Citation
Peters, J. (1998), "Medium and message", Internet Research, Vol. 8 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/intr.1998.17208baa.001
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 1998, MCB UP Limited
Medium and message
Medium and message
There is an interesting piece in this issue by R. William Maule who looks at not how to use the Internet in education, but what a university degree-level programme in Internet Studies might look like.
The content/process discussion is one I have heard before in other institutions; whether Internet Studies is a valuable addition to a curriculum or whether the Internet should simply be treated as a research/communication medium. Thus, might we have had telephone studies? Postal studies? Would they be any more or less legitimate?
I think I like Internet Studies (and I certainly liked Maule's article). Ever since Marshall McLuhan's famous "The medium is the message" statement about TV, media and messages have often been blurred. If forced I would declare myself as a writer, and as a writer I would have to favour message above medium. I don't really care how information comes to me; I like to be able to pick and choose; I like my e-mail messages popping up effortlessly in the morning.
However, the applications of the Internet are still emerging, and it would in truth be quite a fascinating programme of study to be thinking through medium and message in relation to the Internet. Where does design meet content, in such an immediate, design-driven medium? When does a slow browser stop a "good" site being good? What does quality mean on the Net?
In that sense, exploring medium issues, message issues, application issues, and the interfaces between them, this journal is a kind of Internet Studies course. I hope R. William Maule's students might one day read this issue as part of their course, and constructively criticise the concept which brought the course of study into being.
John Peters