Computer Networks example essay topic

Computer Networks Computers by themselves are useful tools. But once they are interconnected, they surge in usefulness and suddenly become media. One computer is connected into a network which is then patched into a network of networks. Computer networks have the potential to break the monopolies of media institutions.

With networks, there is a shift from centralized, one-way media to dispersed, infinite-way communication. Every audience member in the world can at the same time be an information provider. Channels of information creation and distribution become cheaper and broader until we have limitless bandwidth and storage capacity. This technology comes with a cautionary note.

Every emergent media technology has been hailed as the harbinger of popular expression. Yet each new media is used for commercial ends by those in control of power. Newspapers, radios, and television have become institutionalized and continue to institutionalize as they are purchased by larger and larger conglomerates. Advertiser-supported media has become a top-down business. The audience is, after all, not the consumer in television. That role lies with the sponsor.

The sponsor purchases advertising time and decides what it is they want to support. Television, and other media forms, are dominated by these sponsors supporting what they perceive is what their consumers want, or what they want their particular product to be associated with. The question is whether computer networks will go this route. Computer networks are prone to some of the same problems as traditional media.

Though anyone can place something on the World Wide Web, it becomes increasingly difficult to make that web page known to the general Internet audience. Large media-entities are able to create flashy, innovative sites that make personal sites look frumpy, and quickly passed over. An analogy can be drawn between television and the Internet. Anyone can videotape a subject, and with a little time, edit it into a program. But compare the quality of what the private individual can make within their budget (an 8 mm video camera, perhaps two VCRs for dubbing) versus television companies with hundreds of thousands of dollars. But computer networks have several saving graces.

Distribution becomes limitless. Television, radio, and even newspapers (due to high publishing costs) have limited bandwidth. Computer networks can carry virtually limitless amounts of data at piddling costs, 'the electromagnetic spectrum is not scarce but nearly limitless' (Gilder 129). That private video maker can not distribute his video independently unless he is very wealthy.

This increased bandwidth also decreases the need for mainstream entertainment. With the growth from three networks to ten networks to hundreds of networks, there is increased specialization. Each media institution tries to saturate its niche. These niches are not as large or profitable as the largest popular audiences, but with so many of them it is assured that one can find what he or she is interested in. Computer networks make five hundred channels look like puddles of programming.

Though the potential for distribution becomes limitless, control of distribution remains a prominent concern. In traditional media, in which the conduit channel is also the content provider, the distributor is ultimately responsible. It is not the writer of a newspaper article who is sued but the editor who chose it to be published, and even more so, the newspaper agency employing the editor. Are the owners of computer networks therefore the ones responsible for what is published on that network? Or are they merely the conduits for information, like the telephone company, and it is the end user who assumes responsibility? With growth of on-line services, the most prudent course tends to be the role of conduit.

On-line services such as America Online, CompuServe, and countless Internet providers that make no pretense of mandating what is distributed through their networks are not responsible for what is sent through their network. Prodigy, an on-line service that purports to overview content has been the target of several lawsuits. In a recent case, Prodigy was sued by a law firm for public postings by a member critical of the firm. The judge stated that it was Prodigy's claim that it mandates on-line material the reason he ruled against the service. By claiming to monitor on-line information, Prodigy had stepped from being a conduit into the stead of editor. With increased bandwidth and growth in popularity, it becomes foolish to think that a company can monitor everything it carries.

Television, radio, and institutionalized media have few conduits of information. In a computer network which allows everyone the right to publish and communicate grows a system more akin to telephone service, with millions of content providers - people. The telecommunications industry has long been a common carrier, not discriminating what is being transmitted via its lines. A corporation or other wholly private entity has a legitimate interest in mandating what is published on intra-corporate message bases, particularly one with a limited number of published on-line documents. A forum such as America-Online has a pragmatic interest in not doing so. Unlike a corporation, it has no vested interest in the vast majority of what is communicated via its network.

As it grows in popularity, it may well come under the jurisdiction of the government as a semi-public forum. Computer networks provide a new paradigm of media distribution. 'Networks can... essentially make time stand still' (Sproull et al. 116). Computer data cannot only be distributed with few limits, it can be stored indefinitely. Modern media is necessarily temporal.

The television program needs to be watched at that moment. A newspaper article is read that day. To a limited extent, past publications and broadcasts can be recalled - a television show is occasionally repeated, past articles can be acquired, for a fee, from the newspaper publisher, but the spirit of the media is one of transience. A computer network takes this permanence to a new level. An on-line magazine can have links to every past issue since it's inception; and even more revolutionary, an on-line paper can contain links to its references. Reading a news article does not end when the reader gets to the end of the article.

Links of interest can lead to more information. The reader does not even have to finish the article, if there are references located throughout the story. The reading is no longer linear, but stream-of-conscious, and every reader sees a different story. The on-line publication becomes interactive not in just its content but by the selection of subjects that a reader wants to read. A distinction needs to be made between types of computer networks. On-line services carry the spirit of a network model, they are accessible from many points and connect many people, but are ultimately a central agency.

A central server, or series of servers, is located somewhere. Corporate networks are modeled similarly, with a central server and many microcomputers or terminals. The Internet expands this connectivity exponentially by networking networks. The entire system is held together by the backbone of the NSFnet (National Science Foundation).

The NSFnet itself has no servers to centralize Internet data, acting instead as conduit, connecting thousands of networks. Data therefore becomes highly de-centralized. Unlike traditional media in the hands of a powerful institutional interests, the Internet can allow limitless venues of alternate distribution over the same inter-network, 'power will continually devolve from centralized institutions, bureaucracies, computer architectures, and databases into distributed systems' (Gilder 125). Unfortunately, this network model is threatened.

The government, in an attempt to privatize the Internet, has announced that it will cease $12 million in subsidies and shift the network to four private, geographically distinct inter-networks. The NSFnet will then shift its energies to creating a smaller network linking scientists. Unfortunately, this bodes ill for access to the Internet. These private organizations could charge as they please for connection. Universities have enjoyed nearly free access to the Internet. Worse, the stability of these networks is in question, the vast amount of data flowing through the Internet may prove to be too much for them.

To make matters even worse, there is no guarantee that these networks will connect. They probably will, but are not obligated to do so. In one fell swoop, government decision-makers may have destroyed the freest established network forum. Computer networks, assuming a free, public one exists in the future (if nothing happens to the Internet), may not be the be-all and end-all that media hype may indicate, but they are surely revolutionary tools that will change the ways we access information and perceive the world around us. Commercial interests will be overwhelming as we are bombarded by information. But useful, interesting will still be accessible - the problem will be locating it.