Women in science worry that these “private” network exchanges of research results serve to reinforce the “Old Boy Network” in scientific research circles, especially given the overwhelmingly male demographics of e-mail and newsgroup users
One of the Internet’s most widely touted advantages is that an audience member may also be a message producer. To what extent is that really the case? We may discover a fair amount about the producers of the messages from the content of their electronic messages, but what about the lurkers? Who are they, and how big is this group? To what extent do lurkers resemble the more passive audience of television sitcoms? And why do they remain lurkers and not also become information providers? Is there something about the nature of the medium that prevents their participation?
At present, there is no way to know when the Mikes on the Internet are even real, let alone credible. Consequently, we wish to underscore the fundamental importance of this issue.
As commercial providers increase on the Internet, and more political information is provided, the problem of who sets the agenda for the new medium also becomes a concern … Questions concern production of culture, social control, and political communication. Will the Internet ultimately be accessible to all? How are groups excluded from participation? Computers were originally created to wage war and have been developed in an extremely specific, exclusive culture. Can we trace those cultural influences in the way messages are produced on the Internet?
Source credibility will vary on the Internet, with commercial media sites carrying relatively more credibility and unknown sources carrying less. A much greater burden will be placed on the user to determine how much faith to put in any given source.
Mass communications researchers will want to examine information-seeking and knowledge gaps as well as a range of uses-and-gratifications-based questions concerning the audience … There are also questions of audience addiction to certain types of Internet communication and entertainment.
It remains difficult to envision the future of traditional mass media on the Internet – who will be the audience, how will that audience access the information and entertainment services, and what profit might be made from the services?
A new communication technology such as the Internet allows scholars to rethink, rather than abandon definitions and categories. When the Internet is conceptualized as a mass medium, what becomes clear is that neither mass nor medium can be precisely defined for all situations, but instead must be continually rearticulated depending on the situation.
If mass communication researchers continue to largely disregard the research potential of the Internet, their theories about communication will become less useful … The computer as a new communication technology opens a space for scholars to rethink assumptions and categories, and perhaps even to find new insights into traditional communication technologies.
Although criminals may, in fact, not use Clipper, it is conceivable that over time market forces could favor escrowed encryption. Organizations might require key escrow for their own protection, and vendors could favor it for its export advantage. The government will be ordering key-escrow products, and demand for interoperability could lead to its proliferation. Criminals could choose key escrow because it is more readily available, to communicate with the rest of the world, or to allow their own emergency access.