I've been cogitating on Markham's three types of metaphors and it has occurred to me that each type reflects a theory of communication. The metaphor of the Internet as a tool, particularly the idea of the Internet as a conduit, is strikingly like theories of communication which focus on the alignment of intentionality. That is, communication consists of the process by which people come to know, either through verbal or nonverbal means, what the other's motives are and therefore how to interpret what the other is saying. The metaphor of space, at least as Markham describes it, seems to imply the idea that communication is about the coordination of action (not intention, which is subjective). That is, What is important in communication is not that people necessarily share meanings but rather that they successfully bring off social interaction, even if both people interpret what has happened differently. Finally, the way of being metaphor (and this is admittedly a stretch) seems to me remarkably like Heidigger or Buber's notion that communicaiton is about opening oneself to hearing the other's otherness. That is, if we think of technology as the other, the construction of ourselves as cyborgs means that we are open and accepting of the affordances of the new communication technology and find ways to bridge the gap between the strangeness and weirdness of, say, the Internet and therefore modes of acceptance (open ourselves) to it in a way that integrates both self and other (technology).

Now maybe this is just an academic exercise but I think personally not. To me it is a way of connecting the idea of metaphor with the idea(s) of communication and perhaps (although I haven't thought this part through) might lead to some interesting ways to frame online behavior. Any thoughts you have on this craziness greatly appreciated.

I'm thinking some more about the distinction between Web 1.0 and Web 2.0. In fact, long before there was the Web, people have been congregating in groups online, sharing ideas, thoughts, feelings, whatever the central theme of the group was. Of course, early on, it was a little clunky to get to your destination (love those spatial metaphors!) but people did it. One of your readings later in the course is about the WELL which was established in the late 80s and became a supportive community. Howard Rheingold, once of the first social scientists to take online communities seriously, wrote about this community and its dynamics; you'll read a portion of that.

But Web. 2.0 takes advantage of the audio visual and graphic dynamics of the Web to create additional value for groups (now usually called social networks) online. For example, the creator of the operating system called LINUX started out by creating a beta version of the system and then putting everything he'd done online and sent out a general message for people to come to the site and improve the system. Thousands of people responded. This was the beginning of what is called the "Open Source" movement, i.e., making source codes public so that any one can access them. This "value added" approach has lead to many, many other ventures. Goldcorp was a company with a mining operation and the in-house geologists were stumped about finding additional gold in the field. They decided to put all their formerly proprietary information online and sent out a message to geologists to help out. Any one who gave information that led to additional gold being found got a cut of the profits. Hundreds of geologists responded and numerous new sources of gold were found, saving the company. Any social networking tool is Web 2.0, since it links together individuals who then can create additional value for themselves. Web 2.0 users are prosumers (they both use and produce content) instead of consumers (which is what you are when you surf around the net to find products to buy, for instance).

So elements of Web 1.0 and 2.0 share this in common: they are less hierarchical, more "flat", more collaborative, more creative and less competitive. Perhaps we should think about these terms, Web 1.0 and 2.0, as points on a continuum with consumers on one end and prosumers on the other. Someone who knows how to use social networking tools is Barack Obama. If you subscribe to Facebook (I assume you all do), check out his page. Any thoughts you have along these lines, please share them.

Dr. Bob