CYBER GEOGRAPHY

CYBER GEOGRAPHY

 

Introduction

 

            It is noted that one way of exploring the world is through map-making. However, because of the emergence of information technology, specifically the internet, this subject has experience many twists and turns it is main focus. The latest of this is the so called geography of cyberspace or cyber geography. The purpose of geography is to give a view of the whole earth through the use of mapping. However, with the existence of cyberspace, the view of geography has been changed.  The terms cyberspace refers to a mental space of attention in which individuals can be found when they are in an electronic communication. At present, cyberspace does not consist of one homogeneous space; it is a myriad of rapidly expanding cyberspaces, each providing a different form of digital interaction and communication.

 

In general, these spaces can be categorised into those existing within the technologies of the Internet, those within virtual reality, and conventional telecommunications such as the phone and the fax, although because there is a rapid convergence of technologies new hybrid spaces are emerging. Here, we provide a brief outline of the various cyberspaces in existence. The term cyberspace has become synonymous in virtual reality and the concept of this has changed the view of geography. Primarily, the main goal of this paper is to provide insightful details about cyber geography.  The focus will be on the assessment of one of the topics under the Atlas of Cyberspace which can be found at ().

 

Purpose of the Information

 

            As mentioned, the Atlas of Cyberspace is created to provide information about cyberspace and its different landscapes. The information provided in this include conceptual map of cyberspace. Geographies of cyberspace, the author’s remark, are slightly different, often more complex for us to grasp because they involve differences in our cognition of that fundamental frame of reference: space. Such geographies, then, can involve notions of identity and community, notions of geometry, space and form that are often (but not always) architectural, and ideas of the ‘docuverse’, the series of connected files and retrieval procedures that exist in cyberspace.

 

In the case of information that has a geographic referent and spatial attributes (e.g. ICTs), constructing a map or spatialisation provides a means by which to visualise and describe that form. It also reveals important insights into who controls the infrastructure, who has access to cyberspace, how the system can be surveyed, and how and from where cyberspace is being used.  Of the actual practice of producing maps of cyberspace,  (2001) outline the following in Mapping Cyberspace and Atlas of Cyberspace: first of all there are maps of infrastructure, often literal geographies of where equipment is located as well as economic and financial charts;

 

Another way to map cyberspace is through traffic, demonstrating the use of technologies such as the Internet; we can map topologies of networks that show their technical organisation and layout; finally—and most complex of all—we can map information, such as email usage, chat conversations or social data of users. In these areas, the authors probably push their metaphor of the map a little far, but their maps lie behind the organisation of many of the chapters in this book. What is more, mapping cyberspace can draw upon centuries of practice cognising physical space to help us cognise cyberspace.

 

For example, this provide information about terrestrial high-speed fibre optic network, long haul submarine cables and telecommunications satellites which gives vital infrastructure that wires the world together. These maps are used to plan, manage and promote this infrastructure. The image shown below is from Bandwidth Bay interactive network map which enables an individual to explore the fibre optic networks and wired buildings in downtown San Diego.

           

 

Furthermore, another example is the information about census mapping. The map above shows all the internet interconnections for Hong Kong in December 1999. This census map was provided by IDG Communications in HK. Accordingly, this map is updated quarterly to ensure adequacy in information.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It is clear that space and geography continue to matter, and in some senses they have taken on more importance. Cyberspace is inherently spatial. Its adoption and utility are founded on its spatial qualities…Moreover, its form and modes of operation are largely built on foundations that often depend on spatial metaphors and spatialisations ( 2001).

 

Adequacy of the Presentation

 

            It is noted that the Atlas of Cyberspace provide a graphic discussion of different projects that seek to map and visualize the information spaces of the World Wide Web or the internet. Atlas of Cyberspace combines the subjectivity of each exploration with the technical accuracy of modern cartographic approaches through the use of computers. Atlas of Cyberspace is an atlas of maps and graphic illustrations of the geographies of the new electronic territories of the World Wide Web, internet and other existing cyberspaces. The maps of cyberspaces also known as cybermaps enable people to visualize and understand the modern digital landscapes beyond the computer screen, within online information sources and in the wire of the global communication networks.

 

            The cybermaps, like any other maps of the real world enable people to navigate the new information landscapes, as well an objects of aesthetic interest and from all spaces of the world. The Atlas of Cyberspace is written in an accessible style and illustrated with more than 300 full colour images. This reveals the rich and various landscapes of the cyberspace.  Furthermore, the atlas explores the new visualization and cartographic techniques being used in mapping of cyberspace and concentrates in the following main aspects: internet infrastructure and traffic flows, online conversation and community, the World Wide Web and imagining in art, literature and film.

 

Based on extensive research made by the author, this provides unprecedented insights about the shape of the internet and the World Wide Web. Atlas of Cyberspace has been able to provide information clearly and adequately. Through an intensive research of the author, the information has been presented in a clear manner which makes it more useful and comprehensive.

 

Implications

 

The growth of technological advancement is fast emerging and many people have relied to the used of this. The rapid growth of computer has been thought to become a device that would extend and amplify human thought. As part of this, computing devices nowadays were seen primarily as engines that could reduce loaded laboratory works and calculations. And through the World Wide Web which serves as a collective device for the society, mechanisms such as personal files, bookmarks can be easily done. These devices are scattered into the world and become one of the most needed tool for every human. People today are fortunate that everyone have known and experience what it is like to live in a world where the physical is being inhabited by the digital.

 

Atlas of Cyberspace has emerged because of the existence different landscapes and geographic representations in the field of information technology and the internet. In this manner, Atlas of Cyberspace has provided information about its existence. However, this can be considered to have implications in the area of knowledge. As  (1997) explains, the digital landscapes of cyberspace only possess geographic qualities because they have been explicitly designed and implemented. This means that ‘there’s no there there’ (Holtzman 1994), and yet, as we have discussed above, the space has a spatiality, a tangible geographic quality that fosters social relations. A space without space, ‘a nonplace’ (Gibson 1987), and yet it possesses a spatiality and virtual places.

 

Analysts suggest that cyberspace achieves a shift in the bases of identity through three means: (i) it aids a process of ‘cyborging’, extending the body in new ways (1991); () it provides a space of disembodiment, as the mind enters a space of interaction free of the body, and its associated codings (e.g., gender, race) (1991); and () it dislocates the self, as the mind enters a space free of the context of geographic place and community ( 1997).

 

Cyberspace geography is what Foucault has termed a ‘technology of the self’, a device which effects the social construction of identity by altering the conditions under which it is constructed (1995). Indeed,  (1995) argues that cyber geography promotes the individual as an unstable identity, an individual bound within a continuous process of multiple identity formation.  (1995) notes that ‘the self is reconstituted as a fluid and polymorphous entity’. Here, ‘the boundaries of the self are defined less by the skin than by the feedback loops’ (Hayles 1993:72). In other words, in cyberspace identity is defined by words and actions not by body and place. As  (1993) explains:

 

Herein, people reduce and encode our identities as words on a screen, decode and unpack the identities of others. The way we use these words … is what determines our identities in cyberspace … The physical world … is a place where identity and position of the people you communicate with are well known, fixed, and highly visual. In cyberspace, everybody is in the dark. We can only exchange words with each other – no glances or shrugs or ironic smiles. Even the nuances of voice and intonation are stripped away.

(1993)

 

In other words, cyber geography is a place where ‘the self is constructed and the rules of social interaction are built, not received’. In cyberspace, your body is irrelevant and invisible and nobody need know your race, disability, gender, sexuality or material status unless you choose to reveal it (Stone 1991). The experience of dislocation in time and space allows individuals to experiment with aspects of their identity which they conceal in ‘geographic’ space (Wilbur 1997); the poverty of signals is appropriated as a resource (1999).

 

In addition, it is believed that cyberspace enables individuals to circumvent the geographical constraints of the material world, allowing people to shape their own communities by providing choices such as who they interact with. As  (1995) writes, ‘we will be able to forge our own places from among the many that exist, not by creating new places but by simply choosing from the menu of those available’.

 

Like geographic communities, these online communities have behavioural norms, differing personalities, shared significance and allegiances. Indeed, the fact that there are commonly agreed protocols, the advent of distinctive referent language (abbreviations, jargon, symbols), and the formation of strong social networks, signifies that online communities, in one form or another, do exist.

 

As suggested at a basic level, all communities are imagined, and so long as members share a common imaginative structure, a community can be said to exist. The majority of empirical studies indicate that there are many online communities which are rich in their diversity. As  (1996) point out, people would not invest so much time and effort in online social interaction through this cyber geographic representation if they did not gain some sense of social cohesion or community from their virtual actions. Indeed, they neither suggest that the form and depth of interaction means that these communities are neither pseudo nor imagined, despite claims made by its critics (1995). This is because cyberspace fulfils the qualities of what is called ‘real virtuality’, a reality that is entirely captured by the medium of communication and where experience is communication.

 

Conclusion

 

The Internet consists of a global network of computers that are linked together by ‘wires’ – telecommunications technologies (cables of copper, coaxial, glass, as well as radio and microwaves). Each linked computer resides within a nested hierarchy of networks, from its local area, to its service provider, to regional, national and international telecommunication networks. The various links have different speeds/capacities, and some links are permanent, while others are transient, dial-up connections. Although some networks are relatively autonomous – that is, they are self-contained spaces – almost all allow connections to other networks by employing common communication protocols (ways of exchanging information) to form a global system. Through the internet, the word is being connected from one place to another which creates the notion of cyber geography. It is now clear that cyberspace is a key transformative agent, changing the way we live at the start of a new millennium

 

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