The Globalization of Communication - The Internet as a new form of computer-mediated communication -

摘要

With the advent of the new electronic media, perception, information and communication are liberated from the constraints of spatial and temporal presence to the advantage of permanent, virtual contact ability. Computer-mediated communication makes the creation of artificial worlds possible, which, in their tum, make experiences and manners of operation possible, which differ immensely from those of oral and written culture -as can be seen, in particular, on the example of the speed, the wealth of information and the number of possible participants.rnThe Internet as the centre of computer-based communication has, in at least three respects consequences for a developing world culture:rn1. With the new media, a global communication community is emerging. The various designations and descriptions are based on a common experience: the detachment of communication from direct face-to-face relationships in the direction of media-transmitted communication. Communities now needn't any longer be constituted only by those physically present: but can be organized in a global network, which has neither temporal nor spatial limits. Communication becomes almost completely separated from its physical, psychic and social substrate.rn2. On the whole, the Internet makes the universalization of opportunities for communication. In principle, everyone is contactable, and almost everything can be represented in the Net, provided it is digitizable. Even the most remote cultures can be "delivered" into one's home in real time. This has unforeseeable consequences for the comparability, the diversity and the consumability of culture, which can fundamentally change or understanding of culture's significance. In this connection, the following may be of importance: the loss of the experience of authenticity of cultural monuments and of their power for establishing identity. Walter Benjamin's hypothesis on a work of art's loss of its aura in the age of its technical reproducibility can be broadened to the question of changing the function of culture in the age of its digitalization and commercialization.