Urban and Regional
  Research 25 (2001). Special Issue on "Networks,
  Class and Place," edited by Talja Blokland and
  Mike Savage.
• Barry Wellman, 2004, Living Networked in a Wired
  World, in http//www.chass.utoronto.ca/wellman
• Berners, Lee T., 1999, Weaving the web the past
  present and future of the world wide web, London
  Orion Business Books
• Castells, M. (1996), The Rise of Network Society,
  Maine Blackwell Publishers
• Gates, Bill, 1995, The Road Ahead, London
  Viking.
• Leiner, Barry M., Vinton G. Cerf, David D. Clark,
  Robert E. Kahn, Leonard Kleinrock, Daniel C.
  Lynch, Jon Postel, Larry G. Roberts, Stephen
  Wolff, (1997), A Brief History of the Internet,
  available at www.isoc.org/internet/history/brief.
  shtml. Last time checked 24/06/2004
• Licklider, J.C.R., 1990 (1960), Man-Computer
  Symbiosis, IRE Transactions on Human Factors in
  Electronics, vol. HFE-1, March 1960, pp 4-11.
  Reprinted in In Memoriam J.C.R. Licklider
  19151990, Digital Equipment Corporation System
  Research Center, 7 August 1990, available at
  http//gatekeeper.research.compaq.com/pub/DEC/SRC/
  research-reports/abstracts/src-rr-061.html or at
  http//memex.org/licklider.pdf
• Kleinrock, L., N.D., The Day the Infant Internet
  Uttered its First Words, retrieved from Leonard
  Kleinrocks homepage http//www.lk.cs.ucla.edu/fir
  st_words.html. (Last time checked 29/06/2004)
• Marcuse, H., (1964) 1991, One Dimensional Man
  London Routledge
• UCLA Internet Report, (2003), Surveying the
  Digital Future Year Three, UCLA Center for
  Communication Policy, available at
  www.digitalcenter.org