One Big Conversation
Channel: LIVING SOCIOLOGY
Date: 2019-12-11

First Person, Plural on CFUV-fm, Victoria, BC 
Originally aired October 3, 2002

The Cluetrain Manifesto has been touted as the website/book to read if you want to understand the particular nature of the Internet.  Their website has such diverse adherents as AARP and Arthur Andersen.  If you wanted to print out the site's list of those who have signed the manifesto, it would take over 250 pages. This week we discuss Cluetrain Manifesto's assertion that the Internet is a global conversation. 

If the Internet is a conversation, being able to hear the talk makes the conversation seem more honest and human.  Internet Radio is expanding rapidly, with new hobbyists and professionals showing up every day.  But although the audio technology getting cheaper and more readily available has led to an expansion, Internet radio has been around for a long while, especially in computer-world time.  We discussed the ins and outs of running an Internet radio station with Vancouver T-jays (talk jockeys) Sean Kennedy and James O'Brien of Rant Radio.

Like playgrounds in meatspace, cyberspace playgrounds can be both exhilarating and cruel.  We discuss our feelings about cyberspace after 10 years on the Internet each.  Can the Internet be one big conversation that requires one simply to sit at the table and talk?  Or has it become a place where the popular kids think of nothing but showing how stylish they can be while the "alternative people" display their disdain for the popular kids only in a prepackaged way?  We don't solve the question, but we have fun contemplating it.

copyright: Carl Wilkerson and Pattie Thomas

http://sociologylegacy.pbworks.com/w/page/93415358/Episode%2020%20One%20Big%20Conversation