The World Wide Web

How it started
-- web is result of two threads of thinking:

• Explosion of knowledge and information, particularly after WWII
 Vannavar Bush
Problems with storing and retrieving that information
Getting a handle on it
• Cold War idea that our communication system should be far-ranging and secure; getting lots of information over long distances; decentralizing that information so it would not get knocked out by a nuclear attack

By the late 1960s these two threads were coming together, mainly through the work of the Pentagon; we began to see our first inklings of how "computers" could handling information and how they could be connected to "talk" to each other – send and receive information – over long distances.
It took two more decades for computers to become a central part of our lives, taking the place of typewriters, telephones, etc. Computers began to be put to many uses, such as the setting of type at a newspaper or the type of bills for a company.
The singular idea: if something is typed once, it does not have to be typed again – capture the original keystroke.
What it is and does
By the early 1990s, the Web as we know it began to appear and be put to use. In the last decade and a half, it has evolved into an entity that (characteristics)

-- provides information (enormous amounts of information, some good, some bad); essentially the web, like other media, is neutral
-- simple format
-- openness, accessibility
-- confined to some kind of sending and receiving machine; one of the fascinating developments now; whereas once is was a computer, now it's telephones, laptops, handheld devices; and there may soon be many others devices.
-- generally low cost for operations but not initiation
-- lots of choice

Characteristics of the web as an information (news) medium

• Capacity; journalists have always been confined by time and space; the web frees the journalists from those restraints; now they are confined only by their ability to produce news and information, not by the ability to present or display it
• Flexibility – web can hand a variety of information formats: text, audio, video, still photos, graphics, interactive graphics, slow motion stills, etc. Some forms we did not know about before (narrated picture gallery); some forms yet to be developed.
• Permanence – the web is the most permanent of media (what? You're kidding!); information on the web need not be lost (it's lost only through operator error); web information does not deteoriate.
Two great implications for this
-- retrievability – we can get it (not something that journalism is used to)
-- duplicability – many copies can be made

(Read more about the idea of Permanence and the Web on JPROF.)
• Immediacy – just like TV we expect information
-- eliminates the deadlines that journalists have traditionally used
-- accelerates production
-- competition
-- audience expectation
• Interactivity – audiences becoming part of the journalistic process
-- redefines the relationship between media professional and audience
-- news as product to news as conversation
Audience can
• choose (Daily Me, personalization)
• react -- feedback loops now better than ever
• follow/critique
• correct/contribute
• generate (citizen journalism)
This will have more effect on journalism than any of these other characteristics.

Major social issues generated by the web
-- Gatekeeping function of the media – the filters that the media exercise, such as interpretation of news values
gatekeepers survey, evaluate, select, interpret (and ignore)
on the web, this is being modified – how? Forums, bulletin boards, weblogs, email
-- Information overload
            -- too much info
            -- lack of source vetting; knowing where info is coming from
            -- lots of junk
            -- inefficiency in finding inf
-- Lack of interpretation
            -- meaning of information
            -- context
-- Privacy
            -- what information is available
            -- ease of access to the info
            -- identity theft
            -- email theft and spam
            -- sales and scams
-- Regulation
            -- how to regulate
            -- what to regulate
            -- who is responsible for the regulation
            -- what effect will it have