McGraw-Hill © 2007 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All Rights reserved.

THE

DYNAMICS

OF MASS

COMMUNCATION

Joseph R. DominickUniversity of Georgia--Athens

McGraw-Hill © 2007 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All Rights reserved.

Chapter 11

The Internet and the World Wide Web

A Brief History of the ComputerThe InternetStructure And Features of The Internet The Evolving InternetEconomicsFeedbackSocial ImplicationsThe Future: The EvernetThe Internet and the WebC

hapt

er O

utlin

e

McGraw-Hill © 2007 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All Rights reserved.

• Pascal’s arithmatique (17th C)• Leibniz invents binary system

• Charles Babbage and Ada Bryon design “analytical engine”

• Herman Hollerith – Develops punch card machine for 1880

census – Starts IBM

• Aiken’s Mark I relay-based computer (1940)

A Brief History of the Computer

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• ENIAC built at Univ. Penn (late 1940s)– First electronic computer– Far faster than the Mark I– Huge

• Transistors and integrated circuits (1950s)– Smaller, lighter computers that use less power– Microprocessors lead to hardware/software

differentiation

A Brief History of the Computer

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• 1970s-1980s: first PCs

• Modems allow PC-PC communication over telephone lines

• Nearby PCs form local area networks (LANs)

• Maturation of LANs and The Internet (1990s+)

A Brief History of the Computer

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• The Internet – a network of networks

• Each Internet computer run by

– Government agencies Libraries

– Business Universities Individuals

• The Internet – constantly changing, voluntarily linked network systems

• No one owns, runs, or otherwise regulates the Internet

The Internet

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• History– ARPANET designed to insure survival of

computer links in wartime (early 1970s)– N.S.F. connects five supercomputers using

Internet Protocol to form The Internet (1980)– WWW development of hypertext (1990)– Development of browsers – Mosaic (1993)– Maturation of search engines (late 1990s+)

• Google Excite Ask Jeeves

The Internet

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Structure And Features of The Internet

Figure 11-1 Structure of the Internet

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• Internet computers talk using Transmission Control Protocol / Internet Protocol, or TCP/IP– Addresses of computers– Timing– Retransmission– Breakup and reassembly of messages

• Users gain access to the Internet via– Internet Service Provider (AT&T)– Commercial network (AOL, MSN)

Structure And Features of The Internet

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• E-Mail– Fast, cheap, and reliable– # 1 form of U.S. written communication– 10 trillion messages annually– Can contain attachments– Not technically or legally private

• Drawbacks– Spam– Virus exposure– Time loss

Structure And Features of The Internet

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• Newsgroups– Theme-related bulletin boards– Thousands of newsgroups – Specialized topics

• Normal (health news) • Arcane (ancient Mayan ruins)

– Categories identified by prefixes • alt (alternative) sci (science) bus

(business) – Message and responses called message thread

Structure And Features of The Internet

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• The World Wide Web – Website: set of interconnected web pages housed

on a computer server– Hypertext links: words or graphics that, when

clicked, will take you to other web sites– Home page: the “first” page of a web site– URL: uniform resource locator - an individual web

addresshttp://www.mhhe.com/catalogs/hss/comm– Portal: first page of a major site

Structure And Features of The Internet

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• Online Service Providers– America Online (AOL)

• 29 million subscribers – Microsoft Network (MSN)

• 8 million subscribers and – SBC Yahoo

• 3.5 million subscribers– Exclusive communication, information, and

entertainment services – A gateway to the Internet

Structure And Features of The Internet

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• Broadband – Any internet connection faster than

average phone line

– Available in three technologies:• Satellite modem• Cable modem• Digital Subscriber Line (DSL)

– PC always connected to the Internet

The Evolving Internet

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• Going Mobile: The Wireless Web– 15M laptops and 22M phone/PDAs with

wireless Internet access in 2003– Broadband users online about 11 hours per

week.– WiFi hotspots continue to spread– WiMax to premier in 2007

The Evolving Internet

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• Microcasting– Broadcasting: video content to large,

heterogeneous audience (example: TV show)– Narrowcasting: special-interest video content to

subgroups (example: ESPN)– Microcasting: highly specific video content to a

very select group of invited people (example: wedding)

– Few-to-few communications is a significant force in Internet development

The Evolving Internet

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BLOGS

• Short for “web log”

• Individuals produce their own news and commentary

• Influence politics

• Are emerging as marketing tools

• Give a voice to those who would not be heard otherwise

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$$• Internet-related businesses

– Boom 1998 to mid-2000– Huge loss by 2001 ($1.4 trillion)– 40% of Internet companies still viable by

2004 (examples: eBay, Expedia)

• E-commerce– Selling goods and services online– $145 billion retail spending online (2004)– B2B spending online $1 trillion (2004)

Economics

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• Three ways people are currently making money on web: – Pay-for-content

• Site subscriptions (CNN streaming video)• Pornography

– Product and service sales and enablement• Amazon.com• eBay

– Selling advertising space• High-traffic sites• Mixtures of techniques

Economics

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• Two independent companies provide

Internet audience data using software

– ComScore – 1,000,000 people

– Nielsen/Net Ratings – 68,000 people

• The Internet is the “new normal” way of life

• 80 million adults access the Internet daily

• 8 out of 10 teenagers are online regularly

Feedback

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• Lack of gatekeepers – Tendency towards overload of trivia– No verification of information– No censorship

• Information overload• Privacy concerns

– Easy to obtain detailed information– Total Information Awareness– Databases can be out-of-date and inaccurate– Identity theft

• Escapism, isolation, habit

Social Implications

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• Also called “Supranet” and “Internet II”

• Convergence of many devices

• Access buried in everyday objects

• Merging of physical and virtual world

• Smart houses, clothing, medical devices

The Future: The Evernet

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• Online advertising, journalism

• Web developer

The Internet and the Web

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