Postmodern Virtualities, Andrew Wells

In the beginning of his article Poster purpose is stated to bring together cessions of postmodern culture and of changes in our communication system that are in use. The reason for this is that they are connected...

Some quotes or ideas that I felt were important were:

What distinguishes the telephone from the other great media is its decentralized quality and its universal exchangeability of the positions of sender and receiver. Anyone can "produce" and send a message to anyone else in the system and, in the advanced industrial societies, almost everyone is in the system. (MP, 535)

the crucial political question is `Who controls the switches?' There are two extreme choices. Users may have indirect, or limited control over when , what, why, and from whom they get information and to whom they send it. That's the broadcast model today, and its seems to breed consumerism, passivity, crassness, and mediocrity. Or, users may have decentralized, distributed, direct control over when, what, why, and with whom they exchange information. That's the Internet model today, and it seems to breed critical thinking, activism, democracy, and quality. We have an opportunity to choose now. (MP,537) Quote from (Kapor, 1993: 5)

The information superhighway and virtual reality are communications media that enrich existing forms of consumer culture. (MP, 539)

Electronic mail services and bulletin boards are inundated by stories. Individuals appear to enjoy relating narratives to those they have never met and probably never will meet. (MP, 534)