Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
McLuhan age it is considered a given that a medium is not a passive pipe, but
rather the active messenger of a worldview (McLuhan 1964). But the computer
as medium has unique properties that can mask this understanding. Two such
properties, identified by Janet Murray (Murray 1997), are the participatory and
encyclopedic nature of digital environments.
The participatory nature of digital environments means that they take ac-
tion in direct response to user input. Generally there is only a short lag time
between user action and the system's response to the action; the user experi-
ences an immediate gratification of the desire to a affect the system. But this
immediate gratification can mask the recognition of the fact that the system's
authors have determined the boundaries of this interaction. The system can
only reflect the user's actions within the limits of the structures and processes
envisioned by the system's designers.
The encyclopedic nature of digital environments means that they have vast
capacity. The amount of information in digital environments often exceeds the
amount the user can comprehend as a whole. It is impossible to access every
record in a database, every document on the web. This enormous capacity is
generally coupled to processes that enable access to the stored information,
such as search engines and navigation interfaces. This combination of ency-
clopedic capacity and participatory access can imbue the user with a feeling of
great power - all knowledge appears to be at one's fingertips. But the encyclo-
pedic nature of digital environments can mask the recognition that the system's
authors have excluded information from the system and prevents the user from
asking why only certain forms of interaction are allowed.
Demographics in the electronic landscape
We use the term “electronic landscape” to refer to the immense corpo-
rate/institutional networks of interlinked technologies and databases that
touch our lives. One need not look too hard for examples: video rental stores
often keep digital records of a patron's entire rental history, as America learned
during the Robert Bork confirmation hearings in 1987, or as we see on the
other side of the U.S. political spectrum with Kenneth Starr's subpoena of
Kramerbooks for records of all Monica Lewinsky's topic purchases. Yet, it is
not merely the individual institutions' usage of these records that is of con-
cern. Data collection achieves its full power when the data is traded between
companies, concatenating personal data from many sources into detailed, if
Frankensteinian, digital profiles. Recently, the Metromail Corporation, which
maintains and sells records from a detailed data base of over 90% of American
