Characteristics of the Medium

This reading consists of many different components that revolve around the evolution of the Internet. Its main idea involves the issue of the Internet's medium type. The reading states that the Internet can be used as a personal communication medium. Internet users can use various asychronous technologies such as email, as well as sychronous technologies such as videoconferencing. These technologies allow users to us the Internet in an interactive approach, which can define it as a social medium. But this reading states that the internet is evolving. It can be used in various other ways such as for public information and business practice. Examples of these include many informative websites such as www.mlb.com and www.weather.com. These websites are displayed amongst the internet in order to provide information for the public. Users can use these websites in order to find valuable inofrmation on major league baseball scores or tomorrows weather. The Internet can also display business websites such as www.pacsun.com. These sites allow consumers to buy products over the web in a business to consumer practice. These various websites also illustrate that the internet is a multimedia. For example, www.mlb.com may contain various highlight videos of yesterdays game that may require a real player plugin. These websites also contain another important element known as hypertexuality. As defined by the reading, hypertextuality is "The ability to link any type of content to any other type of content." (Adams and Clark, 37) Hypertextuality can be used on www.mlb.com's homepage in order to link the user to other areas of the site such as to "Statistics" or "Standings." Finally, "What makes these websites accessible is through the use of packet switching and digitization." (Adams and Clark, 41) This is a very important statement that I can agree with because this is actually part of the basis of the Internet's evolution. Since the Internet contains many different elements that define its medium type, the reading states, "We would like to suggest that the Internet is a macromedium." (Adams and Clark, 29) It can be defined as this term because of the many functions the Internet possesses. The functions include both the communicative and informative processes and it's six key qualities that I have previously stated.