You can run a high volume web site for as little as $5 a month
The artist can "disintermediate" the traditional gatekeepers
Processing intensive. They aren't just about storage and transmission
Content can be customized to the end user
The end user can tell the computer what they want to see
Internet Architecture
At its simplest, there are only two key elements
The client browser
All that matters, from a mass media perspective, is that its standard across platforms
Allows you to provide content that works everywhere
The server
The content/application repository
The place where you will put your content
For the most part, everything in between (ISPs, LANs, gateways, firewalls, network backbones, etc) are a black box that you won't have any control over
The server end can get much more complicated, however
Multiple applications
Multiple servers
Layered "n-tier" architectures
The more complicated things get, however, the more Internet sites look like a newspaper
Editors, publishers, layout artists, etc
Much of it advertiser supported
Controversies
Regulation in the absence of regulatory authority
The only real "power" on the Internet is ICAHN
All they control is the name and address space
Legislative and Judicial authority
But only limited ability to police anything
This makes every other Internet issue more difficult
The internet really is still the "wild west" in some regards
Hacking, Viruses, and Denial of Service Attacks
The Internet was built with lowest common denominator protocols
They assume rational, responsible, and ethical users
Not everybody is
The Spam Arms Race
The least well secured protocol is e-mail
Anybody can make believe they are anyone else
E-Mail based SPAM exploits this weakness in the extreme
Such that it is almost impossible to distinguish legitimate e-mail from SPAM.
Some of the best artificial intelligence software is used to discard SPAM automatically
Spammers adapt
The result has been some "vigilante" efforts to reduce spam at any cost
Including the discarding of legitimate content
Everyone a Publisher
There are tens of millions of web sites
Most have dozens or hundreds of pages
Mine has thousands
This raises some real issues
No gatekeeper means no authoritative evaluation
The reader becomes more responsible for evaluation
Useful clues to evaluating web content:
Attribution
Authority
Objectivity
Currency
It also makes censorship difficult
Especially in the absence of regulatory authority
How does California prosecute Spam sent from Bulgaria
General trend:
Any time the U.S. makes something illegal on the web
It moves to another country
And is still accessible from the U.S.
Bookmaking and other forms of gambling are a prime example
Censorship remains an issue, however
Attempts to bad pornography sites have failed
Now the focus is on blocking access to those sites
The music industry is perhaps the most effective censor in this regard
File sharing and Port Blocking
Pioneered by Napster and other services
Lawsuits over alleged copyright violations shut these services down
The practice continues
Now individuals are being sued by the music industry
And schools are forestalling lawsuits by reading agreements with the industry that block the ports used for file sharing
The effect, however, is to block lots of legitimate file sharing
Redefinition of Copyright to exclude fair use
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act
Privacy
Internet protocols are often fundamentally insecure
Even if they were secure, nothing stops e-commerce sites and others from collecting large amounts of information about your Internet usage
Much is made of cookies in this regard
But you can't block your Internet address
The Digital Divide
The Internet is huge
Most of the world has no access to it at all
The Myth of Internet Addiction
A Luddite reaction to the success of a new medium
People use media because they are useful or entertaining
I've never heard people refer to interpersonal communication addition or reading addiction
Unless otherwise noted, the contents of this page
were written by participants on the Media Space Wiki, operated by Davis Foulger,
and should be cited accordingly. For example (APA): Foulger, D. and other
participants. (August 27, 2008). Com6p5 Internet Lecture. MediaSpaceWiki. Retrieved on from
http://evolutionarymedia.com/wiki.htm?Com6p5InternetLecture.
MediaSpace Wiki