 |
 |
 |
|
  Volume 12 Numbers 3 & 4, 2002 Nerdy No More: Ann Willis Abstract. This paper uses the early issues of Wired as a vehicle for interrogating notions of the techno-lifestyle anticipated as a result of the corporatisation of the Internet. It implies a cultural collision between society as we knew it, and the techno-lifestyle anticipated by the Wired visionaries. This cultural collision occurs at the nexus of: cyberdemocracy and restricted cyber-access; social hierarchies of race and gender; and participation as consumption reinforced through the Wired text. Cyberdemocracy and Restricted Cyber-access The notion of public interest espoused in the early issues of Wired is specifically articulated to privilege the technocorporate world. In exploring Wired magazine's early incarnation, this presentation reveals the mid-1990s vision of the CMC (computer mediated communication) future as the techno-lifestyle of the successful American male; nerdy no more. The argument is that the cyber is seen less as a site for empowerment, and more as a re-powering vehicle for expressing and consolidating existing patterns of power and advantage and propelling these forward into the next stage of corporate development. "Wired never set out to be anyone's hero. All we wanted - and still want - is to report accurately on the future that's arriving. The Wired editorial line today is exactly the same today as it was when it launched. We believe as strongly in Mitch Kapor's vision of a Jeffersonian Democracy in cyberspace today as when we published it in our first year" (Rossetto, cited in Hudson, (1997, 236). This quote by Wired's co-founder and then-editor Louis Rossetto was part of an interview with David Hudson which appeared in his book ReWired. It is one of the many media texts which revisits the hype surrounding what was commonly referred to as the digital revolution in the USA during the mid-1990s. The initial media hype surrounding virtual reality, the possibilities of CMC, the Internet and online global communication at that time has died down somewhat. In some respects the then - 'techno-possibility' stories of a democratic and philosophical bent are being overlaid with real time stories (ie Time Warner/MCI partnership etc) of actual capital advantage, regarding old and new media mergers, deals and machinations as companies re-shuffle to position themselves within an on-line services communication context. This new jockeying for position raised and re-played many age old critical issues regarding equity, access, identity politics, information rich and poor, power and control. These remain, in the twenty-first century, contentious, and are sometimes noticeable by their absence. These, and other, issues appeared in the San Francisco based, Wired magazine which was (and remains) one of the most strident voices promoting technological change and the free market ideology. Self professed "...voice of the digital revolution..." - Wired promoted social, cultural, economic and political change through technological convergence. Its affluent, masculine target readership (described asexually by Wired publicist Taara Eden as "...college educated, early adopters of new technologies, who earn US$85K or more a year..." (Eden, 1995) are presented with a masculine, utopian, market-driven, techno-narrative regarding the convergence of telecommunications, computing and the traditional media, all of which Wired positioned historically for its readers as the biggest paradigm shift since the industrial revolution. Wired thus provides a particular and compelling vision, a history of how communication, technology and change are perceived into the future. As both a historical, and cultural artefact Wired represents one of the many sites "...for negotiating issues crucial to the conduct of social life; among them who is inside and outside, who may speak, who may not, and who has the capacity to be believed" (Marvin, 1988, 4). Described by Dery (1999), (to the chagrin of its editor Louis Rossetto), as a "...bully pulpit for corporate futurists, laissez-faire evangelists, and prophets of privatization", Wired presents and renegotiates, nineteenth and twentieth century debates of access and equity, representation, power and control which are repositioned in the context of online communication. Paradoxically, these 'philosophical leaders' are often absent from its forward-looking, twenty-first century CMC scenario. Why this is so compelling is because many of these "bully pulpit" (Dery, 1999) debates are articulated by 'Wired' associates who can be described as US-based ECI (entertainment, communication and information) power players, who operate at the top levels of corporate, peak-body, government, and academic institutions. This is not surprising, however, when we acknowledge Wired's pedigree. The San Francisco based magazine was created as a techno-corporate product with initial backing from Sterling Payot (investment banking), Charlie Jackson (Silicon Beach Software) and (in particular) MIT's Media Lab founder, and senior Wired columnist, Nicholas Negroponte (Eden, 1995). As the offspring of such parents, the magazine naturally champions American techno-libertarians and digerati like Alvin Toffler, George Gilder, John Perry Barlow and Newt Gingrich. In doing so, the magazine has successfully niche marketed a 'localised' affluent, info-rich, techno-lifestyle and techno-libertarian ideology which was (during this time) distributed internationally by publishing giant Hearst Corporation. Hudson (1997) describes the libertarian ideology as "a mutant cross between San Franciscan psychedelia - the ferocious entrepreneurial spirit (and its accompanying greed) of the 80s - and the massive wave of disenchantment with all things governmental that has swept through the 90s" (Hudson, 1997, 173). The utopian techno-libertarian ideology espoused through Wired is, however, tempered (depending on where you are positioned) firstly, by an almost right wing, binary attitude regarding speaking positions - who will be inside (and who will be outside), the world of CMC, signifying that the online community is not so much fluid as gated. Participation in the Wired vision of the online world is dependent on social and financial status, education and knowledge, as well as keeping up with the latest technologies. Public access to the CMC world is, according to Rossetto (cited in Hudson, 1997, 245), "...only an issue in an environment of certain scarcity". Rossetto's definition of 'scarcity' however, does not refer to economic, environmental or social factors but rather "bandwidth" (Bronson, 1996, 192). Considering these views, it can be argued that the discourse of individualism rather than social responsibility makes it easy to accuse Wired of ignoring and perpetuating notions of information rich and information poor. While this topic is one frequently espoused in the magazine, and in interviews conducted by Rossetto, it is not culturally specific. An assumption that access to CMC is universally available (due to individual human agency) overlooks a myriad of other issues that impede access. For example, when teaching the communication unit New Communication Technologies, the debate regarding why everyone isn't 'Wired' regularly prompted flat if not ambiguous replies from Wired, affluent and educated young (male) 'techies' who believe that computing facilities are available to 'the public' - its just up to 'them' to use it. Attached to this Wired-like logic is the positioning of information technology as the panacea with little thought to other cultural, economic or social factors that may inhibit the consumption practices and characteristics required to be 'info rich'. This logic forms part of a techno-deterministic, "silicon social" (Dery, 1999) Darwinian philosophy of survival in the digital age - you are either Wired or not, connected or not, techno-literate or info-poor, in or outside the digital debate. This philosophy was summed up in an advertisement for Wired magazine which stated "this is the digital revolution, you are either part of the steam roller or part of the road" (Wired advertisement which appeared in Details magazine cited in Hudson (1997, 220). It is this sort of philosophy that makes the magazine something that media academics naturally like to bash. Whether the publishers like it or not, their magazine has positioned itself as an agent for the technocorporate world of computer mediated communication, goods and services. Re-Powering the Powerful? "The real significance of the Information Revolution is that a worldwide network centred on true many-to-many communication is our first chance since the Industrial Revolution to take large scale power back into our own hands"(Cappio, 1994, 71). This quote from Cappio's Wired article "Bad Attitude:Business as usual on the infobahn", reiterates a common ambiguous, rhetorical theme about using communication technology to take back, and reclaim, power from the government to 'the people'. Apart from carrying on the magazine-tradition of muckraking, the article voices its distrust of government control and regulation of online technologies and activities. Wired's distrust of all things government signifies a radical surfacing of 1960s ideologies interfaced with hacker ethics. More to the point is how government is portrayed as impeding the growth of on-line technologies which, according to Wired, should be left to the free market - a view consistently shared by ECI magnates like Rupert Murdoch and Bill Gates. Apart from the plethora of Microsoft advertising which appears in Wired, Gates is the only person to have featured on the covers twice (1993 and 1997). Gates shares the same view as Wired about the role of government. This is reiterated in an interview he gave the magazine, "I hate the term information superhighway...it implies that the government should build this thing, and I don't happen to think that's wise or necessary. The government does have a role: it's to clear the way" (Gates cited in Wired, 1994b:166). A mistrust of (any) government is understandable, yet Wired's 1960s dictum of 'power to the people' often translates as 'power to the techno-corporate individuals', yet these individuals (who were themselves 1960s people) seem to fail to notice that only the already-powerful are re-powered via Wired's vision of techno-lifestyle. This 'power to the techno-corporate people' discourse, which is consistently reinforced by the magazine, begins each month via its covers which usually feature economic and socially powerful (male) techno-corporate individuals. Wired's promotion of this particular social group via its covers and editorial content re-powers through re-invention. Particular social forces and hierarchies are positioned as operating within the re-imagined Wired CMC world. Bill Gates is, in this respect, the ultimate Wired 'cover boy' - representing a symbolic, and convergent hybrid of powerful businessman and computer nerd although naturally cast as 'nerdy no more'. Wired's computer nerd narratives represent a shift in masculine power whereby computer geeks re-power themselves through technology and astute business practices. With the aid of visual techniques/technologies such as montage and morphing, they also acquire hard bodies along with corporate empires. The nerd narrative (which is inherently rooted in masculine mythologies), is textually anchored by Wired to narratives of corporate power and digital revolutions planned, instigated, controlled and fought over by socially and technologically powerful business men. The magazine while creating new masculine hegemonic stereotypes for the Internet age, also reinforces traditional social hierarchies and hegemonic power with regards to race and gender. African-American people are a social group who don't feature prominently in Wired's CMC narrative, although the magazine did on one occasion, feature an African-American male on its cover (Wired, 1994b). This fictionalised subject appeared as a representation of a hacker, but did not have any of the nerdy or corporate signifies (glasses, suit, etc). Instead, the subject was represented less as a hacker and more as a rapper with appropriate signifiers (home-boy hair, and colours shirt). That the subject was a representation, and a hacker involved in an online racial fight with a rival gang, positions him on the social margins (if not outside) the technocorporate world of power and success. Women as a social group have actually featured more in Wired than African-Americans (but this is saying very little). Women remain marginalised in the Wired vision and are disempowered through their lack of representation. In this sense the magazine maintains the masculine tradition of denying women a voice in its history of (I use the masculine definition of) 'technology'. This process of articulation between white American males and technology reinforces the mythology that women don't participate in technological processes, particularly not in high tech ones. Having said this, from 1993 to 1996, Wired did feature academic Sherry Turkle and musician Laurie Anderson on its covers in two separate issues, signifying a minimal speaking position within the techno-corporate narrative. Overall however, the absence of women in Wired is not unexpected when one considers the social construction of technology, and the meaning of technology in terms of its masculine definition. When referring to Wired, and other techno magazines like Mondo 2000 and bOing-bOing, Deitrich (1997) states, "it is ironic that even as these publications herald new forms of 'egalitarian' networking, they replicate the sexist discourse(s) that mark late capitalist culture, particularly with respect to the representation of women and women's issues" (Deitrich, 1997,170-171). Deitrich's (1997) point is significant because it (re)raises the ongoing issue regarding gender, representation and technology. New technologies and practices, for example, continue to be culturally positioned and promoted using older gender stereotypes and discourses. Wired's mixture of tokenistic inclusion and general lack of representation of women continues to be significant because it reconfirms the traditional, one-sided stereotypical discourse of technology being (rather than representing) a masculine culture. What is significant however is when and how and in what context, women are positioned in Wired. For example, the role of women in Wired's digital revolution and cyberspatial narratives is, by and large, to signify them as a commodity fetish and promotional object occurring in the guises of adverts for adult BBS chat line services and games, or promoting computer technology or office equipment. Women, once again, resume the role of 'classified wall paper' for the constructed masculine textual space along with other commodities like games, music CD's, books, online services and electronic gizmos. As Deitrich (1997) rightly points out none of this is "surprising" considering that - "...most cybernaughts are white males between the ages of 15 and 45 ... the rhetoric of these print texts tend to reflect, white heterosexual males perspective(s), desires and idealizations" (Deitrich, 1997,171). Wired's historical idealisation of the 'digital revolution' naturally is a continuation of masculine technological narratives, ie industrial, electrical, medical, artistic, created by and fought over by men. Even though women play significant roles in the magazine's production process (in that they write for Wired and have been key instigators in its production and success eg, Barbara Kuhr as co-creative designer, and Jane Metcalfe who started Wired with partner Rossetto), women as textual subjects in Wired become ironic reconstructions. Adding to these ironies are female writers working within the techie environment, who perpetuate masculine discourses of gendered technology by reinforcing traditional, binary notions of femininity. Paulina Borsook's feature fictional article "Love over the Wires" in Wired in (1993). begins with "her computer had become a sex-toy, a marital appliance for the end of the millennium" (Borsook, 1993, 97) Borsook's story ironically maintains gender stereotypes and difference through its semantic gendering of the computer as feminine, domestic appliance. This binary 'either/or' defining of the computer conveniently locates technologies, practices and gender power relations in an era more akin to the 1950s than the 21st century. Borsook's description however, of the female protagonist's computer as a 'marital appliance', retrofits it as a traditional feminine appliance within the domestic sphere. From another textual perspective, gender difference and absence is raised when Wired publishes the occasional letter of complaint by women readers concerned about the magazine's lack of female representation. The rare inclusion of such letters is significant because this section (Rants 'n' Raves) of the magazine represents (like most other magazines) the 'official' site of dialogue and negotiation between the publishers and its readers. Including the occasional letter of complaint creates a process which Dietrich (1997) describes as, "both exaggerated for heightened visibility and erased for (potentially) exploitative purposes. And because these publications rely strategically upon various modes of ironic discourse, they are able to "neutralize" their political stance, in effect defending against criticism through displacement of their (real) subject(s)" (Deitrich, 1997, 171). Wired's inclusion of female readers' criticism regarding lack of representation in Rants 'n' Raves reconfirms and re-powers for other readers the high tech gender imbalances and stereotypes. The appearance of these types of pro-feminist letters articulate both absence and difference overtly and in a much less sophisticated style than other postmodern texts like South Park, where difference is ironically defused. Instead, Wired's style of articulating absence and difference is (un)surprisingly, 'blokey', and (like Borsook's feature story), re-powers the binary 1950s gender ideologies of women positioned in the domestic private sphere with men in the public sphere of work and business. As experienced in the Wired text - and as Deitrich (1997) points out - when women are the topic for major Wired stories the traditional social and public discourses of femininity are interwoven. For example, what their 'hobbies' are, likes and dislikes, homes and environments, the sort of men they like to date, are threaded through with comment on their professional roles. In doing so the magazine continually locates traditional discourses of femininity, and contextualises gender in relation to technology. In representing women in this way, the magazine re-confirms online culture as a masculine domain and place. It re-constructs a masculine CMC using spatial and geographical metaphors; in particular, the frontier. This metaphor is used to describe a wild, masculine, dangerous, out of control place. One of the myriad of examples of this is an advertisement which appeared in Wired (1994b, 113) for the "Mega Race" CD-ROM game. The caption reads "No Cops No Laws No Wimps - Are you a girlie-man or a Megaracer?" and is laid over a close-up of a wild eyed, tattooed, scarred psycho-skinhead guy - signifying that you have to be a 'tough guy' to survive in this wild, anarchic environment. Significantly, the frontier is also a place where traditionally women don't go unless they are whores, or the colonised other. The film, My Darling Clementine is a classic example of the American frontier environment where good girls don't go until law and order are established, and bad girls who do, suffer the most dire consequences. This frontier myth operates as a convenient one for the CMC environment because it reconfirms and justifies (particularly for men) why women shouldn't be there, and reconfirms the stereotype that (sensible, worthwhile) women themselves shouldn't and wouldn't want to participate in this environment anyway. The frontier discourse of shouldn't and wouldn't is re-articulated in a Wired article called "alt.sex.bondage" by Richard Kadrey (1994, 40). His exploration of the alt.sex.bondage site, provides, as it were, "...a novice['s] guide" to the site. Kadrey positions CMC within the masculine discourse of a cyber-frontiersville. In doing so, he reiterates the stereotype that women shouldn't really be there because it is too mad, bad and dangerous. Describing the CMC environment as an 'asylum' he states, "while the overall tone of abs (the alt.sex.bondage.site) is friendly and open, not everyone who visits here feels safe. Women, especially, who have posted openly about their sexual lives have reported being inundated with e-mail from guys offering to 'do' them. One discouraged female user, wrote, '...unless a woman has a strong stomach, she won't post here more than once'"(Kadrey, 1994, 40). Participation as Consumption Wired's geospatial/psychological metaphors of the marginal, out-of-control, free wheeling, masculine CMC frontier and laissez-faire ideology are peculiarly combined with other socially imagined locations and systems. These include electronic democracy and the computer mediated public sphere. Johnson (1997) is skeptical of the term 'electronic democracy' which, he believes "... suggests that the Information highway will enhance democracy by allowing citizens to communicate with elected representatives and participate more effectively in government policy making. In some fantasy worlds but not this one ... It [democracy] requires debate, not just clicking For or Against buttons"(Johnson, cited in Hudson, (1997, 147). Nevertheless, debate and discussion, which are characteristics of any democratic process, do occur online. These practices don't however, suggest that the Internet is a democratic system. Internet speaking rights are dependent on online access. Online speaking forums are, by their electronic nature, transcendent of national boundaries, discursive, unstable and fragmented. Terms like 'democracy' and 'public' become, in the Wired context, open signifiers, conveniently re-appropriated to describe a smaller site of communication than those, arguably, of everyday life. Even though this may obviously change, Jones (1997, 26) holds the view that "Internet users are in the main the "educated classes," and the "scattered, small-scale personal exchanges" that take place do so on a larger scale, are "made mass," giving the illusion that they are now a form of participatory democracy when in fact the exchanges are only mediated on a larger scale than before". Like many former techno-utopians and techno-determinists, the Wired team carries on a tradition of promoting the liberatory potential of new communication technologies, positioning them as agents of change. Unsuprisingly, the Wired techno-libertarian stance promotes the Internet as a democratic system. In this online system, market forces are considered the key democratising instruments, whereby consumer trading (as in the offline world), is considered to be public participation. As Rossetto (cited in Hudson, (1997, pp. 241-242) states "... there are no signs that it [the Internet] is becoming any less democratic. What is happening is that commerce is arriving on the Net ... I don't think that's a bad thing ... commerce is inherent in human life ...". Rossetto's quote is reminiscent of a perspective which appeared in the Far Eastern Economic Review (1993, pp. 24-31). Describing the Asian economic reconfiguration occurring in the mid-1990s the article stated "markets are by consequence, inherently civilising" (Far Eastern Economic Review, (1993, pp. 24-31). These neo-colonial/conservative pro-market viewpoints assume that markets are inherently democratic and, as Innis (1951) points out, follow communication innovation. When situated within the context of online CMC, Rossetto's position vis-a-vis 'the market' describes an (exclusive) networked trading post (based on consumption-power) rather than a participatory democratic community. As real-time commodification of Internet and CMC participation (which is hinged on the adage that time is money) increases, it does not so much evoke metaphors of huge public spaces and participatory communities, but of simultaneous yet contradictory images of discursive and convergent, computer mediated, modes of consumption. These arguably, transcend consumption practices of everyday, offline life. The word 'uber' seems an appropriate prefix to attach to this type of computer mediated consumption which, according to a German colleague of mine, is defined in the German vernacular as 'overdrive' and/or 'over-the-top'. Computer mediated 'uberconsumption' is a commercial motif which appears in many of Wired's paid advertisements. Producers of hard and software, as well as on-line service providers often promote fast and easy access to people, information, entertainment, goods and services (eg. Microsoft Network's "Where do you want to go today?" advertisement). This mode of commercial online uberconsumption is constructed by advertisers as being transcendental of everyday, earth bound, 'real-time' consumption experiences such as walking, driving, tasting, queuing, smelling, chatting and waiting. An example of this appeared in a Wired advertisement (1996) for Delrina Internet software. The advertisement, which depicted a male snow-boarding over a planet, stated, "announcing software that utilizes astral projection to send your consciousness to any point on the space-time continuum" (Wired, 1996b, 119). Commercial online consumption questions the Wired vision of techno-libertarianism and techno-corporate empowerment because online participation is too narrowly defined as commercial consumer activity. Solnit (1995, pp. 230-231) uses the computer game Pac Man as a symbolic metaphor to describe the contradictions between interactivity, consumption, empowerment, participation and choice in the computer mediated environment. She states, "the audience-user is not literally passive; he [sic] is engaged in making choices, but the choices do not necessarily represent freedom, nor does his [sic] activity represent thinking. Participating is reduced to consuming. ... Pac Man, made this all apparent: the sole purpose of Pac Man, a disembodied head-mouth, was to devour what is in its path as it proceeds through an invisible maze" (Solnit, 1995, pp. 230-231). Conclusion In essence Wired continues to profit from convergence, and contradictory claims - a 1960s American counter culture, 'power to the people', libertarian free market ideology and online democracy - sit unselfconsciously alongside neo-imperialist, meritocratic, patriarchal, corporate, nerdy-no-more narratives. McLuhan's (1964) 'global village' is coupled with utopian discourses of empowerment through technology. Given this, technologies and technological change remain contradictory, while speaking rights, access and notions of participation within these reconstructed online discourses are dependent on where participants are positioned socially and economically. Nevertheless, for all Wired's foibles - and underneath the outstanding design, dayglo hype and matt-gloss - the magazine offers a voice, a cultural artefact and a work in progress. It highlights, via absence or rearticulation, a number of age-old contradictory issues concerning the relationships between technology and society, and between men and women, and suggests definitions of what they represent. Even though the magazine's (masculine) vision of the future is positioned in CMC society, it provokes ongoing questions regarding technology, power and control, identity politics, access and equity. Therefore, even if the media techno-hype has died down - 'Everyone's over the Internet, and Wired's a little bit Tired' - this doesn't mean the critical issues have. These issues are why Wired during the peak of the info-hype of 93-96 is so interesting. Its content, both advertising and editorial, (and press releases and staff interviews) regurgitates a number of regressive discourses which seem at odds with the 'revolutionary' technological and cultural developments the magazine promotes. Interwoven with its techno-libertarian ideology are patriarchal, free market ideologies; and info-rich/poor disparities which are a given. It goes without saying that there are simply winners and losers. Wired's CMC world is constructed as a frontier signifying it as an inherently unstable, contested, masculine and therefore dangerous 'place', where the operative principle is participation through consumption and through uberconsumption of time, resources and experience. Given this, questions remain as to what exactly is revolutionary about Wired's digital projection? What is so revolutionary, to use Nicholas Negroponte's (1995) book title, in "Being digital"? Is it the potential for new communication technologies, to re-power traditional, masculine, classical and hierarchical power structures? Ironically, Wired's promotion of a digital paradigm and the dismissal of 20th century concepts such as 'universal access' and 'equity' does little to convince a critical analyst of the liberatory potential of new communication technologies. Instead it re-powers older, feudalistic and laissez-faire, ideals and practices, inhibiting possibilities of the participatory potential for modes of communication like CMC. The new CMC communication technologies have the potential to connect or disconnect, various social fabrics, identities, classes, regulations and markets. What may be deemed revolutionary by Wired's techno-corporate visionaries is the potential for new technologies to assist in the creation and maintenance of separate classes - those online and those offline. In the networked discourses of Wired, this frequently used binary vision to signify a separation demarcated by technology, gender, knowledge, social and economic power. As their advertisement reminds us - Do we want to be part of the steamroller or the road? References Borsook, P. (1993). Love over the wires. Wired, 1(04), 97-112. Bronson, P. (1996). George Gilder. Wired, 4(06), 122-127. Cappio, J. (1994). Bad attitude: Business as usual on the Infobahn. Wired, 2(06), 71-72. Dery, M. (1999). Wired Unplugged. Retrieved from http://www.t0.or.at/dery/Wired.html viewed 2/07/99, 15:04. Dietrich, D. (1997). (Re)-fashioning the Techno-erotic Woman:Gender and Textuality in the Cybercultural Matrix. In S. Jones (Ed.), Virtual Culture: Identity and Communication in Cybersociety (pp. 169-184). London: Sage Publications. Eden, T. (1995, February). Wired, The First Combined Computer/Consumer Title. Far Eastern Economic Review: 12, 24-31. On line at http://www.hotWired.com.lib/PR/1.1/computer.consumer.html. Ford, J. (1946). My Darling Clementine. Twentieth Century Fox. Hudson, D. (1997). ReWired. Indianapolis, Indiana: Macmillan Technical Publishing,. Innis, H. (1951). The Bias of Communication. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Jones, S. (1997). The Internet and its social landscape. In S. Jones (Ed.), Virtual Culture: Identity and Communication in Cybersociety (pp. 7-34). London: Sage Publications. Kadrey, R. (1994). "alt.sex.bondage", Wired, 2(06), 40-42. MacKenzie, D &Wajcman, J. (1985). The Social Shaping of Technology: How the Refrigerator Got Its Hum. Open University Press, Milton Keynes. Marvin, C. (1988).When Old Technologies Were New: Thinking about Electric Communication in the Late Nineteenth Century, New York: Oxford University Press. McLuhan, M. (1964). Understanding the Media - The Extensions of Man. London: Ark. Negroponte, N. (1995). Being Digital. Rydalmere, NSW: Hodder and Stoughton. Parker, T. & Stone, M. (1997). South Park, Comedy Central. Solnit, R. (1995). The garden of merging paths, in J. Brook and I. Boal (eds), Resisting the Virtual Life: The Culture and Politics of Information. San Francisco: City Lights. (pp. 221-234). Wired: (1993). 1(04). Wired: (1994a). 2(03). Wired: (1994b). "Rockin' with Mr Bill", 2(12), 166-167. Wired: (1994c) 2(12). Wired: (1996a). 4(03). Wired: (1996b). 4(04). Wired: (1996c). 4(06). Copyright 2002 Communication Institute for Online Scholarship, Inc. This file may not be publicly distributed or reproduced without written permission of the Communication Institute for Online Scholarship, P.O. Box 57, Rotterdam Jct., NY 12150 USA (phone: 518-887-2443).
|