scratch@cisunx.UUCP (Steven J Owens) (04/21/89)
Hello out there in Netland. Your help with this subject would be
greatly appreciated. This is for a final paper in a mass communications
class.
The subject of this paper is computer networks as a valid form of
mass media, and the possibility, practicality, and societal effects, of
a publicly available computer network at minimum costs.
To get one thing clear, the idea in this paper is to have computer
terminals as prevalent in society as telephones. As an example of what
I am proposing, I'm using the French computer/phone network, Minitel.
Questions:
1. Awhile back, on news.admin (or news.sysadmin) somebody posted a
quick summary of how much it would cost of have a UUCP "leaf" in every
home in america (or something along those lines). Does anybody have a
copy of this post, or of the pertinent figures, or is anybody willing to
provide me with similar information?
2 The hypothetical computer network in this paper is more like Internet
than Usenet (although bulletin boards would be an important aspect), so
does anybody have any idea what the costs for that kind of network would
be?
3. What kind of effects would this network have on society? Some of
the effects can be extrapolated from Minitel, but what about others?
How would advertising be affected? How about the effect on other media?
4. What kind of effect would this network have on the people who use
it? For example, a computer network would allow the user/recipients of
the mass media a GREAT deal more control over what he or she receives,
and would also allow two-way mass communication (since you would no
longer need a tv or radio station to become involved).
5. Other ideas? Any suggestions would be most welcome. I have most of
the rough structure and ideas I want to work with, but hard data is
welcome, as well as additional ideas.
Post to provoke followup discussions :-)
(I just hope I manage to track down all the posts! :-)
Steven J. Owens | SCRATCH@PITTVMS | (via bitnet) UUCP? Mail Path? Hah!
"...'fire' does not matter, 'earth' and 'air' and 'water' do not
matter. 'I' do not matter. No word matters. But man forgets reality
and remembers words. The more words he remembers, the cleverer do his
fellows esteem him. He looks upon the great transformations of the
world, but he does not see them as they were seen when man looked upon
reality for the first time. Their names come to his lips and he smiles
as he tastes them, thinking he knows them in the naming."
- Siddartha, _Lord_of_Light_ by Roger Zelazny
felix@swivax.UUCP (Felix van Rijn) (04/26/89)
In article <17649@cisunx.UUCP> scratch@unix.cis.pittsburgh.edu (Steven J Owens) writes: > >Hello out there in Netland. Your help with this subject would be >greatly appreciated. This is for a final paper in a mass communications >class. > >4. What kind of effect would this network have on the people who use >it? > >5. Other ideas? Any suggestions would be most welcome. Some good articles are in 'CONCERNING HOME TELEMATCS' (Felix van Rijn & Robin Williams, eds), proceedings of the IFIP TC9 Conference on Social Implications of Home Interactive Telematics -HIT- (Amsterdam, 1987), North-Holland, 1988, ISBN 0 444 70406 x. Chapters on Planning & Control, Videotex: learning from the present, Infrastructure, HIT & Human Communication, The Home and Urban Environment, New Services & Tele-education, HIT & the Consumers, Telework. Felix van Rijn.
Doug.Thompson@p101.f162.n221.z1.FIDONET.ORG (Doug Thompson) (04/27/89)
> From: scratch@cisunx.UUCP (Steven J Owens) > Date: 21 Apr 89 06:35:51 GMT > Organization: Univ. of Pittsburgh, Comp & Info Sys > Message-ID: <17649@cisunx.UUCP> > Newsgroups: comp.society.futures > > > Hello out there in Netland. Your help with this subject would be > greatly appreciated. This is for a final paper in a mass communications > class. > > The subject of this paper is computer networks as a valid form of > mass media, and the possibility, practicality, and societal effects, of > a publicly available computer network at minimum costs. > > To get one thing clear, the idea in this paper is to have computer > terminals as prevalent in society as telephones. As an example of what > I am proposing, I'm using the French computer/phone network, Minitel. > Interesting idea, but I wonder if computer "terminal" (device to access remote computer) is what we'll see becoming as common as telephones. I think the tendency is for people to use computers, not terminals. The difference is freedom from dependence on slow and often awkward connection schemes and freedom from dependence on buying computing power from others, as well as availability of local mass storage and CPU power. All that changes the nature of the interaction from "user of big remote computer" to peer-to-peer communication. > Questions: > > 1. Awhile back, on news.admin (or news.sysadmin) somebody posted a > quick summary of how much it would cost of have a UUCP "leaf" in every > home in america (or something along those lines). Does anybody have a > copy of this post, or of the pertinent figures, or is anybody willing to > provide me with similar information? I'm not sure if you're referring to my post or not, and I don't have the numbers I worked out in front of me. But, it sure doesn't cost very much if you assume a computer in the living-room, instead of a terminal and if you assume not leaves, but fully participating systems that can pass on data to others. That distrubutes the load over many, many systems and allows each participant to "carry his weight" by providing an amount of service commensurate with the service consumed. This reduces the need for huge central systems that must be subsidized by all participants. There certainly *are* costs, on the order of 1 tenth of a cent per msg in a newsgroup for instance. But if those costs are spread fairly uniformly and the distinction between service provider and service consumer is blurred (as above) then we are talking very moderate sums. > > 2 The hypothetical computer network in this paper is more like Internet > than Usenet (although bulletin boards would be an important aspect), so > does anybody have any idea what the costs for that kind of network would > be? Look at fidonet. It's already there. It's not in *every* living room, but it is in 6,000 living rooms. The cost per installation is a function of the traffic and the sort of hardware deployed. The cost of the necessary minimum hardware is in the same order of magnitude as the cost of a colour TV. The phone bills incurred are often in the same league as cable TV. Costs are coming down as hardware gets cheaper and modems get faster. The cost today is within the range that most full time workers could afford more easily than an automobile. > > 3. What kind of effects would this network have on society? Some of > the effects can be extrapolated from Minitel, but what about others? > How would advertising be affected? How about the effect on other media? > Advertising would cease to exist. I don't think Minitel is even relevant. The main feature of internet/fidonet style communication is that it's interactive. Unlike TV, where the user is totally passive, conference mail as entertainment involves the user in a two-way process. Attention and participation are implicit in the technology. The effect is to destroy monopolies of communication (see Harold Adams Innis' book "The Bias of Communication", University of Toronto Press, 1952 for a thorough and mind-boggling analysis of the effect of new communications technologies on society. Also see his "Empire and Communication", University of Toronto Press, 1947). > 4. What kind of effect would this network have on the people who use > it? For example, a computer network would allow the user/recipients of > the mass media a GREAT deal more control over what he or she receives, > and would also allow two-way mass communication (since you would no > longer need a tv or radio station to become involved). > Control over what you receive is a funny way to put it, but does hit the nail on the head. If you want something, you go get it. If you don't then you don't. People will go after what they want. What they want is liable to have something to do with the sorts of things which interest them. I think we can expect to see a steady, if slow, increase in seekers of information and a commensurate decrease in consumers of entertainment. Power shifts down the ladder from the centres to the periphery. > 5. Other ideas? Any suggestions would be most welcome. I have most of > the rough structure and ideas I want to work with, but hard data is > welcome, as well as additional ideas. > Do check out Innis. He's got a methodology for attacking this kind of problem which remains state of the art. He was mostly concerned with tracking the impact of writing, papyrus, paper and printing. But the analytic tools developed to get a handle on those technological revolutions in communication media are applicable to some extent to any technological revolution in communication. At the very least you'll enjoy him *immensely*. He's asking exactly the same sort of questions you are, albeit of another age and a somewhat different technology. =Doug -- Doug Thompson - via FidoNet node 1:221/162 UUCP: ...!watmath!isishq!162.101!Doug.Thompson Internet: Doug.Thompson@p101.f162.n221.z1.FIDONET.ORG
zifrony@TAURUS.BITNET (04/28/89)
I am sorry, I cannot contribute any references on this subject. However,
as the poster requested the opinion of people belonging to this mailing list, I
contribute mine.
I am all in favour of wide-spread electronic mail, reaching any home in the
world, or at least in the more developed nations. I think the network should
be international, and it should link all the countries ready for it techno-
logically wise. These include, at lease, north america, western europe,
east asia and the middle east. Of course, regular mail will still exist.
One still have to send checques, parcels, newspapers, magazines, etc.
I think the mass usage of electronic mail, this way, will decrease its usage
price, so it could be not higher than, and even lower than regular mail price.
I think the postal service will reduce, and the saved costs will reduce the
price of electronic mail.
As a user of electronic mail, I feel much better using this mailing scheme.
It is much faster and efficient than regular mail. You don't have to go to
the post office to buy stamps, and you are fairly sure that what you have sent
is received. Of course, there is yet no provission for registered mail,
although it could be supplied. Special delivery (or express) will not be
needed any more, as the regular electronic mail is fast enough.
However, one must take the security issue into consideration. I think most
people will feel reluctant to use electronic mail for private and confidentail
mail, as it is more vulnerable to attacks by people wishing to intercept it.
--
Doron Zifrony E-mail: BITNET: zifrony@taurus.bitnet
Msc. Student INTERNET: zifrony@Math.Tau.Ac.IL
Dept. of CS ARPA: zifrony%taurus.bitnet@cunyvm.cuny.edu
Tel Aviv Univ. UUCP: ...!uunet!mcvax!humus!taurus!zifrony
Israel CSNET: zifrony%taurus.bitnet%cunyvm.cuny.edu@
csnet-relay
--
Disclaimer: I DON'T represent Tel Aviv University. The opinions hereby
expressed are solely my own.jdb9608@ultb.UUCP (J.D. Beutel) (04/29/89)
In article <8904280956.AA19352@s4.Tau.Ac.IL> <zifrony%TAURUS.BITNET@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU> writes: >I am all in favour of wide-spread electronic mail [...] >Of course, regular mail will still exist. >One still have to send checques, parcels, newspapers, magazines, etc. > Parcels, yes. However, I think electronic banking will make checks obsolete in the near future. Newspapers and magazines, likewise, are better online than on paper--take Usenet as an example. >However, one must take the security issue into consideration. I think most >people will feel reluctant to use electronic mail for private and confidentail >mail, as it is more vulnerable to attacks by people wishing to intercept it. > The current discussion about the future of Internet include alot about encryption. Using a public encode/private decode key makes security possible for all digital transmissions, and will be the standard soon. -- 11011011 ___jdb9608@ritvax.BITNET or @ritcv.UUCP___ "I am, therefore I am."
elm@ernie.Berkeley.EDU (ethan miller) (04/30/89)
In article <8904280956.AA19352@s4.Tau.Ac.IL> <zifrony%TAURUS.BITNET@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU> writes:
%I am all in favour of wide-spread electronic mail, reaching any home in the
%world, or at least in the more developed nations. I think the network should
%be international, and it should link all the countries ready for it techno-
%logically wise. These include, at lease, north america, western europe,
%east asia and the middle east. Of course, regular mail will still exist.
%One still have to send checques, parcels, newspapers, magazines, etc.
Parcels, yes. Checks, no. There are already lots of banks around here
that don't return your canceled checks normally (I almost never use the
cancelled checks for anything), and many larger stores have ATM card
readers for purchases. Newspapers and magazines will eventually be
electronically distributed, but not before everyone has high-resolution
(over 1000x1000 8 bit planes) displays in their homes, especially for
magazines.
%I think the mass usage of electronic mail, this way, will decrease its usage
%price, so it could be not higher than, and even lower than regular mail price.
%I think the postal service will reduce, and the saved costs will reduce the
%price of electronic mail.
It already is cheaper than real mail. For 25 cents, you can call anywhere
in the US (during night rate hours) for 2 minutes. During those two
minutes, you can transfer 120 (sec) * 240 cps (at 2400 baud), which is
28800 characters. Thats 14 pages of double-spaced text, which is far
more than you can fit into an envelope that you still pay 25 cents for.
%As a user of electronic mail, I feel much better using this mailing scheme.
%It is much faster and efficient than regular mail. You don't have to go to
%the post office to buy stamps, and you are fairly sure that what you have sent
%is received. Of course, there is yet no provission for registered mail,
%although it could be supplied. Special delivery (or express) will not be
%needed any more, as the regular electronic mail is fast enough.
Ah, but you can't get a sweet-smelling letter from your current SO. And
what about those who like writing postcards on vacation, where these
terminals might be inaccessible?
%However, one must take the security issue into consideration. I think most
%people will feel reluctant to use electronic mail for private and confidentail
%mail, as it is more vulnerable to attacks by people wishing to intercept it.
Use public-key encryption. With this system, anyone can encode a message
for you, but the reverse key is very difficult to calculate given only
the public key. When you get the message, you just decode it with your
private key. And if you're worried about the confidentiality of mail,
just remember that anyone at the post office could read your mail, as
could someone who has access to your mailbox.
ethan
*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*+*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
ethan miller | elm@ernie.berkeley.edu
computer science grad student, uc berkeley | {...}!ucbvax!ernie!elm
"In this town it's always earthquake weather." | elm@UCBERNIE.BITNETlaba-4hh@web-4g.berkeley.edu (Edwin Sapugay) (05/10/89)
O.K. we're all busy and nobody's got time to read a long posting so I'll keep this short. The gist of what I want to say is that television as a form of entertainment will soon be replaced by something much better. What could possibly take T.V.'s place? How about the very thing your reading right now, the computer bulletin-board? Think about it, on television you get to see the creations of a very small group of writers. Here you can see the products of thousands of creative minds all competing to make what they write worthy of your time. Obviously, THIS news service isn't as yet quite up to the task of replacing television, as the written word lags behind pictures in entertainment value. But imagine the near future: imagine a bulletin board service which can handle not only words, but PICTURES and SOUND, eventually even motion pictures. (Sure, such a system will take a LOT of memory, but let me try to convince you that it will all be worthwhile.) Consider that one of the major complaints of all artists (including poets, writers, painters, etc.) throughout history has been that it is often difficult and sometimes impossible to get one's work displayed to enough people, and without that display one can never gain the recognition one needs to survive. Writer's desks tend to be full of rejection slips and musicians spend hours listening to producers who tell them that there's no market for the kind of music the musician wants to make. Consider also that we all know that most of the time the producers and the publishers don't know what they're talking about. (Remember how many producers turned down the Beatles?) But with a proper extension of the computer bulletin-board system everyone with a terminal can post their writings to the net. And when the technology is up to it they can add their drawings, their music and eventually, after MANY technical innovations, their movies. Even what can't be put on the net (such as sculptures, etc.) can be represented by digitized images, so that people can get a look at what the artist can do and decide whether the individual's talent merits further attention. Additionally, with the kind of system I'm suggesting, everything could be organized. People can go directly to what they want to see or hear and not be bothered by people with different tastes. (This would essentially be done by the addition of thousands of new topic headings.) This would be much better than the current Hollywood movie system which produces a few dozen movies a year, most aimed at the largest possible segment of the population. Which generally means that in the current system if you don't like what the majority likes you're out of luck. So, in keeping with my stated goal of brevity I'll sum up: Advancements in the computer bulletin-board would allow more access to the public for artists and access to more artists for the public. With the net result of providing better entertainment for all. (And the additional result of making T.V. look second rate.) And who knows, maybe in twenty years people like Poe and Beethoven won't have to wait until after they die to get recognition. ------ Disclaimer: My opinions are my own and do not reflect the opinions of the University of California at Berkeley or any other organization. Additionally, no criticism of any individual or organization was intended. -- Brian K. Retke (I can be reached at laba-4hh@web.berkeley.edu)
stevec@natinst.com (Steve Chall) (05/10/89)
Both Poe and Beethoven achieved considerable success during their lifetimes, and I'm not sure I want to wade through the creations of thousands or millions of self-proclaimed artists to find what really interests me. I need someone to do the preliminary winnowing for me. Not that editors, publishers, producers, etc. necessarily always make what I would consider optimal choices. However, my experience indicates that many of the people who are complaining of inadequate recognition are obscure because that's what the quality of their work merits. Conversely, the majority of those who have achieved popularity have done so because they offer something truly valuable to their proponents. It may not be what they claim to offer, and it may not be valuable to you or to me, but it's usually not just vapor. -Steve disclaimer: the opinions I express herein are not necessarily my own, much less anyone else's.
mcgrath@paris.Berkeley.EDU (Roland McGrath) (05/25/89)
In article <24227@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> laba-4hh@web-4g.berkeley.edu (Edwin Sapugay) writes:
Obviously, THIS news service isn't as yet quite up to the task of
replacing television, as the written word lags behind pictures in
entertainment value. But imagine the near future: imagine a bulletin
board service which can handle not only words, but PICTURES and SOUND,
eventually even motion pictures. (Sure, such a system will take a LOT
of memory, but let me try to convince you that it will all be worthwhile.)
Now, THAT would make alt.sex.bondage worth subscribing too....
--
Roland McGrath
Free Software Foundation, Inc.
roland@ai.mit.edu, uunet!ai.mit.edu!roland
Copyright 1989 Roland McGrath, under the GNU General Public License, version 1.