ISBN: 9781560725770

The central questions around which this book revolves are whether or not communication mediated through technology constitutes so-called real interaction and whether the establishment of … Plus…

The central questions around which this book revolves are whether or not communication mediated through technology constitutes so-called real interaction and whether the establishment of real community is possible solely through electronic technology. Here real is defined as meaningful to the participants, as meaningful as face-to-face interaction, and the special case under consideration is communication through the computer Matrix. At present there is not one system, technical or cultural, which can accurately be called the Internet. A more accurate statement is that there are multiple systems and purposes within the rubric of internetworking. At a basic level, the computer Matrix serves two distinct purposes and utilizes several formats for accomplishing those purposes. The first purpose is information gathering and/or providing, which can be accomplished through Gopher, FTP (file transfer protocol) or HTTP (hypertext transfer protocol), also known as WWW (World Wide Web, or simply The Web). The second purpose is human-to-human communication, (computer-mediated communication, CMC), which can be accomplished, in general, through E-mail (electronic mail), IRC (internet Relay Chat), Usenet, Fidonet, and MUD's (multi-user dungeons, also referred to as MOOs -- Muds, ObjectOriented and sometimes Tiny-or-TeenyMUD).Of the formats listed above, this book examines IRC, Usenet and Fidonet for three main reasons. First, these communication processes are multi-user and two-way. Second the are publicly accessible trough local gateway providers. Third, they are non-fantasy based. Media > Book<