Key to Document

Table of Contents

You are encouraged to take a look at those paragraphs if you are not familiar with the majority of the above mentioned Internet tools and services.



Hargittai, E: The Internet and International Stratification, Chapter 3: Hegemony on the Internet

The Internet is a network of computers, but sociologically it is also important to consider it as a network of people who use these computers. The system may also be defined by the resources available through its networks, such as various retrievable files and documents, and interpersonal-communication opportunities.

The functions provided by the network can be divided into two major categories. Certain services are part of the network information retrieval group while others are computer-mediated communication services (CMC). The network information retrieval group includes utilities like finger and WHOIS, tools like Telnet and File Transfer Protocol, systems like Gopher and the World Wide Web, and interfaces like Netscape and Mosaic. The latter group of computer-mediated communications includes several types of services also: electronic mail and talk are interpersonal; listservers serve groups; the Internet Relay Chat, Multi-User Dungeons and newsgroups are for the masses in general. Although some are more common than others, an overview of all these functions - still just a small portion of all available services on the Internet - will offer an adequate introduction to the opportunities offered by the network, opportunities that could all be available to children and teachers in schools assuming adequate infrastructure and technical support. Hargittai has written a brief description of all these services drawing on references that are linked in from her document.

Hargittai has presented the multifaceted opportunities offered by the network through showing how its tools and services fit into Marshall McLuhan's framework of hot and cool media.

"One important aspect of the Internet is that it offers more types of communication than any medium previously, thereby allowing several ways of information retrieval all within the same framework. Marshall McLuhan makes the distinction between hot media and cool media, the former allowing for little user participation, and the latter requiring increased participation for an effective session (McLuhan, 1964, pp.22-23.). The two distinct service types of the Internet are very important to keep in mind for understanding how the network goes beyond the opportunities offered by any one previous communication technology. The telephone, a 'cool medium', allows for interactive personal communication, and perhaps even offers a link between more private and more public institutions, but it nonetheless limits the number of participants in one particular interaction. The facsimile is very similar in nature to the telephone, with the exception that it allows for more precise documentation. The radio and television, on the other hand, are passive devices, or 'hot media', where the listener or viewer has little input into what happens.

Depending on what services of the Internet we look at, some can be categorized as cool, others as hot media. Services that belong to the computer-mediated communication tools often require intense user participation and thus constitute cool media. In contrast, services of the information retrieval group are less participant oriented and would be included by McLuhan in the category of hot media. These distinctions are important in recognizing the different levels of interaction made possible by Internet services. Because the network includes both cool and hot media, it therefore offers more opportunities than any communication technology has offered before.

The services offered by these two categories of the Internet collectively make up vast amounts of data. Options in the information retrieval group serve to access already existing data and work more as hot media, while the computer-mediated communication tools allow for direct participation of the users and therefore can be regarded as forms of cool media. The two are equally important in identifying the valuable resources available on the Internet."

Eszter Hargittai,
The Pros and Cons of
Implementing the Internet
in the Classroom