From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The information superhighway or
infobahn was a popular term used through the 1990s
to refer to digital communication systems and the internet telecommunications network.
It is associated with United States Senator and later
Vice-President Al Gore.[1]
Definitions
There are a number of definitions of this term. Wired Style:
Principles of English Usage in the Digital Age defines the
term as "the whole digital enchilada - interactive, cable,
broadband, 500-channel [...] then-Senator Al Gore Jr.introduced it
at a 1978 meeting of computer industry folk, in homage to his
father , Senator Albert Gore Sr" (71).
The McGraw-Hill Computer Desktop Encyclopedia defines
the term as, "a proposed high-speed communications system that was
touted by the Clinton/Gore administration to enhance education in
America in the 21st Century. Its purpose was to help all citizens
regardless of their income level. The Internet was originally cited
as a model for this superhighway; however, with the explosion of
the World Wide
Web, the Internet became the information superhighway"
(464).
The Oxford English
Dictionary (OED) defines the term as "a route or network
for the high-speed transfer of information; esp. (a) a proposed
national fiber-optic network in the United States; (b) the Internet." The OED also cites
usage of this term in three periodicals:
- 1964, M. Brotherton. The McGraw-Hill Book Company published,
"Masers and Lasers; How They Work, What They Do." On Page 5,
Brotherton writes about laser beams and uses the term
"superhighways" for communication.
- the January 3, 1983 issue of Newsweek: "...information superhighways
being built of fiber-optic cable will link Boston, New York,
Philadelphia, and Washington, D. C. in a 776-mile system on the
East Coast."
- the December 19, 1991 issue of the Christian Science Monitor: "Senator
Gore calls NREN the "information superhighway" - a
catalyst for what he hopes will become one day a national
fiber-optic network."
- the October 26, 1993 issue of the New York Times:
"One of the technologies Vice President Al Gore is pushing is the
information superhighway, which will link everyone at home or
office to everything else—movies and television shows, shopping
services, electronic mail and huge collections of data."
- the October, 1994 issue of the American Journalism
Review: "Over the last year countless articles have
trumpeted the coming of the information superhighway. Infobahn
entrepreneurs promise interactive television with text, video and
audio delivered to living rooms via fiber optic cable or enhanced
phone lines."[2]
- the working paper No.179, 1994, of the Center for Coordination
Science at Massachusetts
Institute of Technology: "The information superhighway
directly connects millions of people, each both a consumer of
information and a potential provider. (...) Most predictions about
commercial opportunities on the information superhighway focus on
the provision of information products, such as video on demand, and
on new sales outlets for physical products, as with home shopping.
(...) The information superhighway brings together millions of
individuals who could exchange information with one another. Any
conception of a traditional market for making beneficial exchanges,
such as an agricultural market or trading pit, or any system where
individuals respond to posted prices on a computer screen is
woefully inadequate for the extremely large number of often complex
trades that will be required."[3]
Other
uses
Nam June
Paik, a 20th century South Korean born American video artist,
claims to have coined the term in 1974. “I used the term
(information superhighway) in a study I wrote for the Rockefeller
Foundation in 1974. I thought: if you create a highway, then people
are going to invent cars. That's dialectics. If you create
electronic highways, something has to happen.”[4]
See also
References
- ^
http://www.netvalley.com/cgi-bin/intval/net_history.pl
- ^
http://www.ajr.org/Article.asp?id=1257
- ^
http://ccs.mit.edu/papers/CCSWP179.html
- ^
http://netart.incubadora.fapesp.br/portal/midias/paik.htm
- Freedman, Alan. McGraw Hill Computer Desktop
Encyclopedia. New York: McGraw Hill, 2001.
- Hale, Constance and the editors of Wired.
Wired Style: Principles of English Usage in the Digital
Age. San Francisco: Hardwired, 1996.
- M. Brotherton, "Masers and Lasers; How They Work, What They
Do," (McGraw-Hill Book Company, New York, 1964).
Further
reading
Articles
- Andrews, Edmund. "Policy Blueprint Ready for
Data Superhighway." New York Times,
Sept. 15, 1993.
- Besser, Howard. "The Information SuperHighway:
Social and Cultural Impact," 1995.
- Broad, William (November 10,
1992), Clinton to Promote High
Technology, With Gore in Charge, New York Times, http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E0CE5DD1130F933A25752C1A964958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=print
- Ferranti, Marc. "Europe Seeks a Lane on Info
Highway," International Herald
Tribune, October 1995.
- Gore, Al. "Remarks given by Vice
President Gore at The Superhighway Summit, UCLA,"
January 11, 1994. [1]
- ---"Information Superhighways:
The Next Information Revolution." The
Futurist, January-February 1991, Vol. 25: 21-23.
- Kahn, Jeffery. "Building and Rescuing the
Information Superhighway," 1993.
- Special Issue: TIME magazine, 12 April 1993. "Take A Trip into the Future
on the ELECTRONIC SUPERHIGHWAY"
- Gomery, Douglas. "What's At the End of the Infobahn?," American Journalism
Review, May 1996.
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