Communication & Cyberspace (Chp 1-4)

From locomotion to telecommunications… it still ceases to amaze me how technology is continuing to evolve into something far more than what we probably imagined. Innovations of technology have replaced the way we communicate on various levels. It shaped how we interact with one another as human beings. As stated in chapter 1,”…may use cyberspace as a substitute for the physical environment…” (Drucker, Gumpert, 29) seems to serve correct for some occasions. As humans we adapted to a new way of socializing and interacting and it’s via cyberspace. The newer generations are so dependent on the internet that it impacted how we communicate. Technological developments make it terribly easy to connect to the outside world from inside your dungeon that you may not want to ever come outside (Drucker, Gumpert, 33). The concern then rises with the impact and relationship on such developments. As a part of the digital era we live in two communities as the book states, and one of them is cyberspace. It’s so easy to get caught up in the internet highway that you don’t even notice how much you distanced yourself from reality. Each medium will continue to alter our way of learning and doing things but it’s up to the generations to come to understand the true conceptualization and power of cyberspace.

In chapter 2 the dependency of technology evolves. People like to have a sense of control and adjustment which is an essential note for cyberspace (Phelan, 48). The feeling from feedback from the devices gives people that feeling of control, as if it were a part of them. It’s the illusion and representations that lure us to those intimate devices such as phones, TV’s, and etc. It then becomes a natural tendency to integrate with the machine because of its immediacy of responses and sense of control. In the “nonphysical” community, cyberspace, people’s minds are plugged into the internet.  Which reminds me of one of my favorite movies, The Matrix, Neo learns about the true nature of his reality and his role in the war against its controllers.

Who shall control cyberspace? We shall! The millions of individual users, it comes to life from the many individual users and actions. Cyberspace isn't a network that needs to be controlled. I see it as no one can live without it and no one will be able to control behavior in it. Cyberspace is shared by so many people and provides endless experiences to users all over. It has such an unforeseeable future (Beniger, 61).  It will continue to develop and evolve until it reaches an unreachable boundary of all information. To implement a limit to cyberspace which will happen if it were to be monitored or controlled, will hurt the success of the internet. Cyberspace is about inspiring new ideas and innovations, where competition flourishes across borders, information is shared easily, and where human rights are carried online. If cyberspace is centralized we might interfere with the prospects of the internet.

“In cyberspace, the navigator and the voyager share the throne” (Kleinman, 71).  In chapter 4 it explains how both are equally important. Cyberspace is a combined effort because it relies on the relationships with the millions of users- the effort of those that steer the user in the right direction and the effort of those who are users of that information. As it was mentioned in earlier chapters,cyberspace provided a sense of control but it then opens up the idea of property and copyright. Trying to determine the price of information will be an endless battle. The internet continues to be more interesting and complex than before, making it harder for the principles of copyright law. New innovations and technology definitely makes it hard to limit the scope of things. There is no real answer to control or freedom of cyberspace because the balance seems impossible to settle between the two.