Web Science is inherently transdisciplinary as it is employs many analytical techniques and knowledge bases from other subjects, such as economics, law, psychology, sociology, computer science, etc., hence why I am drawn so much to this subject. The aim is for Web Science to operate very much outside of the box in order to consider the thing we have come to call the web - a thing that keeps growing, that keeps changing and that is anything but an exact science!
Back in February I started the Web Science MOOC as presented by the University of Southampton on FutureLearn, but I struggled to find a way into sticking with the essential focus of its topic.
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| What is Web Science? |
The main problem was that I lacked a technological foundational understanding in how the web actually works on a software and hardware basis. Therefore, after completing the first-and-a-half weeks, I decided that I would come back to the MOOC at a later date, once I possessed a better foundational understanding.
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| One of the great things about many MOOC platforms is that they let you retain access to the course materials long after the course has completed. |
However, now that I have dabbled a little with coding and have (nearly) finished the Internet History, Technology and Security MOOC, I now possess a basic understanding of the operational processes behind the internet.
Additionally, while I was undertaking the Internet History, etc. MOOC and also its kindred Introduction to Cyber Security MOOC, I noticed that my attention kept shifting back to this Web Science MOOC.
As I was coming to understand the workings of the internet, I noticed that I started to look at my daily usage of the internet in a very different way: a very analytical manner not too dissimilar to the perspective the Web Science MOOC had started to nurture in me...
Web Science - an introduction to a bold new academic discipline.
Web Science is inherently transdisciplinary as it is employs many analytical techniques and knowledge bases from other subjects, such as economics, law, psychology, sociology, computer science, etc., hence why I am drawn so much to this subject. The aim is for Web Science to operate very much outside of the box in order to consider the thing we have come to call the web - a thing that keeps growing, that keeps changing and that is anything but an exact science!
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| The tangled pre-history of the web. |
Week 1 of the MOOC provides a brief pre-history and and recent history of the web and this is something that Internet History, etc. has gone into vastly more detail and is accordingly vastly more enlightening.
I believe this lack of in-depth consideration of the various phases of the webs history is where I felt really let down and unclear about when I first undertook the MOOC back in February.
However, I can not really blame the course as it is called 'web science', not 'internet science' and, therefore, is not concerned with the web's precursor before Tim Berners-Lee's proposal for the World Wide Web in 1989 (also the year I was born). Obviously you will need to possess some historical background context for this subject, but for a short course offering, such as this MOOC, you can only expect it to cover so much.
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| Tim Berners-Lee is where the 'web' begins, he is not where the 'internet' begins. |
I believe this lack of in-depth consideration of the various phases of the webs history is where I felt really let down and unclear about when I first undertook the MOOC back in February.
However, I can not really blame the course as it is called 'web science', not 'internet science' and, therefore, is not concerned with the web's precursor before Tim Berners-Lee's proposal for the World Wide Web in 1989 (also the year I was born). Obviously you will need to possess some historical background context for this subject, but for a short course offering, such as this MOOC, you can only expect it to cover so much.
Ultimately, the aim of this short course MOOC is to supply you with the basic tools in order to encourage you to proactively think much more analytically about the web, how it is changing the world and what role you have to play in this new technology.
One of the best ways in which the MOOC achieves this in week 1 is in its consideration of technological determinism and in questioning its position that technology is shaped by society in social construction.
The argument for and against technological determinism was something that was heavily touched upon in the E-Learning and Digital Cultures MOOC I undertook previously. While the concept of technological determinism was introduced to me I did not really grapple with its larger implications.
Additionally, technological determinism is not something that was really dealt with in my Film and Screen Studies BA (Hons) either, as technological determinism is something that is more integral in Media Communications concerns.
However, while it was never the primary agenda, technological determinism can be seen to have a part to play in my theoretical dissertation Ways of Being: The Spectator and the Spectacle; essentially that the new technologies of cinema were arising out of a consumer demand for bigger film experience immersion.
Therefore, my view is very much in favour of social construction, not technological determinism, and this is the same view that the Web Science MOOC adopts.
One of the best ways in which the MOOC achieves this in week 1 is in its consideration of technological determinism and in questioning its position that technology is shaped by society in social construction.
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Does technology shape society or does society shape technology?
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The argument for and against technological determinism was something that was heavily touched upon in the E-Learning and Digital Cultures MOOC I undertook previously. While the concept of technological determinism was introduced to me I did not really grapple with its larger implications.
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| E-Learning and Digital Cultures was not a MOOC with which I really thoroughly stuck. |
Additionally, technological determinism is not something that was really dealt with in my Film and Screen Studies BA (Hons) either, as technological determinism is something that is more integral in Media Communications concerns.
However, while it was never the primary agenda, technological determinism can be seen to have a part to play in my theoretical dissertation Ways of Being: The Spectator and the Spectacle; essentially that the new technologies of cinema were arising out of a consumer demand for bigger film experience immersion.
Therefore, my view is very much in favour of social construction, not technological determinism, and this is the same view that the Web Science MOOC adopts.
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| Why is a discipline such as Web Science is so integral? |
"There are some bits of technological determinism that work. Certainly, the kind of technology in the Web, its openness, its democratic features, those things shape how the Web is. But there are other things which are very much part how we, as human actors and agents and societies, take that technology and do all sorts of different things with it, things that Tim Berners-Lee couldn't even have imagined, so Facebook or Twitter, for example"
- Catherine Pope, Web Science educator.
Technology does not just change us, it is much more about us influencing technology - the web is a major and direct example of this.
On the whole, social shaping has become the dominant view and the web in particular is a primary example of how society shapes new technologies to fit the needs of society:
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Social shaping vs. technological determinism - which do you support?
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On the whole, social shaping has become the dominant view and the web in particular is a primary example of how society shapes new technologies to fit the needs of society:
"The state of the market, or better, of society is the crucial factor in enabling the development and diffusion of any communications technology or in hindering it. That is as true of the computer chip and the Internet as it was of the telegraph and the telephone. Thus, innovations are the creatures of society in a general sense."
- Brian Winston, Technologies of Seeing, 1996:3.
This is why the further development of a discipline like Web Science is so strongly advocated and needed.
Certainly, in terms of Film and Media disciplines, this is what I was getting at in Ways of Being:
However, while my focus may have been towards Film and Media disciplines, by not considering the networking-and-interactions of these technologies and processes is insane and this is very much the incentive behind creating Ways 2 Interface.
I have created Ways 2 Interface as a web blog precisely because it is considering the relationship of the spectator and the spectacle in film and media as connected globally in the thing we have called the web - it is analysing the the very thing of which it is a part.
Certainly, in terms of Film and Media disciplines, this is what I was getting at in Ways of Being:
"In short, there is too much indifference in Film Studies.The discipline is too focused on cave-like thinking and film theory of the past; a pantheon of knowledge that is becoming continuously outdated and finding itself at odds with new advancements and diversifications, such as the digital re-birth and large format hypercinema. Film scholars have always sought to understand the spectator’s and spectacle’s mutual pursuit of enlightenment; while they have uncovered aspects of it, there still does not exist a single unifying explanation of the profound processes of that relationship"
- Ways of Being, 2013:105.
However, while my focus may have been towards Film and Media disciplines, by not considering the networking-and-interactions of these technologies and processes is insane and this is very much the incentive behind creating Ways 2 Interface.
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| Some notes I made while planning out Ways 2 Interface. |
I have created Ways 2 Interface as a web blog precisely because it is considering the relationship of the spectator and the spectacle in film and media as connected globally in the thing we have called the web - it is analysing the the very thing of which it is a part.
"Everything that has been presented throughout this paper is representative of the shift in thinking that is slowly taking place alongside the digitalisation of cinema and needs to continue to take place! In moving away from the cave, we have stopped viewing spectacle content on a screen, and we now experience and interact with it via an interface. If there is a great deal of neurobiological participation happening on the spectator’s part, then perhaps this offers a more accurate way to talk about the process by which the spectator interfaces with any type of film spectacle. While this section can not hope to provide many answers to the questions it has raised, one obvious conclusion should be apparent - all these diverging means of experiencing the world will continue to have huge implications on our ways of being in the world"
- Ways of Being, 2013:151.
Ultimately, the web has adopted cinema into its paradigm and this is the reason for why I am so fascinated by the web - it's a direct and vastly intricate expression of the relationship of the spectator and the spectacle like we have never seen before!
Certainly, Web Science will be huge help and an additional component of this transdisciplinary consideration I have taken up.
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| Is the web guaranteed to exists indefinitely? |
I am currently undertaking quite a few MOOCs (as always) and while I do plan to finally work my through and finish the Web Science MOOC, it may not be any time soon, I will be engaging with the MOOC materials whenever I can make the time for them.
However, I do not think that making time will be a problem as it is clear that the knowledge this MOOC will nurture in me will have a clear and primary role to play in my further studies and research interests.
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The web a.k.a. unlimited potential. We have barely scratched the surface.
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The web is for everyone and for everything, but it is not an exact science, it is something that we have to keep working at in regards to how we further develop it and how we continue to analyse it.
That's Web Science.
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