Cyberspace and Cyber Law

The term cyberspace is used to describe the virtual world of computers and internet. It is a nonphysical environment in which communication over computer networks occurs. Individuals can interact, ex-change ideas, share information, provide social support, conduct business, direct actions, create artistic media, play games, engage in political discussion, and so on, using this global network. The term cyberspace is used to describe anything that relates to the internet or internet culture.

Cyber law is a term used to describe the legal issues related to use of communications technology, particularly cyberspace. It is a rapidly evolving area of civil and criminal law as applicable to the use of computers, and activities performed and transactions conducted over internet and other networks. This area of law also deals with the exchange of communications and information, protection of intellectual property rights, freedom of speech, and public access to information.

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Writing for New Media/Web

The basic factor behind web writing is the knowledge of how users consume the web content. A web user seldom reads the entire content displayed on a web page. Instead they scan through the pages. They try to find out the information they needed by picking up one or two sentences. Usually the users don’t scroll down through a page for a long time. So the information given on a web page should be short and to the point. Information given on a web page should be factual without any overly hyped language. A user can always search for an alternative resource on internet. Web writing involves certain criteria to make it interesting and effective.

1. Crisp content

The text should be crisp. If the web page is displaying too many words, then it’s hard for the audience to read the content. Scanning is the method of going through the content without reading the entire matter. So certain elements like bold letters, headlines, highlighted text, and table of contents, graphical representations, and bullet lists should be included in the web page content.

2. Well organized structure

The web users always prefer to get a summary of the content in the beginning. So inverted pyramid style is favorable for web writing. The content should be clear and well organized. The graphical elements used in the web content should complement the information in the content.

3. Credible information

Accuracy, fairness and lesser number of grammatical errors increase the credibility of the content. External references and updated data should be added to make the content believable. Usability of a website also influences the users’ faith on the website.

4. Usage of Hypertext

Using hypertext allows the user to navigate from one page to another on a website. It also helps to add hyperlinks that connect the web page to other websites. Hypertext make the browsing easier for the users. Writing for web

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What is Online journalism?

Online journalism is a contemporary form of journalism where editorial content is distributed via the Internet. Here the primary product of journalism, which is news and features on current affairs, is presented solely or in combination as text, audio, video and some interactive forms, and disseminated through digital media platforms. It is also called digital journalism.

Fewer barriers to entry, lowered distribution costs, and diverse computer networking technologies have led to the widespread practice of online journalism. It has democratized the flow of information that was previously controlled by print media including newspapers, magazines, radio, and television. The digital aspect may be central to the journalistic message and remains, to some extent, within the creative control of the writer, editor, and/or publisher.

Before the Internet, spontaneous discussion between readers who had never met was impossible. The process of discussing a news item is a big portion of what makes for online journalism. People add to the story and connect with other people who want to discuss the topic. Online journalism opens up new ways of storytelling; through the technical components of the new medium, digital journalists can provide a variety of media, such as audio, video, and digital photography.

Online journalism represents a revolution of how news is consumed by society. Online sources are able to provide quick, efficient, and accurate reporting of breaking news in a matter of seconds, providing society with a synopsis of events as they occur. Throughout the development of the event, journalists are able to feed online sources the information keeping readers up-to-date in mere seconds. The speed in which a story can be posted can affect the accuracy of the reporting in a way that doesn’t usually happen in print journalism. Before the emergence of online journalism the printing process took much more time, allowing for the discovery and correction of errors.

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Online forums and Social media networks

Online forums

An online forum is a discussion area on website. The forum members can post discussion topics and read and respond to the topics posted by other members. A forum can be dedicated to any topic. The forum members gradually develop a sense of an online community and a social group. It is also known as a discussion board, internet forum or a message group. Online forums generally appear along with a website. There are also websites entirely devoted for online forum. A single conversation or discussion based on a topic is called a thread. There can be a number of such threads in an online forum.

Social media networks

A social media is a communicative tool that uses mobile and internet technologies, for creating highly interactive communities to share, discuss and modify user generated content. User generated content can be information, ideas, pictures, videos, etc. Social media is a wide term that includes collaborative websites such as Wikipedia, social networking sites like Facebook, content communities like YouTube, etc. nowadays social networking has become one of the most powerful sources for news updates through various platforms. Social media sites provide a space for free speech and expression. Recently many political and social movements have arisen from the campaigns held through social media. They introduce enormous and persistent changes to communication between businesses, organisations, communities, and individuals. The most common social networking sites are, Facebook, YouTube, twitter, blogger, word press, linked in, tumbler, etc.

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What are Search engines, Browsers and Web Servers?

Web Search engines

A web search engine is a program that is designed to search for information on the World Wide Web. Specified keywords are used to search for information in a search engine. The search results are generally presented in a list of results. These are called search engine result pages or SERP. The information may be a mix of web pages, images, and other types of files. Some search engines also present data available in databases or open directories. Search engines are a general class of programs that functions in various devices. The most widely used search engines are Google, Yahoo, Bing, Ask.com, etc.

Web Browsers

A web browser is commonly called a browser. It is a software application to locate, retrieve and display information on World Wide Web. Information includes web pages, or any other digital elements like video, images, audio and other files. On a web browser information is identified using a uniform resource locator or URL. A web browser is also used for accessing information on web servers and private networks and files in the system. The major web browsers are Mozilla Firefox, Google chrome, Internet Explorer, Opera and Safari.

Web Servers

A Web server is a program that, using the client/server model and the World Wide Web’s Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), serves the files that form Web pages to Web users. Web servers are computers that deliver Web pages. Every computer on the Internet that contains a Web site must have a Web server program. Every Web server has an IP address and possibly a domain name. Any computer can be turned into a Web server by installing server software and connecting the machine to the Internet. There are many Web server software applications, including public domain software from NCSA and Apache, and commercial packages from Microsoft, Netscape and others. Two leading Web servers are Apache, the most widely-installed Web server, and Microsoft’s Internet Information Server (IIS).

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What are the characteristics of New Media?

Internet is a worldwide system of computers interconnected to each other. A person on any part of the globe can interact with any other person through internet. The basic feature of internet is its ability to share information and enable interaction. An internet user can share information, ideas and feelings through internet and receive a feedback.

1. Interactivity

Interactivity is a prominent feature of new media which allows a two way flow of communication between the user and the computer or any other digital communication device. It allows the user to be-come an active partner in the communication process. There are various devices and software’s that utilize the possibilities of interactivity such as, smart phones, computer games, smart classes, etc. The basic feature of interactivity is feedback. It depends on the two way communication system and requires a response from the user for flawless functioning. Interactivity is classified into three types; navigational, functional and adaptive.

Navigational interactivity

Navigational interactivity as the name suggests helps to navigate through hyperlinks and search engines which connect web pages and websites.

Functional interactivity

It enables the interaction between the user and the digital device. It is commonly used by websites for receiving feedback from the users.

Adaptive Interactivity

It helps the user to edit and update the information in a digital media. Some websites uses this feature to enable the audience to involve in the updating of content.

2. Multimediality

It refers to the co-existence of different media in a single platform. Website is the best example of multimedia. Multimediality is used in various electronic devices such as computers, smart phones, etc. It combines all form of digital Mediums such as audio, video, text, images and graphics in a single format. Hypermedia is another form of multimedia where multimedia elements are combined with hypertext or hyperlink.

3. Hypertextuality

It is the feature that allows a user to navigate through web pages and websites using hypertext. A hypertext is a word or sentence on a web page that is attached with a hyperlink. A hypertext will be linked with a web page or website or even another portion of the same web page. Hyperlink can be applied to text content or multimedia content.

4. Universality

Internet is a world wide system of interconnected computers. A person who can access a computer or any other device which supports an internet connection, can access any information that is available on the internet.

5. Immediacy

It refers to the capacity of new media to deliver information immediately from any part of the world. Nowadays online news portals are faster than any other news media in delivering news.

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Advantages and Disadvantages of New Media

Advantages

1. Fast and cheap communication

Communication through new media is faster and cheaper. Communication platforms like Facebook, twitter, Whatsapp and email services like Gmail and yahoo make communication easier and faster. They are also free of cost.

2. Easy sharing of large files

Heavy files like videos, software etc., can be easily shared using email or file sharing websites.

3. Provides information

New media is a source of large amount of information. A person browsing through internet could access any kind of information through the websites.

4. Provides entertainment

Entertainment is one of the major reasons why people prefer new media facilities. There are a lot of games to play, videos to watch, etc.

5. Online services

Services like online banking, online booking, hotel reservations, online shopping, are widely depended by the society these days.

6. Product promotion

There are various methods for promotion through new media like, social media marketing, mobile marketing, advertising through websites and forums, etc.

Disadvantages

1. Virus threat

Virus threat is common for all new media devices. Virus is a computer programme that attacks and destroys the data stored in a digital device. There are various types of viruses like spyware, adware, and other viruses. This may affect the important files that are stored in a digital device.

2. Insecurity and theft of data

Personal information of the user and other important data can be stolen from a new media device or internet. There are lots of phishing sites on internet that are completely dedicated for this purpose.

3. Spamming

Spamming is the use of digital communication systems to send unwanted messages and advertisements repeatedly on the same site. Spamming is common in Email servers, social media, chat forums, mobile messages etc.

4. Pornography

Pornographic videos and images can easily spread through new media. It is not easy to control these types of materials if they are shared though online. Pornography includes sex and violence content.

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Global village and Information superhighway

Global village

The term global village is coined by famous mass media theoretician Marshal McLuhan. McLuhan described how the world has been contracted or reduced into a village by electric technology and the rapid movement of information from every quarter to every point at the same time. Information communication was successful in bringing all social and political functions together in a sudden movement. The electric speed heightened human awareness of responsibility to an extreme point. Physical distance is not a barrier on the internet. As a result interaction between people has largely expanded. 

It became much easier for the people to search for the online communities and interact with others who share the same interests and concerns. Therefore the information technology develops an idea of unified world or global society. Increased speed of communication helped in the disseminating an information worldwide. This forced the society to become more involved with one another from various social groups and countries around the world and to be more aware of our global responsibilities.

Information superhighway

The term information superhighway refers to the digital communication systems and internet telecommunication network. It is an information and communication network which interlinks and shares information between all kinds of electronic devices via internet and telecommunications. 

The invention and popularization of broadband systems has driven the internet communications to a new level. Broadband network is delivered through optic fiber cables that provide high speed network connection. This enables the sharing of video, online gaming, interactive television, video calling, etc. It developed the reach of internet to the farthest corners of the world. The specialty of information superhighway is that it interconnects diverse elements like individuals, households, firms and organisations.

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Media Convergence and Gate keeping in New Media

Media Convergence

Convergence means that ‘coming together of two or more things.’ It is a co –existence or merging of several media forms such as television, print and internet in a combined digital platform. It is an ongoing process of interaction between various kinds of media platforms. It is a cooperation and collaboration between previously unconnected media platforms. 

Burnnet and Marshal define convergence as blending of media, telecommunications and computer industries. It brings together ‘the three C’s’, i.e., computing, communication, and content. It is an after effect of the digitization of media content and the popularization of the Internet. Some of the dish television providers also avails internet service through the same set top box for distributing television signals. This can also be an example of media convergence. 

Multimedia functions under the theory of convergence. Various media elements like video, audio, print, animation etc., is coming together to form a multimedia program.

Gate keeping in new media

Gate keeping is the process through which information is filtered for distribution, whether for publication, broadcasting, the Internet, or some other mode of communication. Gate keeping occurs at all levels of the media structure. In the case of internet, the individuals can also act as gatekeepers, deciding what information to include in an email or in a blog. Gate keeping process is more democratized in new media.

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An introduction to New Media

New media comprises of all kind of digital interactive forms of communication that uses internet facilities. Online communication services like podcasts, blogs, social networks, news portals, email servers, wikis, text messaging, and all other computer aided online services come under new media. 

New media makes it possible to create, modify and share content. The process of online content generation is generally free of cost or less expensive. The devices that are commonly used to access new media services are computers and smart phones.

Read more about New Media - New Media

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Milestones in History of Internet

The invention of internet has revolutionized the entire communication systems and computer technology than any other inventions of digital world. Internet integrated the qualities of most of its predecessor technologies like telephone, radio, television, computer etc. The popularity of internet technology boomed in the nineties after the advent of World Wide Web by Tim Berners lee. This enabled coordinating websites and provides information and resources to common users. Milestones in the history of internet are:

- Advanced Research Project Agency (ARPA) was formed under the US department of defense in 1957. ARPA was responsible for the development of new media technology.

- Advanced Research Project Agency Network (ARPANET) came into existence in 1969. The first operational host to host ARPANET connection was made between university of California and Stanford research institute on October 25, 1969.

- In 1972 ARPANET began email communications.

- The digital communication technology was named as internet in 1973.

- The term World Wide Web was coined by Tim Berners Lee in 1990.

- Internet registration in 1992 for .com, .net, .org, .edu and .gov.

- In 1993 the first web browser was created with the name MOSAIC web browser.

- Java, the independent programming language was created by Jim Gosling in 1995.

- Yahoo! was founded in the same year, which provided web search engine, email service, etc.

- Google was founded in September 4, 1998 by Larry Page and Sergey Brin.

- Wikipedia was launched in 2001 by Jimmy Wales and Larry singer.

- In 2004 Facebook was founded by Mark Zuckerberg which opened a new era of social networking.

- In the same year Gmail, the email service of Google, was created by Paul Buchhiet.

- Video sharing website YouTube was launched in 2005.

- Social networking site Twitter was found in 2006.

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Brief History of Computer

The first use of the word ‘computer’ was recorded in 1613 in a book called “The young man’s gleanings” by English writer Richard Braithwait. It referred to a person who carried out calculations, or computations, and the word continued with the same meaning until the middle of the 20th century. From the end of the 19th century the word began to take on its more familiar meaning, a machine that carries out computations.

The computer as we know it today had its beginning with a 19th century English mathematics professor name Charles Babbage. He designed the Analytical Engine and it was this design that the basic frame-work of the computers of today are based on. The first substantial computer was the giant Electrical Numerical Integrator and Calculator (ENIAC) machine by John W. Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert at the University of Pennsylvania.

Computers can be classified into three generations. Each generation lasted for a certain period of time, and each gave us either a new and improved computer or an improvement to the existing computer.

First generation: 1937 – 1946 - In 1937 the first electronic digital computer was built by Dr. John V. Atanasoff and Clifford Berry. It was called the Atanasoff-Berry Computer (ABC). In 1943 an electronic computer name the Colossus was built for the military.

Second generation: 1947 – 1962 - This generation of computers used transistors instead of vacuum tubes which were more reliable. In 1951 the first computer for commercial use was introduced to the public; the Universal Automatic Computer.

Third generation: 1963 - present - The invention of integrated circuit brought us the third generation of computers. With this invention computers became smaller, more powerful more reliable and they are able to run many different programs at the same time. In 1980 Microsoft Disk Operating System (MS-Dos) was born and in 1981 IBM introduced the personal computer (PC) for home and office use. Three years later Apple gave us the Macintosh computer with its icon driven interface and the 90's gave us Windows operating system.

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Terminology/ Glossary - New Media

General terms used in New Media

1. ACAP – Automated Content Access Protocol, a platform that would allow search engine to recognize the terms and conditions of specific websites.
2. Adobe InDesign – Desktop publishing programme, now being used more widely in place of QuarkXPress.
3. Ad Impression – Term used to describe the number of times an advertisement is seen.
4. ADSL – Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line; high bandwidth web connection often just called broadband.
5. Advertorial – An advertisement in the form of a complementary editorial piece,Usuallylabelled as an advert.
6. AM Mark – The symbol used for denoting the end of a feature story in a periodical.
7. Android – Usually used in the context of Android phone, Android is a free and open source operating system developed by Google that powers a variety of mobile phones from different manufactures and carriers.
8. App – Short for application, a programme that runs inside another service.
9. Band width – The amount of data that can be transferred through an internet connection.
10. Blind Interview – An interview with an unnamed source.
11. Blogger – A person who writes a blog.
12. Cache – The page refers to a space where web pages visited by the user are stored on the computer. A copy of document retrieved by the user is stored in cache.
13. Campaign – The various stages of an advertising project from beginning to the end.
14. Cascading style sheet (CSS) – Technique used for designing web pages,one file that defines the style for a whole site.
15. Content Management System (CMS) – A programme for creating, editing and publishing content such as text, images, audio files and videos on websites.
16. Cookie – a Message from a web server computer sent to and stored by the user’s browser on his computer. The main use of cookies is to provide customized web pages according to a profile of the user’s interest.
17. Copyright - The legal right to control the use of literary, musical, dramatic or artistic work more specifically by making or using copies of that work.
18. Download – To copy something from a primary source to a more peripheral one, such as, saving something found on the web to a floppy disk or to a file on the user’s local hard drive.
19. Favourites – In the internet explorer browser, a means to get back to a URL, similar to bookmarks in Mozilla Firefox and Netscape.
20. FTP – File transfer protocol is a System of rapidly transferring entire files from one computer to another, intact for viewing or other purposes.
21. Host – A computer that provides web documents to clients or users.
22. HTML – Hypertext Mark-up Language is A standardized language of computer code, embedded in ‘source’ documents behind all web documents containing the textual contents, images, links to other documents and formatting instructions f o r display on the screen.
23. Address or IP Number – Internet protocol address or number is A unique number consisting of four parts separated by dots (e.g.:- 123.456.789.09). Every machine connected to the internet has a unique IP Address.
24. ISP – Internet Service Provider – A company that sells internet connections via modem (e.g.: - VSNL, BSNL, Satyam).
25. JavaScript – A simple programming language developed by Netscape to enable greater interactivity in web pages. It shares some characteristics with java but is independent of it. It interacts with HTML, enabling dynamic content and motion.
26. Server, web server – A computer running the software, assigned an IP address and connected to the internet so that it can provide documents via the web. It is also called host computer.
27. TCP/IP – Transmission Control Protocol / Internet Protocol.The collection of protocols that defines the internet. Originally designed for the UNIX operating system, TCP / IP software is now available for every major kind of computer operating system. To be truly on the internet, a computer must have TCP / IP software.
28. Tele-net – Internet service allowing one computer to log onto another, connecting it as if it were not remote.
29. URL – Uniform Research Locator is the unique address of any web document, found in the address field of the browser.

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