Cybermedia Space

“The building blocks of physical, perceptual, and conceptual space combine to form our sense of space in everyday life.” Physical space can be subjective, pertaining to what the space exactly is, and therefore “this sense of space is mediated by our physical environment, our sense, and language.” In making sense of this “space,” with regards to electronic media, a “personal presence” helps create sense in an artificial context.An example of this “artificial” or “electronic space” is given in the text: “It is not entirely clear where your voice is when you talk on the telephone (at your end, at the receiving end, or somewhere in between?), and therefore it is not entirely clear where you are (perceptually or conceptually).” You know that you are talking on the phone to, lets say your mom, but you do not know for sure where you mom is based on the telephone conversation. Of course there are audible clues, which may lead you to draw a conclusion of where you mom is without her telling you, for example noise on a busy street in New York. However, there still is a “space” where this conversation, this exchange of voice, occurs and that is the “artificial sense of space.”

Defining a space in an artificial, electronic environment is not done in the same way that it would be in a physical environment with walls and furniture. In an electronic, or mediated, space, the aforementioned “personal presence” online is one that is necessary for defining this space.

Often times you will hear people refer to online media as the “cyberworld.” YouTube stars will call their fans “YouTubers” and Twitter users will call the interaction of tweets the “Twitterverse.” This “world,” which is electronically present, is one that is defined by the personalities that are developed by individual users on their individual computers. While that concept of a person creating an avatar on their computer is a tangible idea, the interaction and exchange of information, thoughts and comments on the specified media platform (YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Blogger) is where we encounter this “cybermedia space.” The “twitterverse” is a cybermedia “space,” or platform, where ideas are exchanged along with YouTube and facebook. If something “happened on facebook,” it occurred within the realm of online interaction between individuals who are on facebook, but the “place” where this all happened is intangible and unfathomable to the human mind. It literally occurs on facebook’s servers and follows the path of the code written by the developers, but that is not the thought process of the average user. The thought process of the average user is that if you click on someone’s profile and then write on their wall, that’s exactly what you are doing. The GUI makes it appear as if the process is simple and normal and this is why any person can accept facebook or any other social media platform for exactly what it is with out (much) question.