+ Page 82 + --------------------------------------------------------------------------- ####### ######## ######## ########### ### ### ## ### ## # ### # Interpersonal Computing and ### ### ## ### ## ### Technology: ### ### ## ### ### An Electronic Journal for ### ######## ### ### the 21st Century ### ### ### ### ### ### ### ## ### ISSN: 1064-4326 ### ### ### ## ### January, 1995 ####### ### ######## ### Volume 3, Number 1, pp. 82-87 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Published by the Center for Teaching and Technology, Academic Computer Center, Georgetown University, Washington, DC 20057 Additional support provided by the Center for Academic Computing, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802 This article is archived as SHADE IPCTV3N1 on LISTSERV@GUVM (LISTSERV@GUVM.GEORGETOWN.EDU) --------------------------------------------------------------------------- BOOK REVIEW GLOBAL NETWORKS: COMPUTERS AND INTERNATIONAL COMMUNICATION. Edited by Linda M. Harasim. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 1993. (ISBN 0-262-08222-5). xi-xii, 411 pages. Reviewed by Leslie Regan Shade, McGill University, Graduate Program in Communications [shade@polestar.facl.mcgill.ca] Linda Harasim's edited volume, Global Networks, neatly pulls together previously-published and original essays written by several key commentators and activists in computer networking. The issues encompass a wide range of domestic and international concerns, from networking applications in the social, work, and educational spheres, to commentary on the changing legal and policy landscape. The book does not emphasize the technology per se, but rather the varied social uses that computer networking (to include electronic mail, computer conferencing, and televirtuality) have engendered, with particular emphasis paid to the global educational uses of networking. Global Networks should be a useful textbook for the increasing variety of courses that focus on computers and society, in fields which run the gamut from educational technology and the information sciences, to sociology and communication studies. It is a particularly timely compendium, given the various policy and economic debates surrounding the global information infrastructure. Harasim and the contributors make strong claims for investing a considerable amount of social awareness, energy, and commitment to ensuring that future technological policy considerations not disregard the public interest. Part I of Global Networks provides an overview of the social + Page 83 + nature of networking and computer-mediated-communication (CMC). Harasim dubs the new social spaces created by networking "networlds", which she subdivides into three distinct yet often overlapping networlds: social networlds, networkplaces, and educational networlds. Social networlds consist of forums for informal conversation, such as newsgroups available on Usenet; conferences available through private systems such as the WELL, Prodigy, America OnLine, Echo, and CompuServe, or on the thousands of small BBS's available through FidoNet; as well as Internet services including IRC and MUDS. Networkplaces--inhabited by corporate, industrial, academic, and entrepreneurial workers--are networlds designed to facilitate and promote work-related activities at the office itself, or through telecommuting. Educational networlds include colleges and universities, K-12 schools, distance education projects, and community-based projects. Harasim further distinguishes networlds by their temporal-spatial qualities: they are place-independent (anyplace communication); asynchronous (anytime communication); allow for greater group interactivity; and are predominantly text-based, which can lead to more democratic communication, since contextual cues such as gender, voice, age, class, and race are usually hidden; or to misunderstanding or exploitation (heightened anonymity, or computer crossdressing--changing one's gender for dubious reasons). Network chronicler and cartographer John Quarterman provides a brief history of the Matrix--the web of networks consisting of the Internet, FidoNet, BITNET, UUCP, BBS systems, Usenet, and the many private networks--and concentrates on the oldest computer network, the U.S. Department of Defense sponsored ARPANET (Advanced Research Projects Agency), to its present incarnation as the Internet. He calls attention to the technical challenges imposed by the huge increase in users, such as the creation of the distributed host naming system DNS (Domain Name Service) and various resource discovery tools such as anonymous FTP, Archie, the Knowbot Information Service, and the Wide Area Information Service (WAIS). Quarterman points out that much of the Internet has been fueled by a terrific amount of volunteer labour, and that the exponential increase in networks and users demands that users become accountable for supporting these structures. Howard Rheingold provides a brief account of life on the WELL, (a private computer conferencing system based in the San Francisco Bay Area), in an essay first published on the WELL itself, and later expanded into his book, _The Virtual Community_. He argues that a full understanding of the nature of CMC involves consideration of the overlapping and intersections of the political, economic, social, and cognitive contexts. Part II deals in emergent issues in networking, including policy, legal, and security problematics; organizational workplace + Page 84 + communication; and challenges in cross-cultural communication. Anne Branscomb considers the question of how one can exercise jurisdictional control over the peripatetic qualities of the Internet--what she designates its "extraterritoriality" [85]. As Branscomb points out, global networking has increased the lucrative collection and sharing of personal data by various entities. Since the global economy does not accord legal rights for individuals to access data stored in computers or in transit across boundaries, only national court systems or cooperative judicial forces can exercise jurisdiction. Branscomb suggests that the global standardization of what constitutes acceptable conduct and use of data on networks will alleviate some of these quandaries. For instance, in the case of hackers, quite often their actions are accompanied by differing national legal definitions of criminality. In which country does one seek redress of grievances? Can one identify and then obtain jurisdiction over the criminal perpetrator? The line between the public and the private domain in networking environments is murky, and the challenges, according to Branscomb, many. Should one recognize individual responsibility and control over message content, or implicate or absolve the network provider from liability on messages it allows to be published? How does one define and protect private speech? What speech becomes part of the public domain? How do the many 'telecommunities' govern their electronic environment? Catherine Murray and Michael Kirby discuss the development of the OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) Guidelines on Information Security whose principles include maintaining the authenticity and utility of data, awareness of the data whereabouts for the person(s) involved, proportionality of security measures, and maintenance of the balance and accountability of data. Lee Sproull and Sara Kiesler, through field research and laboratory experiments, discuss the results of their studies into the relationships between employees and managers. For instance, how does CMC effect job performance? Does networking effect hierarchical control? What policy decisions regarding network access and communication outside of the workplace can management exert over its employees? What are notions of privacy in a networked office--can managers read an employee's personal e-mail, or can personal e-mail be forwarded to other people within and outside of the organization? Sproull and Kiesler point to a paradoxical nature of CMC: in several small experiments where groups used CMC to implement decisions, networked communications, while promoting free and unfettered communication, also seemed to encourage the expression of more extreme positions which complicated decision-making and consensus building. Other changes evident in networked communications are that patterns of discretionary informational sharing are enhanced. The query Does anybody know? is a frequent posting that can elicit a barrage of well-informed responses. + Page 85 + Marvin Manheim is also interested in the organizational effects of information technology and telecommunications, particularly as it impacts on the globally competing organization (GCO). Since the increasing globalization and multinationalism of business and commerce is creating the need for more effective organizational structures to increase competitive advantage, Manheim hypothesizes how task/team support systems (personal computers and networking infrastructures) can enhance both global competitiveness and create harmonious internal work environments. The design of computer-supported cooperative work (CSCW) and human interface research to foster cross-cultural communication is the focus of Hiroshi Ishii's chapter. Arguing that CSCW tools are cultural, rather than computer tools, Ishii presents a scenario for cross-cultural groupware that emphasizes international collaboration. Likewise, Jan Walls is concerned with the varied relationships that sustain virtual communities that are tied together with divergent cultural and socio- linguistic expectations. Part III presents seven case studies of global networking in action, most within an educational context. Andrew Feenberg discusses the experience of the now-defunct Western Behavioral Sciences Institute (WBSI), a Southern Californian-based global network that catered to the business needs of highly-placed executives. Robin Mason discusses recent experiments in Europe, concentrating on ELNET--the Centre for Electronic Communications and Open Support Systems in Education in the U.K. Beryl Bellman, Alex Tindimubona, and Armando Arias Jr. present their work with BESTNET--the Binational Spanish Telecommunications Network, a project linking students and faculty at various sites in Latin America, Canada, and the U.S., and its recent forays into universities in Kenya and Zimbabwe through AFRINET. Margaret Riel contemplates how to make "learning circles"--small, international. networked communities of students and teachers who study together for a particular period of time--effective and stimulating. Lucio Teles considers several possible schemes for fostering "cognitive apprenticeship" on global networks, including online mentorship and peer collaboration. Jeffrey Shapard analyses the technical and design problems inherent to integrating language and character codes into Japanese networking. Howard Frederick, former director of PeaceNet, provides an overview of the emergence of global civil societies, characterized by the spread of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and their networked counterpart in the Association for Progressive Communications (APC) networks. Part IV gazes into the crystal ball of the not-too distant future to hypothesize about networking policies and visions. Mitch Kapor and Daniel Weitzner of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) present their vision for the International Public Network, part of which has + Page 86 + recently been adopted by the Clinton Administration. They advocate that public networks operate under common carriage provisions; that government funding for networks be used to promote a healthy marketplace; and that networks be designed to carry traffic of all kinds, from commercial to non- commercial. Shumpei Kumon and Izumi Aizu propose a new organization emanating from hypernetworks-- "intelprises" which will "act as agents for co-emulation between the individualism-based Western branches and the contextualism-based Eastern branches of modern civilization" [311]. And lastly, Robert Jacobson, echoing Rheingold, Kiesler and Sproull, and Harasim, discusses the nature of online conviviality: creating new communities, fostering reciprocity, harmony, edification, and even spirituality. The final chapter of Global Networks is an overview of the Global Authoring Network (GAN) that was used by all of the contributors to the volume. The GAN was a way for the geographically dispersed authors to comment on each of the chapters and the book as a whole, via the Internet. Harasim concluded that the GAN experience "can serve as a template for productive international, even intercultural, collaboration for mutual benefit, integrating a diversity of backgrounds, interests, and expertise into a synergistic whole, wherein the whole is truly greater than the mere sum of its parts" [355]. One of the difficulties academics face in writing about technology, and particularly networking technology, is that by the time their articles or books are published, the information in them can be painfully outmoded. For instance, consider some of the more interesting networking developments and policy issues that have transpired in the one year since Global Networks was published: U.S. controversies over cryptography and the Clipper Chip, the emergence of community-based free-nets, ethical issues surrounding Usenet newsgroups in the university context, the popularity of MUDS, the increase in studies of gender usage of the Internet, and the widespread commercialization and privatization of the Internet, fueled by hyperbolic media coverage of the "information super-highway". Despite this inevitable problem, Global Networks, should, however, stand as an excellent record of some of the earlier experiments in networked communities, and serve as a useful text for students and researchers. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH: Leslie Regan Shade [shade@polestar.facl.mcgill.ca, shade@well.com] is a doctoral candidate at McGill University's Graduate Program in Communications where her research interests concentrate on the social, legal, and policy issues surrounding computer networking. + Page 87 + --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 5. Copyright Statement --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Interpersonal Computing and Technology: An Electronic Journal for the 21st Century Copyright 1995 Georgetown University. Copyright of individual articles in this publication is retained by the individual authors. Copyright of the compilation as a whole is held by Georgetown University. It is asked that any republication of this article state that the article was first published in IPCT-J. Contributions to IPCT-J can be submitted by electronic mail in APA style to: Gerald Phillips, Editor IPCT-J GMP3@PSUVM.PSU.EDU