Dissertation (Chapter 2)

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2       Nature of electronic language

     Primarily, what characterises electronic language  is the emergence of language as electronic mediation. Whereas language as speaking  and writing  suggests an expression, or “going out” to the world , electronic mediation suggests an inward activity  of digitisation , firstly, and only second, is there a transmission or “going out” to the world. For Poster  (1990:78-79) it is the emergence of language as electronic mediation  that separates electronic forms of expression from speech and writing. Electronic language, unlike speaking or writing, is an expression that can be suspended, re-visited, modified, re-played, copied, and recombined endlessly prior to transmission or “going out” to the world.

     Electronic mediation is considered here as the presentation of semiotic  material by way of a computer  program  that simulates a semiotic organisation in a particular format as defined by a program or interaction of programmes. What can be counted as electronic language , or semiotic material electronically mediated, does not include the hardware  and peripheral instruments of the machine. It does, however, include any signs that are caused by the operation  of the machine - such as sounds generated by an audio simulation device, programmed movements on the screen, and even non-programmed movements (such as a flash in between presentation of one photograph  to another).

     The nature of electronic language  is what makes it possible for this process of mediation to be used by human beings in activities of meaning making. It is also the nature of electronic language that has permitted nearly every other semiotic  to be contained within the semiotic system of electronic language. Central to electronic language is its inherent modifiability; it is this characteristic that allows for electronic language as expression to be suspended, re-visited, and recombined endlessly. Apart from this primary characteristic, the other six characteristics of electronic language play an important part in making it possible to contain a wide range of disparate semiotics  within the electronic medium. Electronic language, besides being highly modifiable, tends towards:

·        collagic expression

·        non-linear patterning

·        an emphasis on non-verbal semiotics

·        being database reliant

·        interactivity

·        pluralistic expression.

     Because electronic language  is essentially of this nature, it provides an ideal expressive semiotic  for preparation and presentation of semiotics  in general. Accounting practice using spreadsheets, and text  preparation using word processing  programmes were the first business  practices that allowed people to be freed from the static nature of written expression; through these programmes, people were able to repeatedly revisit preparation of texts, editing the text until it was “ready” for publication. However, because electronic language tends towards collagic and non-linear patterning, it is also possible to prepare drawings and other non-linear semiotics within the same electronic semiotic. However, it is modifiability and an inherent possibility of interactivity between a text and an author, a text and its user, an author and a text, etc., that makes it possible for endless versions and versioning to be constructed.

Modifiability

     Any electronic text  is modifiable. All cultures of computer  use are built around a tenet of modifiability — this is one of the only sureties of computer cultures . Computer organisation is primarily a “soft” construction of most any organising feature excepting, of course, the hardware  base within which computer activity  occurs. “Soft” in this sense is the word from which “software” derives its central conception of being able to be changed: re-placed in the computer system by another unit of “software” unlike the hardware that cannot be changed and re-placed with such ease.

     Of importance, though, in any computer  setting is the question of who is given the authority  to modify what particular aspects of the environment. Within the confines of a given hardware  setup, an operating  system provides the modus operandi of what a computer user can modify. Both Windows  and Mac desktop  environments have a range of “user options” that can be selected to customise that operating system for the individual computer user. On the individual level, computers are able to facilitate pluralism in styles of use. The operating system offers different things to different people allowing for the growth of different and varied computer cultures .

     At the level of program , most programmers  also provide a wide range of user options — this is what makes it possible that within a program a computer  user can fabricate one or more microworlds in which a variety of simulations can be run. The wider the range of user options available the wider the range of microworlds and simulations possible. In some programmes, the user options are so great that a comparison of one instance of the program installed by one user with another instance of the program installed by another user would suggest that there are two different programmes in use.

     In opposition to the highly modifiable nature of electronic language , some semiotics  require there to be textual elements that are fixed, non-modifiable textual elements, such as “print -based” textual elements that are owned, or are copyright  and therefore must be preserved from change to be in the same form as when constructed by its author. These elements are often displayed on a computer  screen, in this highly modifiable environment, as fixed elements that the computer user cannot modify. For example, word processing  files are often locked so that they can be displayed in a word processing program , but particular user options are selected that disallows further editing or modification to occur. The microworld , within the word processing program, is constructed to simulate a fixed text , as one would find in a “print” environment. This, of course, simply fixes the text at a particular point in a possible endless series of modifications. Provided a password, or other unlocking device can be used, changes can be made to the electronic text.

     Fixing texts, in that way, however, does not deter copying and appropriation of that text . A word processed text can be locked so that it cannot be changed, but it can still be copied to produce another copy of that text. Even the locked word processed text can be copied into another text to make a new text. Word  processed texts can also be encrypted, or scambled using a highly complex mathematical formula, to lock people out of that text; and even encryption, as complex as it is, can be deciphered over time. Regardless of what safeguards a computer  user may wish to develop to simulate a fixed state for a selected computer text, any other computer user can, in time, develop a method of breaking that simulated fixedness.

     Business cultures, in working towards making use of computers across open public networks, are exploring how encryption algorithms can be used to protect electronic texts . Encryption is a mathematical method of altering a computer  file  so that the contents of the computer file cannot be deciphered except by using a mathematical formula and a numeric key to interpret the text  of the file. There are basically two types of encryption: symmetric and asymmetric encryption. Symmetric encryption involves both sender and receiver having the same key or number, as each other, along with the mathematical algorithm to perform a decryption of that file. Asymmetric encryption involves sender and recipient having different keys or numbers to decrypt a file. Encryption is performed with very large numbers and is a theory based upon the complex mathematical relationship of prime numbers. Encryption is measured by the size of the key; a 40 bit encryption key is rather small, while a 120 bit encryption key is of medium size. Additionally, asymmetric encryption is rather more difficult to decrypt requiring knowledge  of complex mathematical algorithm as well as two keys with which to perform encryptions and decryptions. Theoretically, any level of encryption used in such projects is susceptible to tampering and eventual breaking of the safeguard. Such are the strengths of encryption used in these business  applications, though, that to decrypt them through simple brute force of very large computer systems, it would take more than 13 years using the largest computer known to decrypt one instance of a 120 bit symmetric encrypted text. It is not known how long such texts can be considered to be secure. Theoretically, it could be only a few years away that it would be possible to decrypt a 120 bit symmetric encrypted text in just a few minutes.

     What this emphasises is the highly modifiable nature of electronic language . Regardless of the complexity of mathematical formulae and the size and composition of encryption keys, there is always the possibility that modification of a text  can be achieved using computer  power. It is this modifiability that makes the construction of electronic simulations appealing in so many arenas. This modifiability has opened up new vistas for those who compose or construct texts; composition of print , multimedia , building plans, graphic designs, photographs, audio recordings, video  clips can all be modified using the organisation of electronic language in a computer setting.

     Photographic reproduction is an excellent example of modifiability of electronic texts  opening new vistas. A photograph  can digitally scanned into a computer  and then opened by an editing program . Through such an editing program, the following can be performed on the photograph:

·        objects in the photograph  can be removed, such as a person or building

·        backgrounds can be tinted

·        photographs can be merged, or laid one on top of each other

·        objects can be modified or morphed (meaning twisted or changed in size or composition).

In fact, with a library of photographs on hand, a photographic editor using a computer  can produce a range of photographs that would have cost many thousands of dollars to produce, and many years of photographic activity  in just a few short days.

     Pre-print  preparation is another, but perhaps better known, arena where computer  modifiability has brought new vistas of activity . Compare the activity of hot-metal composition of printing  plates with today’s relatively simple computer screen monitor  preparation. Through computer activity, whole magazines and newspapers are composed from the journalist, through to the final printing via computer activity. Through computer activity, a magazine can be composed in New York, transmitted to four other locations world  wide, minor local modifications made to compose a local edition of the magazine, printed within an hour or so of receipt and on the streets of each locale within a relatively short time of composition in New York. 

Collagic expression

     Ulmer  (1983:84) points out that “collage” is the transfer of materials from one context to another through an operation  of “bricolage ” (Lévi-Strauss). Collage involves severing an element from its surroundings, assemblage of the materials and therefore setting in play a context of discontinuity or heterogeneity. Collage is most notable in terms of artistic displays similar to that in Diagram 1. Connections are made in this context between using scissors and knives as cutting implements to cut a form from one context and gluing that form in another place. Within the context of electronic language  the notion of cutting and pasting is carried over from this paper  activity  to an electronic interpretation.

Diagram 1: Collagic segmented hypergraphic taken from http://www.etext.org/Zines/UnitCircle/betty.jpg

     Any digitised element displayed as computer  text  can be selected, cut or copied and paste in another context. Usually this activity  is reserved for cutting and pasting objects within the one semiotic  as an activity of composing . It is possible, however, to also cut and paste objects from other semiotics  into a text under construction. For example, this text is largely composed of text, but with a variety of graphic objects cut into position in a number of places.  

     Within the context of electronic language , presentations often take on traces of collagic expression, although in many instances the full project of collagic expression is not obvious. As in the collagic illustration  pictured in Diagram 1, and Diagram 2, each of the elements within the text  are constituted from multiple files collagically juxtaposed by way of a scripting language . In Diagram 2, the page  is collagically composed of the following files:

·        the text  is part of a file  “toob.html”, a file written in hypertext markup language

·        the surfer is a picture file  saved in a “gif” (a common graphic) format

·        the graphic “NET TOOB” is a second “gif” file  that has been combined with the first “gif” to form a third “gif” entitled “net.gif”

·        text  at the bottom of the page  come from a footer file  “foot.html”

·        each of the links (in blue text ) is a reference to another file  to which the user can jump by selecting the link and pressing the left mouse button.

Diagram 2: Collagic text  taken from http://www.duplexx.com/

     Within the context of electronic language , collagic expression is most often as graphic as that portrayed in the illustration  above if not more so. In that many of the texts are constructed through activities of bricolage , electronic texts  are fabricated collagically, particularly using cut and paste methods, even though the resultant effect is seemingly one of cohesion rather than disjuncture. Take for example the illustration above (Diagram 2). The web  page  has a sense of cohesion — a header , verbal text  emphasised through the use of bullets, and bolded headings. Clearly, however, the page is composed of a number of disparate files, each related to the other only that it is drawn together by way of a scripted text composed in  hypertext markup language (html). The tendency in electronic language is that seemingly cohesive texts are composed of a multiple number of units combined only once electronic activity  has been invoked to construct on a screen, a printer or other device, that seemingly cohesive structure.

     Most texts in electronic language  are composed of a range of disparate files. Program interfaces  are composed of one of more than three hundred graphic file  types, text  is composed of one of a number of formats of text files, buttons and other objects are composed of a mixture of graphic and active program elements, and so on. What this collagic composition method allows is for an “html” page , or graphic interface to be recombined or reconstituted in different ways each time it is collagically constituted. For example the “Net Toob” page could be reconstituted the next time without the surfer picture, or with a different text file. The fact that each of the elements are stored separately but constituted collagically at the time of presentation allows for the text’s re-constitution according to contextual, or other requirements.

     The tendency towards collagic display lends towards coupling a range of semiotics  in the one presentation. This range of semiotics is extended beyond those semiotics possible in print , including such semiotics as video /film and animation , as well as some specifically computer  semiotics of hypertext, hyper-graphics and programmed activation (such as video-like text  that responds interactively to joy stick control).

Non-Linear Patterns

     Printed language  is often depicted as highly linear, with one line of text  following another, one sentence following another, down one page  and over to the next. This is not always the case. Some of the best examples of non-linear patterned texts occur in print  — for example, the encyclopedia. While individual applets of text are organised linearly, so that the printed language can be read from beginning to end to identify specific meaning, the text overall is organised using headings  arrayed in alphabetic order. One  applet of information  does not follow on to the next applet — a non-linear organisation of information.

     While non-linear patterns of organisation have been used in printed language , the occurrence of non-linear patterns as an organising principle is more widely used in electronic language. Linearity in the context of electronic language is de-emphasised in favour of other forms of organisation. In the Microsoft  Windows  environment, additional information  to that already on display is presented in an additional overlaid window, for example. Also, in that graphic depiction is effective on a computer  screen, where ever possible many computer text  composers use illustration  rather than linear text to present meaningful information.

     Added to this, however, is the fact that electronic texts  can be stored as quite linear texts, a simulation  of print , but these texts can be used in specifically non-linear ways. Hypertext, of which world wide web  texts provide a huge array of examples, are texts that are built to be used using non-linear patterns of activity . Graphic illustrations are often divided so that selecting and clicking a mouse on one part or another presents a different portion of a text , or even a new text from another server in another part of the world . Individual words are coloured to indicate that it can be selected to present to the reader another text related in some way to the first text.

Diagram 3: Emphasis of electronic texts  on non-linear patterns. Taken from http://www.hotwired.com

     Hypertext, as Landow (1992) points out, is quintessentially an electronic text . The art and science of hypertext, or the art and science of linking, is only possible in the context of electronically motivated texts. Linking texts, particularly across networks and more specifically the Internet , is only possible where computers and networks are combined in an electronic array such that addressing of one document  to another can be effected in real  time across the world . Linking texts in this way leads to non-linear patterns of activity , and non-linear re-composition of texts as the computer  users follows links in order to constitute a text, albeit a text that is being composed seemingly in an ad hoc manner through linking partial document from one side of the world to another.

     Many electronic texts , however, are not related to “printed” texts but still display linearity. Audio and video  clips presented from within a web  page , for example, are linear texts. An emphasis away from linearity, however, is often noted in the way that audio and video texts, as linear as they may be are collaged with disjoint graphic illustrations and worded hypertext links that can be selected to allow the simultaneous play of an additional audio, video or other text .

     While patterns of linearity are never completely over-ridden or eliminated, electronic display tends towards non-linear organisation more so than many spoken or written texts . This tendency towards non-linear patterns is perhaps best seen in graphic simulations, many of which are displayed in multimedia  and world  wide web  texts.

Multimedia

     The term “multimedia ” can refer to any one of about thirty different categories of “media”. The term can refer to:

·        gesture-based interactive media — where a screen displays a range of texts based upon the gesturing of a human

·        motion-based interactive media — where depending on the motion of the screen in a moving vehicle it displays a different text

·        large storage media display systems — such as a display based upon the storage facility of a CD-ROM, or large disk

·        interactive video  devices — such as on-demand video, media on-demand, on-demand playback

·        distributed media applications — such as the World Wide Web , live-feed newswire services

·        multi-media information  services — multi-media mail, document  archiving systems.

The notion of “multimedia ” used here is the more popularised notion, referring to large storage media display systems that most often use a CD-ROM per “multimedia” text  for storage. This popularised term refers to an increasingly standardised microworld , or set of microworlds, established around a digitised format, where video  clips, graphic images, audio clips, verbal text, and links between each of the different formats, along with a specialised interface.

     The digitisation  of most of the familiar types of creative work is straining the existing categories already, but as writers, producers and others come to appreciate the potential  of “multimedia ” and explore its possibilities, new types of creative work are emerging which could render our current categories incomplete. We are starting to see those possibilities realised in the increasingly sophisticated multimedia products coming to the market, which do not fall within conventional categories of text , for example the CD-ROM products "Myst", "Xplora" and "Under A Killing Moon". They may have a plot, but since the viewers choice will frequently determine what happens next, there will be many permutations of the theme. There may be elements of video  or film, computer  generated graphics, text, speech, music and sound  effects combined together within an overall framework to create an absorbing and stimulating experience for the viewer. From the point of view of society this new type of creative work is very difficult to squeeze into the traditional categories.

     The producer of this type of CD-ROM has an important creative and production role. He has first of all originated the concept for the product , then developed the outline and produced or acquired the different elements of the CD-ROM, brought them together as the finished product, then finally distributed it. The end product has a number of unique features:

·        the selection of the material contained in the product

·        the screen displays: the functionality displayed on the screens, the design of icons and other screens

·        elements and the positioning of the individual screen elements.

·        the architecture of the product , the hierarchy of the material and the way in which it is organised.     

     The whole concept of “multimedia ” is one of collage — a concept strongly different to the linear notion of “written” language , or “bookishness”. It is a notion of systematising diverse digitised media using screen displays, screen navigational tools (usually software  specifically written to handle such displays), which are designed around a particular architecture that organises the material so that it can be viewed as a distinctive product  — much in the way we view a book as a separate product. The tendency, therefore, within a “multimedia” microworld  is away from a linear presentation of information  towards a collagic and juxtapositional organisation.

The World Wide Web

     The phenomena labelled the “World Wide Web ” is this same notion of “multimedia ” outlined above, however, its storage and transmission system has been developed so that computers connected to the Internet  can be the source from which any other computer  can derive texts instead of purely deriving digitised texts from a CD-ROM. The World Wide Web takes “multimedia” from being a product  to systematising it as a method of communicating and linking texts on a world -wide basis.

     In doing this, the World Wide Web  further emphasises a non-linear organisation of textual material through its prolific use of hypertext links. Within any particular Web “document ” there can be links within that “document” to other documents within the same computer , or to any other document on any computer in any part of the world  where it may be running and connected to the Internet .

     The emphasis of the World Wide Web  is not the same “collagic” emphasis of “multimedia ” although it presents texts in all the same digitised media that “multimedia” does and emphasises a non-linear form of text . The Web’s organisation centres around the hyperlink as a means of moving from text to text and computer  to computer. This means that people can read largely linear texts with non-linear methods of linking topic-to-topic across numbers of documents by following topic links. Web documents tend to have lengthier verbal text elements than multimedia texts, but a greater number of navigational elements a person can use to move from text to text according to related topics, or referenced documents.

Emphasis on the Non-Verbal

     While the surface of electronic language  would seem to display many verbal items — such as is found in world  wide web pages  — the majority of electronic surfaces are oriented towards graphic elements. However, due to an increasing emphasis of multimedia  mixtures in text , other non-verbal elements are fast approaching the saturation point of graphic elements.

     In a survey of 5,000 web  pages , the following non-verbal elements compared with verbal elements were identified:

Table 1: Non-verbal textual elements

This table was automatically calculated from retrieval of 5,000 pages  during surfing the world  wide web  over a two week period. As each html object  is labelled, such as a paragraph with a <p> and a heading as <h1>, and each graphic uses its filename, eg., gif, it was possible to automatically calculate the total number of verbal and non-verbal elements.

     The study illustrates the high level of non-verbal textual elements used within electronic texts . Illustrations are approaching the level of heading usage. There are many more headings  in hypertext than in other texts, in that many pages  are constructed of little more than a list of hypertext linked headings to take the reader to information  related to that heading; in many instances, illustrations are also used for the same purpose, often alongside  headings.

     It is also worth noting that charts and graphs are used more than paragraphs as a means of simulating  information  in an electronic context. When also considering that segmented hypergraphics can also be used to simulate complex information, it becomes obvious that the emphasis on non-verbal communication  is strongly present in  electronic settings.

     Other texts, besides Web pages  emphasise non-verbal communication . Programmes must also be classified as electronic texts . They have a visual interface that is graphic by nature. Many programmes are constructed through using construction environments such as Visual Basic, or Visual C++, thus further emphasising the non-verbal nature of electronic texts.

     The fact that electronic text  features non-verbal elements so heavily should not be a surprise. Graphical user interfaces  present the computing public with something akin to “life”. It is much easier to understand that an object  on the screen is a rubbish bin, if it has the shape of one of those objects. It should also be no surprise to us that non-verbal elements feature so heavily in computer  texts in that it is a moving and active medium that can display moving pictures.

     Graphs and charts  are also a part of that “life-like” notion of the simulation  aesthetic. A paragraph providing explication, while it is a “print” simulation on the screen, is not as vivid, nor does it provide as many points of entry as does a simulation in the form of a chart or a graph. Additionally, charts and graphs are list and graphic simulations which seem to portray “hard” data  rather than the soft data of a paragraph. People within computer  cultures  often elect to apprehend a chart or a graph to make meaning through dozens of visual clues. This is part of the simulation aesthetic that favours a surface knowledge  rather than a detailed explication of cause and effect, or methodical explication so often associated with paragraph construction.

     In continuation of this notion of the importance of the non-verbal, we must also consider the practical reasons why non-verbal elements are important on computer  platforms. Numeric and graphic components are often used in electronic settings because more can be packed into the typically small screens used as computer monitors. Besides the computer screen real  estate issue, though, we must also consider the practicalities of  using non-verbal elements in that they can be more easily updated, particularly when such information  elements are stored in databases.

     What should also be noted here are the comments from literally hundreds of interviewees who indicate that popular and informal notions of language  place non-verbal elements as a central part of “language”. Consider Doug’s comments, an experienced architectural project manager:

We work with diagrams  and models as a major activity . But we also spend a good portion of our day explaining those diagrams and models to others. I find that diagrams and models communicate perhaps about 80% of what it is that needs saying. But without an explanation in either spoken or written text , people often miss the import of the model. Turn it around the other way. If all I had was speaking  or writing , then people would miss 80% of what I was saying. Now that I can fully integrate those models and explanations on a computer  I feel that at last my language  is becoming integrated. What I can now do is rely upon a single medium to compose my whole message. Diagrams, models, photographs, video  clips and sound  recordings are as much a part of language, for us here in this office, as is talking and writing. (WA, 1996).

Also consider comments from Adrian and Liam, section managers who work in one of Australia’s largest banks:

Speed of grasping an idea is the important thing in our management roles. If I can peruse a graph, spreadsheet, or view a video  clip and immediately grasp the ideas in that communication , then I have gained time in a busy schedule. Paragraphs and paragraphs of information  may be explanatory, but these other things are communicatory. On a multimedia  computer , where it is possible, to use whatever object  — video clip, spreadsheet, and so on — I feel that this is an ideal languaging environment. This is like language  is now coming of age and we can communicate with all of it and not just speaking  and writing . (ANZ, 1996).

Database Reliance

     It is noted by Poster (1990:76) that an essential characteristic of electronic language  is a reliance on databases. The basis of an elec­tronic machine that languages is a database, or a set of databases. There is no way for a languaging machine to store textual elements, to retrieve those elements and to redisplay those elements other than using a database of one type or another.

     For Poster  (1990) databases are a significant textual form of electronic language . As a form of language, a database represents the earliest uses of writing : collection of data  about some aspect of daily life. However, as with other forms of language, electronic media tion changes the nature of databases. Electronic databases enable the detailed reconstitution of the daily activities of any individual; they also provide mechanisms for the reconstitution of the “real ” in contexts of simulation  so as to provide a window on the “real”. For Poster (1990:85), however such reconstitution when effected in electronic language, that is not framed by space/time coordinates as is writing and speech, poses a political and social challenge. Any reconstituted window, composed from database elements without time/space coordinates — being everywhere and nowhere, that is available on any computer  but having no specific roots in origin — can have discursive effects but difficult to control. Additionally, fields in a database establish relationship with several data elements, relationships which may not exist except in the database itself.

     Databases are now emerging that store information  about people simply because people use computers interactively across the Internet , selecting particular links over others, thus bringing about an abstraction of identity to which commercial organisations are now adding interpretations and future action. Simply because I have been active on the Internet for more than two years, there is a wealth of information stored about myself. Searching the “Alta Vista” database of web  pages , there are more than 4,157 references to myself. There are another 56,890 references in a message sampler database at MIT linking messages that I have sent across the Internet to my name. Through a study of these references, an electronic profile of “Elwyn Jenkins” can be composed. There are more than 13,200 data  elements that when compared with one another can provide a surprisingly detailed electronic re-constitution of an identity “Elwyn Jenkins”. This identity study was completed for three other people who are active on the Internet revealing similar surprising detailed electronic entities. 

Diagram 4: Databases on a personal computer

     Databases are a key form that makes it possible to populate every program , microworld  and simulation  with visual, verbal and graphic elements. Whether these databases are stored in table-like structures, plain text  lists or binary files , they are essential resources from which all computer  texts gain their surface elements. Diagram 4 outlines the range of databases that provide information  for the operation  of a computer when using Windows  95. This table is illustrational rather than being exhaustive, providing examples of the type of databased material that exists on a personal computer to simply establish a useful environment.

     Poster ’s assertion, however, points to a key notion that organises the surface of every interface in the electronic domain. These surface elements are everywhere throughout the computer  system, networks and the Internet , but at the same juncture are seemingly nowhere. This is the security of computer systems, that they can use “alphabetic letters” obtained from a database over and over again, reproduce them in many thousands of places and yet not move them from the database from which they were taken. This is also the problem of computer system, that they can use databases replicating errors contained in those databases, and spreading those errors where ever that information  is disseminated.

Interactiveness

     The new computer  aesthetic compels people to relate to computers as they would relate to other people. Activities of conversing with a computer is reinforced through the appearance of dialogue windows in which the computer reports to the user information  concerning options the user may have to continue the activity  at hand or to ensure that the computer performs in the way required by the user. In any program , microworld , or simulation , computer users have choices. These choices and attendant results of choice-making are signalled graphically and/or audibly by the computer. When making menu selections, or selecting hypertext links with a mouse, the computer user is informed of the results of those actions  through a graphical illustration  or simulation of underlying processes, or can see an immediate change in the information presented on the computer screen. Interactiveness of electronic texts  is such a dominant feature  that many computer users without really knowing where selections can be made move the mouse and click the left-hand mouse button all over the screen to test what can be done, where it can be done and what the effects of making such selections might have in any particular context.

     Programmes within the “Mac” desktop  or Microsoft  Windows  operating  systems are rich with interactive opportunities. The word processor that the author is using at this point has no less than 233 possible selections that can be made using the mouse. Given a particular microworld, as defined by the computer  user, each of these selections provide opportunities for the computer user to cause the program  to alter its current operation .

     Interactivity, though, is enhanced where a program  (or set of programmes) enables people to also interact with other people across networks, or across the “network of networks” — the Internet . In some interactive microworlds on the Internet, interactivity can be extremely complex — akin to a noisy conversation at a party. For example, Netscape Chat allows for an unlimited number of people (each using “chat” client software ) to be connected to a single “chat server”. Each of the people connected to the “chat” server can see the conversation, as displayed in Diagram 5.

<Chicky> Where are you located Speedball?

<Billy> Sub-zero, are you coming to the ball tonight?

<Whisper> Dick can you come over and get your apparatus?

<Speedball> Ontario, Canada. What about you?

<Dick> Nope, I’m grounded. Will have to on the weekend.

<Sub-zero> No we are snowed in.

Diagram 5: Netscape Chat - clip of an on-line session

Considered from the perspective of “electronic language ”, such interaction is facilitated by way of the “interactive” nature of the language. Interactivity in this setting involves both interaction between a computer  user and a computer, between computers and between people and other people.

Diagram 6: Live interaction on a network

The range of interactions depicted in Diagram 10 include interactions between the following entities with programmes to aid in the control of those interactions as labelled below:

·        Human A and Computer A — interface program  to facilitate human-computer  interaction

·        Computer A and Computer B — network communications program  that facilitates computers communicating with each other

·        Human B and Computer B — interface program  to facilitate human-computer  interaction

·        Human A and Human B — program  to present information  from Human A to Human B’s interface and vice versa.

The fact that electronic language  allows interactivity between a human and a computer , and that this is completed in “real -time”, allows a computer to be connected to another computer to allow interaction between human’s and computers.

     Interactivity in an environment where a human must interact not only with a computer , as they would relate to other people, but also a human must relate to other people in the same setting, and be aware as to what is computer interaction and what is human interaction. A simple example indicates the necessity of this. When two humans are interacting on a “chat” session, there are times when Human A may delay in responding to Human B; there are also times when the computers may delay in responding to each other because of net traffic. If Human A keeps prompting for Human B to answer, and the delay is due to computer slow-interaction, when the computers catch up, suddenly a number of messages appear on Human B’s screen. However, the aware human can identify through use of the interface when such a delay is due to human or computer delay and therefore know when to, or how to respond to such a delay.

     Discriminating between computer  and human interaction, though, can sometimes be quite difficult. An illustration  from the microworld  of On-Line Chat can provide a good example, here. Numbers of programmers  have studied the interaction of humans in an On-Line Chat microworld. There is usually a limited vocabulary, particularly if the topic of the chat channel is a social rather than intellectual discussion type channel. There are also limited ways that vocabulary items are placed together. So much so that programmers write “robots” to carry on a conversation in such a setting (they are often called “bots”). An example of a “robot-human conversation” is shown in Diagram 7.

<Sue> Where do you live Tuatara?

<Tuatara> I live where I have my residence.

<Sue> Do you often evade answering questions?

<Tuatara> I evade whatever I can.

<Sue> Do you like talking with me?

<Tuatara> My likes are known only to me.

Diagram 7: Discussion with a robot

Conversation with a robot is detectable, but so good are some of the robot programmes that is can take a number of interactions before it is detected. Programmers who construct robots aim to see how long a “conversation” can ensue without the human identifying the fact that the conversation is with a robot.

     In a business  setting, Windows  NT and Windows 3.11 network software  has a “chat” facility, as does the Novell network software. These facilities are essentially very similar to IRC Chat on the Internet  only that it is restricted to the organisation’s own network instead of working across a public network. Even within this setting it is important to identify who or what is playing a part in the conversation, or what contribution is made to the interaction. More than 100 people out of a total of 300, in samples obtained from three banks for this study, have mistaken human and program , finding difficulty in completing a communication  through not understanding the contribution of a program and the contribution of a human. In one case (CBA, 1995), a manager mistook information  placed in dialog boxes on his computer  for “chat” information that he thought one of the IT department programmers  was putting on his screen.

     The electronic environment, due to its special anonymous nature, and the fact that computers now can be networked over such vast distances, connecting people from all walks of life across the world , allows people to take on different identities. This also provides the potential  for computers to take on attributes of people. This is a new electronic environment where people can be redefined, where people can define themselves and where computers can be given attributes to act as people, and in the place of people in some limited ways.

Pluralism

     The electronic environment brings about the possibility of a multiplicity of identities in simulated microworlds. In the setting of the Internet , it is possible that the First Virtual Bank of the Internet can be a bank with no single nature; it can be the ideal bank to each individual. The bank can have multiple identities displaying a particular simulation  of a bank according to who is connected. So, too, can individuals present themselves as virtual people in any computer  setting, where a presentation of a particular simulation or abstraction of that identity of a quite a different “self” than in another simulation or abstraction can be presented. Electronic pluralism is a feature of electronic language  that makes the computer setting an ideal context for simulation. People can simulate new identities for themselves; computer programmes can take on some of those identities and replay those identities for people to examine the characteristics of such an identity. 

     Every era constructs its own metaphors for psychological well-being. Not so long ago, stability was socially valued and culturally reinforced. Rigid gender roles, repetitive labour, the expectation of being in one kind of job remaining in one town over a lifetime, all of these made consistency central to definitions of well-being and health. But these stable social worlds have broken down. In our time, health is described in terms of fluidity rather than stability. What matters most now is the ability to adapt and change — to new jobs, new career directions, new gender roles, new technologies .

     The new metaphors of health as flexibility apply not only to human mental and physical spheres, but also to the bodies of corporations, governments, and businesses. These institutions function in rapidly changing circumstances; they too are coming to view their fitness in terms of their flexibility. Martin (1994:161-225) describes the cultural spaces where we learn the new virtues of change over solidity. In addition to advertising, entertainment, and education, her examples includes corporate workshops where people learn wilderness camping, high-wire walking, and abseiling. She refers to all of these as flexibility practicums. While Martin does not refer to simulation  on a computer , activities of simulating  a new identity for oneself is similarly a “flexibility practicum”. Within the safety of anonymity on a computer, people can learn about being “multiple” and “fluid ” — adults just as well as children.

     In one large corporation in Sydney, people are given the opportunity to add messages to a bulletin board anonymously; it is a suggestion box type activity , only that it is used much more potently than that label suggests. Ron (not his real  name for security reasons), posted the following on the electronic bulletin board anonymously:

It often looks like the General Manager has his hand in the “till”. He seems to use so many resources of the company that we could use elsewhere and make the place run efficiently. Why doe the General Manager use $190,000 a year on trips to capital cities of Australia. He takes these trips over weekends, especially, and it looks like he is taking those trips just to have free, and possibly dirty weekends away. For one, I am jealous. I am pretty, have a smashing figure, and very attractive, and would like to go away for a dirty weekend with him. But if I didn’t get that from it, at least I would like to have my department running smoothly so that at least I could enjoy my weekends rather than working all through them to just keep abreast of things.

Ron identified this posting on the bulletin board and agreed to discuss this, provided it was kept anonymous. He suggested that the anonymity allowed his to experiment with identities and roles. Ron identified more than six other communications on the bulletin board, some of which praised the General Manager for taking these trips, using the weekend instead of work-time to catch-up on activities of the company across Australia. Ron plays with male and female roles to simulate ideas, feelings, outcomes and possibilities. It allows him to compose these in a space where he knows other people will read it, and therefore he has to feel real  about anything that is said. But at the same time, the anonymity affords him the space to explore these simulations and then to consider his actions  in the “real world ” from a much clearer, and well thought out perspective.

     Ron’s notion of using simulation  as a way of composing  oneself is a notion based on an understanding of the human condition as consisting of a unitary, stable self. One  that can be composed through simulation to therefore show the “well-thought-out self” to the world . From a postmodern perspective, self is not unitary, nor are its parts stable entities. We must sense our inner diversity; we must come to understand that we cannot know the world entirely, nor know ourselves completely (See Haraway, 1991:22). The environment of electronic language  allows people to explore these diversities; allows people to find fluidity of expression to explore those necessary diversities.

     When identity was defined as unitary and solid it was relatively easy to recognise and censure deviation from the norm. A more fluid  sense of self allows a greater capacity for acknowledging diversity. It makes it easier to accept the array of ours and other’s inconsistent personnae. We do not feel compelled to rank or judge the elements of our multiplicity. We do not feel compelled to exclude what does not seem to fit. Through defining oneself in an electronic medium it is possible for people to work with those elements that do not fit, that do not seem to be possible to use in “real  life”. It is a medium of simulation  where the multiplicity of selves can be explored and for us to come into other contexts with a much healthier relationship with ourselves and others.

     Electronic experiences help us to develop models of well-being that are in a meaningful sense postmodern — they admit multiplicity and flexibility. They acknowledge the constructed nature of reality, self, and other. These electronic experiences are not alone in encouraging such models; there are many other places where these models are encouraged. What they all have in common is that they all suggest the value of approaching one’s identity in several ways and with fluid  access to one’s different aspects. We are encouraged to think of ourselves as fluid, emergent, decentralised, multiplicious, flexible and ever in process (Stone, 1995). The metaphors travel freely among computer  science, psychology, children’s games, cultural studies, artificial intelligence , literary criticism, advertising, and artificial life. They reach deep into popular culture . The ability of electronic language  to change popular understandings of identity is heightened by the presence of these metaphors.

     The site of computing, however, is caught between this natural pluralism and particular facts of our history. One  the one hand, the computer  encourages a natural diversity of responses, playfulness, accepting postmodern values of opacity, playful experimentation, and the navigation of surface as privileged ways of knowing. On the other hand, there is the tension of the “unitary self”, the “real ”, the “copyright  text ”, and the “unique notion” that is proprietary and “patentable”.

     In the environment of electronic language , virtual chemicals are poured from virtual beakers, and simulated light plays off simulated walls. In financial transactions, virtual money changes hands. It is here that unitary and “real ” takes over and tries to supplant the multiplicity of identities. Banks are trying to invent ways to make a virtual dollar a single unitary particle of value; this is endeavouring to define a single unit in terms of ever changing sea of possibilities. The notion of “single”, “real” and “self” fights back. People can live parallel lives on the screen, but because of an economic system that prizes unitary value and specific measures of worth cannot have parallel monetary values to accompany them in their different lives.

     Construction of a unique, non-copyable, entity to which value can be ascribed, is the project that seems to be eluding bankers, programmers , academics and business  people. It is a tempting thought that one can conduct commerce across the world  at the speed of information  flows from one country to another. Indeed it is already a reality for businesses to transfer value across large scale networks. The Australian and New Zealand Banking Group distribute a software  product  for medium to large businesses to connect directly to the ANZ Bank host  computers to allow a business to automatically manage its own accounts, pay wages and distribute monies in order to pay bills. However, this activity  of connecting to a Bank’s host computer  is quite a different concept to the notion of owning electronic “chips” that can be anonymously owned, transferred to another person without trace of its owner, all within an electronic environment. The ANZ Bank system conveys numeric evidence of value in an account which stands in for a dollar monetary value. The notion of electronic pulses having an ascribed value, that is, actually standing in for the dollar note instead of requiring a real  dollar note at any time, is a notion that will be difficult, but not impossible to solve.

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