Evan Butcher

3/13/15
Digital Rhetoric
Critical Reflection 2
What is the Internet?
Our analysis of new media clearly includes multiple information and communication
technologies (ICT). Nayar defines these ICTs as any technology involved in the collection,
processing, storage, retrieval, and transmission of information (Nayar, pg.2). However, it
becomes abundantly clear that while the internet is not the only technology involved in what we
refer to as new media it is without much argument the most important technology shaping the
way we create, share, and consume content. So before we dive head first into the unknown
depths of cyberspace, and how it impacts society, I want to take a step back and ask a question
that has been really nagging me, what exactly is the internet?
My search for an answer to this questions actually begins in outer space. In 1957 the
Soviet Union successfully launched the first satellite into orbit. Sputnik 1 was a crushing blow to
Americas belief in its own technological superiority. Not only had the Russians beaten America
to the first milestone in the space race, but now American citizens tuning in to the right radio
frequency could hear the satellite beeping menacingly at them from orbit.
That same year, in response to this defeat, the Department of Defense created the
Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA). This organization (now known as DARPA) had
the explicit goal of regaining the technological high ground from the Russians. Many in ARPA
believed that leveraging the collective brain power of Americans hidden in labs and universities
across the country would be the best way to accomplish this goal. In order to accomplish this
however, new methods of data sharing would be required.
At the same time defense research was looking into distributed telecom networks, and
packet switching. The idea here was to allow communication across a network rather than from
one point to another. The advantage of this was that if one arm of the network was destroyed by
nuclear fire, the rest of the network would still be operational (Congressional Digest, Internet
History, pg.35).
ARPA was greatly influenced by this early concept of
ARPANET, 1971
network communication, and in 1969 begins implementing a
network of their own to link computers on campuses from California
to
Utah, and beyond. This network was called ARPANET, and its creation would eventually lead to
what we now call the internet. Through their experiments, these early pioneers in cyberspace
tackled many of the initial problems facing networked computing, such as creating standardized
protocols for communication between computers, and building up an infrastructure of higher
speed phone lines to handle the increasing burden of the networks data. By 1971, ARPANET
spanned the country, bringing computers and people together like never before.

Evan Butcher
3/13/15
Digital Rhetoric
Critical Reflection 2
ARPANET, for all its greatness and ingenuity,
was still only a small network of around fourteen
nodes by 1971. The next step was to begin connecting
other networks to ARPANET. In fact, the term internet
was first used in an ARPA document in 1974 to
describe this process of internetworking. The problem
with this process was that with every network, there
came a different set of protocols for the transmission
of data between nodes. The way ARPA and other
agencies solved this problem was to establish
Internetworking Protocols, or IPs as we refer to them
today. This allowed different networks to transmit data
through gateways governed by these IPs. In 1977 a
demonstration of three networks, including ARPANET, proved internetworking was a reality.
The small amount of the internets history I have covered is by no means the sum of all
that went into creating the internet. Without so many innovators and forward-thinking
individuals, we would not have the internet as we do today. But I want to get back to the original
question that started this whole investigation. What is the internet?
To explain what the internet is, I will explain the process that this document will go
through when I upload it to our course blog. Every device that is connected to the internet has an
IP address. Think of it as a mailing address. The IP address is a unique set of numbers which
identifies a device. Webpages have IP addresses as well. When I type, for example, weebly.com
into the domain bar what I am really doing is giving an alphabetical representation of the
numbers associated with that webpage.

Evan Butcher
3/13/15
Digital Rhetoric
Critical Reflection 2
I enter the web address and click
upload in order to post this document at
a specific address on the internet. What
happens next takes only a few seconds,
regardless of where the webpage is
being hosted, but it involves a number
of very important steps. First, my
document gets broken down into
multiple packets of information. Each
packet has the address of weebly.com,
so it knows where its going, with
instructions on how to reassemble the
packets. These packets are then sent
through my modulator-demodulator (otherwise known as a modem) to my internet service
provider (ISP). In our case, here in Geneva, the ISP is a company called TW Telecom Holdings,
Inc. This is where we actually access the internet. The ISP will receive these packets of
information and their routers will proceed to send those packets across a whole mess of fiber
optic cables to reach an ISP on the other end. That ISP will then send this information to the
server hosting the website, and finally that server will reassemble the data, allowing my
document to appear on the internet for all to see. If I am receiving data the process is the same,
just in reverse, and with a different IP address as the destination.
A few important things are worth noting about this process. First, the packets of
information do not travel along the same pathway. They can, and do, travel to dozens of other
routers along numerous pathways before they arrive at the end ISP. This is actually very similar
to the technology developed by the Department of Defense in the 1960s (called packet
switching), which was originally proposed to maintain communication in a nuclear war. If one
pathway gets knocked out, the routers will send the information down another. The same basic
principle works today; even if large portions of the internet went down, there is a good chance
one could still access the internet from an unaffected computer. Secondly, it is worth noting that
the slowest point at which data travels is during its trip from the computer to the ISP. The reason
for this is the fact that most of the cables that connect our computers to our ISPs are old copper
cables, or phone lines. These are slow, but the fiber optic cables which the ISPs have access to,
and which comprise the backbone of the internet, are much faster. Essentially our data goes from
traveling in a horse and buggy, to being sent across the internet in a Concord Jet.
Although we have elucidated how the internet works, I still have not answered the
original question. What is the internet? Unfortunately, the answer to that question is not
straightforward, instead depending on how one interprets the history of the internet. I have so far
hinted at two possible interpretations. In one sense, when we understand how the internet works
we see that the internet is just a series of fiber optic cables, which we access through ISPs and
send information across. Yet this is hardly a satisfying definition. A better definition of the

Evan Butcher
3/13/15
Digital Rhetoric
Critical Reflection 2
internet comes from a consideration of the historical context provided above. One of the things I
realized in doing this research is that the internet is above all else an agreement. All computers
that have access to the internet are agreeing to play by the same rules, and use the same
protocols. This might seem like an uninteresting definition, until one realizes the scale on which
this agreement has taken. It spans the globe, and has billions upon billions of participants who
choose to voluntary associate with others and exchange information using varying degrees of
anonymity. No one person controls the internet, and yet it works because people everywhere
have agreed to follow the same rules for accessing the internet. Without this agreement, the
internet would not be possible. Without the internet, there is no user made content for Kevin
Kelly to discuss in his wired article. Neither would there be any cyber cultures for Nayar to
analyze. The internet fosters this content, but that is not what defines it. What defines the internet
are the terms and protocols that the entire globe uses every second of every day. That is what the
internet is.