Net context

One of the things we work on a lot at Luther is helping each other “read context.” That’s our language for figuring out what’s going on around us, and for trying to discern the multiple ways in which meaning is constantly and dynamically being created around us, within us, between us, and so on, in an endless relationality that is part of what we affirm when we talk about a Trinity, a God who in the very essence of Godself is a relationship.

Sometimes we narrow that search to “reading the audience” — which is also the name of a course for our first year students, and an attempt to help them discern the context around specific congregations. I’ve always been a little disturbed by that title (which was coined long before I started teaching at Luther) because it tends to imply that there is “an” “audience” to be read and to which meaning can then be directed, rather than a cultural surround in which a congregation is embedded, and which participates in shaping meaning.

Anyway, this is a long way around to saying that one context I’m trying to understand with students is that of the Internet. Why? Well, in part because it’s a vast cultural environment that contributes an enormous amount to meaning-making in multiple ways. And, in part, because we’re doing more learning in internet-mediated ways (in online classes, in hybrid classes, etc.).

I’ve always found, for myself, that the best way to understand a context is to explore it, play with it, try to make sense with it. (Like, for instance, trying to keep a weblog as a way of understanding blogs.) But for other people it helps to begin with a theory or a map, by which to get a sense of the major landmarks, an overall “view,” so to speak. Some of the maps I’ve always enjoyed looking at for the Internet are the Cluetrain Manifesto, and David Weinberger’s book “Small Pieces Loosely Joined” (which also has a kid version).

This morning, courtesy of a link in AKMA’s blog (which was a comment on Trevor’s blog), I visited a new site written by some of the same people who worked on those earlier ones. This one is named a “World of Ends.” Some people might argue that it’s too simplistic a “take” on what the web is, but I think it’s a delightfully straightforward map for the Net. Of course, maps always leave out information because they’re attempts to get an overall “view” or “image” of a large area so as to navigate through it more easily. And this one is not so much a map of specific Internet places (like where the main nodes are, although you can find maps like that, too), but more of the conceptual design of the Net.

They also have a nice set of “the essential links” that support their map. I’m going to recommend this site to my students in my media course in a few weeks when we work specifically on web issues.