Place and Virtual Place: The Use of Metaphor in

Describing the Nature of the Internet

Greta Kliewer

April 1, 2009

gretak180@gmail.com
 Place and Virtual Place: the Use of Metaphor in Describing the Nature of the Internet

Abstract

In a time when Americans are rapidly forgetting what life without the internet was like, the social

nature of this medium is becoming increasingly important. With phrases like “virtual classroom,”

“information superhighway” and “cyberspace” we talk about the internet as if it were as real a location

as the grocery store down the street. However, many see the internet as system of information exchange

divorced from physical space, rather than as an actual “place.” This difference in conceptualization of

the internet and communication about it adds to the ambiguity of how we understand a medium where

“everyone is but nobody lives” (Starrs 1997:193). Geographical metaphors are one way we talk about

the elusive nature of the web. This paper discusses the metaphors we use to define the nature of a

medium created and maintained through language, and how this speech causes us to legitimize our

actions both in cyberspace and in the “real” world.

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 Virtual Place: Understanding the Internet through Maps and Metaphors

“Maps of cyberspace can be forged only with utmost difficulty…Part sacred space, part ethereal region,

part digital fact, cyberspace involves a regional geography perhaps best captured in koan: What is the

place where everyone is but nobody lives?” – Paul F. Starrs

________________

In a time when Americans are rapidly forgetting what life without the internet was like, the social

nature of this medium is becoming increasingly important. With phrases like “virtual classroom,”

“information superhighway” and “cyberspace” we talk about the internet as if it were as real a location as

the grocery store down the street. However, many see the internet as a system of information exchange

divorced from physical space, rather than as an actual “place.” This difference in conceptualization of the

internet and communication about it adds to the ambiguity of how we understand a medium where

“everyone is but nobody lives” (Stoffle 1997:229-249). Geographical metaphors are one of the ways we

talk about the elusive nature of the web. This paper discusses the metaphors we use to define the nature

of a medium unlike any before it, and how this speech impacts the way we understand our interactions in

both cyberspace and in the “real” world. It also calls into question whether our cultural definition of

place needs to be redefined to include ambiguous social contexts such as the internet.

Like the media advances that came before it, the internet brought changes in how people dealt

with information, communication, and consequently with each other. The printing press, telephone, radio

and television all made impacts on worldwide society, as did the internet. However, there is something

about the nature of the internet that marks it as more than just another medium. Whereas newspapers

present stories and information from places we’ve never been and telephone calls connect us with people

geographically distant, both these media are two-dimensional. While they can bring us asynchronous

information and non-visual communication respectively, the internet can do both of these and more. It is

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instantaneous, it can be anonymous, and for those who have access, it is all-encompassing – it can contain

whatever its various users choose to write, post, create. It is a dynamic synthesis of both the important

and the mundane – videos, blog posts, live chat, multitudinous news and information sources, forums and

virtual worlds in the forms of games and social networks - that allows the user to know what they want to

know and be who they want to be. For this reason, the internet not only functions to inform and connect

people, but may act as a platform for users to exercise their right to be heard, and to generate change

within the non-virtual realm.

Unlike other forms of communication, the internet not only allows users to communicate through

written or spoken language. The very medium of the internet itself is built on language. The binary

codes that allow different machines in network systems to communicate with each other function

according to the properties determined for them by binary language. Hypertext and other codes create the

pages we see on the screen when we connect to the internet. The Domain Name System (DNS) is a

system that maps a text name onto an Internet Protocol (IP) address, so users don’t have to remember

complex lists of numbers in order to access web sites. Hence, you only need to type “www.google.com”

into your browser rather than remember Google’s IP address in numbers. Thus the DNS system is

“human readable” in text, while binary code is “machine readable” in binary code (Whitehouse 1999).

The internet is a system of users acting on and responding to language – machines to their various codes,

and users with the text that they use to access sites, and the text that they leave in the form of posts,

comments and entire websites, created through the manipulation of binary language. While the internet at

first may have seemed an entirely text-based domain, with the advent of YouTube and live chat,

paralanguage and gesture have their place on the internet as well.

This varied and dynamic nature of the internet has caused a bit of confusion, however, in trying to

pin down just exactly what makes it such a different medium. It is a medium, but does it go beyond that?

Does it constitute its own place? Certainly, interactions, sales, exchanges of money and information take

place there. But where or what is “there”? This “slippery” nature of the ‘net is described by Paul Starrs:

“Cyberspace is assuredly a region – but oddly so, and a troubling and ill-mannered one. Can something

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fundamentally electromagnetic, where ‘electricity runs with intelligence’ constitute a landscape?” (Stoffle

1997:229-249) It is this question with which the remainder of this paper deals, and the way we try to talk

about and define the ambiguous nature of a medium that is constantly growing and changing before us.

Brief History of the Internet

In order to understand the metaphors we use pertaining to the internet, it is necessary to know a

bit about the internet itself. This is by no means an exhaustive history of the development of the internet,

nor is it a detailed description of how the internet functions. It is merely a brief introduction concerning

both of these topics. This way, the reader will be better able to understand later discussion of the way we

communicate on and about the internet.

The internet on which we browse and shop today did not exist until world.std.com became the

first international network provider in 1990. However, the ideas behind the internet date back much

further. In 1945, Vannevar Bush published an article called “The Way We Think” in which he described

a machine called a “memex” that would catalog information in a linked format, rather than linearly. He is

credited with developing the ideas about research that would lead to the creation of hypertext, the code

that organizes information on the World Wide Web and creates “clickable” links that lead to related

information (PBS Online 1998).

The internet itself was an initiative of the U.S. Government after the Russian’s launch of the

Sputnik satellite in 1957. The surprise that this undetected launch caused in the U.S. led to the

development of an information retrieval system so that the country would be aware of technological

advances worldwide. The U.S. Department of Defense under Dwight D. Eisenhower created the Advance

Research Projects Agency to keep the military informed of such advances. This Agency (ARPA) and the

computer networks it created would lead to the more complex online systems that were the foundation of

the internet we know today (Starrs 1997:193-218).

The study of Packet Switching theory led to more advanced ideas of transmitting information.

This theory - the idea that information could be disassembled in one computer, sent through a

decentralized network, and reassembled in another computer - was used to develop better communication

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throughout the ARPA network and the networks that followed. A critical development in the history of

the internet was the creation of Transmission Control Protocol, which was a satellite system that allowed

individual (and geographically distant) networks to communicate with each other. Vint Cerf, known

today as the “Father of the Internet” is credited with this development in the early 1970s. Not many large

information-sharing networks existed, but the ones that did were able to exchange information. ARPAnet

and the Hawaii-based ALOHAnet were two of the first. This effective way of sharing information

became increasingly popular among the scientific and research communities, and by the 1980s, most

colleges and universities were connected to some kind of similar network (Starrs 1997:193-218).

In the late 1970s Ted Nelson coined the term “hypertext” and applied Vannevar Bush’s ideas

about linked research to information retrieval within computer networks. Tim Berners-Lee further

tweaked the process to make accessing information even easier. The year was 1990 and the World Wide

Web was formed. From this point on, innovators in the field of internet development simply added

technologies that caused networks to function more efficiently. The amount of content and the way in

which users interact with it continues to grow and change. The implications of a worldwide always-on

connection to people, ideas and information are numerous, and varied. Politics, education, trade and

social relationships have been affected in various ways by this development. The idea of the internet as a

medium unlike any other has both proponents and critics; nonetheless, its impact on globalization is

undeniable. How to define the nature of the medium that has caused these changes is an ambiguous

matter. Metaphors involving progress and place are two of the common models. An understanding of the

cultural definition of place is beneficial in understanding this comparison.

A Cultural Definition of Place

The internet was not created with the intention of redefining the way we interact, or creating a

place within which we can constitute new identities and experiences for ourselves. The internet was

primarily a research and security tool meant to keep the U.S. government aware of scientific

developments abroad (PBS Online 2008). In transcending geographic borders to speed communication

and international awareness, the networking project was a success. Nevertheless, the implications with

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which this tool endowed users enabled interactions, developments and changes that the internet’s creators

may not have forseen. They created what has come to be known as “cyberspace” (Griffin 2000). This is

a dynamic dimension that is part virtual space, part sociocultural context, and consequently, something

seemingly “other.”

Something we must understand before comparing the internet to a “place” or “cultural

landscape” is what these terms mean. This may be a misplaced effort; the definition of place in some

respects is as elusive as that of cyberspace. Nevertheless, place has risen to the forefront of recent

anthropological investigations of cultural behavior and retention; place is the stage on which culture plays

out. It is both physical location and sociocultural context. An attempt to describe these terms for the sake

of consistency throughout this paper and throughout broader anthropological exploration of these

concepts is beneficial.

The most readily identified and certainly one of the most important aspects of place is physical

location. Though some would argue that culture defines space in order to make it place (Worldmapper

2008), most anthropologists start by looking at environment as the framework around which cultures

construct place. The ecological elements that limit what people can eat, build and plant, constitute their

cultural behaviors. This physical space, then, is the first of several layers that overlap, creating the

multidimensional context we call place. These layers have to do with the ways in which humans interact

with the environmental context and resources around them. Stoffle, in his article “Cultural Landscapes

and Traditional Cultural Properties,” breaks these down into five categories: The Holy Land, the

Storyscape, the Regional Landscape, the Ecoscape, and Landmarks (Stoffle 1997:229-249).

The Holy Land is a landscape within which the culture lives and often believes their people were

created. This is their homeland, and relocation does not sever the tie that binds this people to their land,

the place they know as home. The Storyscape, then, is a fictional or mythical layer in which the

homeland is referred to in poetics and song. It may include elements of the true homeland, but

romanticizes this landscape, and may include narratives, metaphors, songs, stories and poems. Regional

landscapes are the physical characteristics of the homeland, whether they be the dense cloud forests of

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Central America or the red dirt bush of the Australian outback. The Ecoscape, a more detailed and up-

close aspect of the regional landscape are the actual plants, rocks, rivers and weather patterns that give a

particular location its characteristics. Finally, Landmarks are individual sites with some kind of cultural

importance attached; perhaps a place where gatherings are held and rituals carried out, or a site where

people gather resources, or even build monuments or create art. It is a natural location modified by

human contact to indicate the importance it holds for the culture that modified it.

These characteristics can be applied to nearly any culture’s physical location on the planet. But

can it be applied to the internet? If cyberspace is indeed a “place,” these characteristics should be able to

be mapped onto it in some way. But that concept of mapping is exactly what has made cyberspace such a

tricky medium to define. Starrs writes that the mapping of electronic virtual places is irreconcilable with

geographic location or origin of the information. “The two spaces, cyberspace and physical space, touch

at all points but are incongruent.” (Stoffle 1997:229-249) In other words, people who are geographically

distant can access the same web site; likewise, two people in the same room can be connected to web sites

originating on opposite sides of the planet. However, when they “go” to specific websites, they are

accessing information made available by a remote party, but do not have to enter another location to

obtain that information; they are not actually “there.”

This seeming deletion of the concept of physical space when interacting on the web, however,

may not actually challenge the idea of the internet as a “place.” As Starrs points out, a place is defined by

location and boundaries, but also by context. A “place,” he says, is constituted by the social structures

that support communications (Stoffle 1997:229-249). In the example of a church, the “church” is the

physical building, but may also be used to refer to the community of people who interact there. A listener

would understand that a speaker was referring to the group of people in a phrase like “that church

believes x,” indicating that communication about that group can be detached from references to the

physical building where they meet, and still be understood. Therefore, references to the church can be

understood in terms of the people or the building, both primary factors of “place.”

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 Place, then, may be as much a cultural context as a physical location. In this case, there is much

more room for discourse involving the internet being qualified as a place. The medium begins to take

shape as a stage for the playing out of cultural exchange - just as real a backdrop as the landscapes and

structures in which we interact face-to-face. As this becomes a more prevalent way of interacting, the

need arises to understand this context, both physically and conceptually. This is done through the

mapping of the internet both visually, and through language.

Mapping the Internet

The nature of the internet, particularly as a social context, is still something which we are figuring

out how to define, along with its potentials and implications. It is not something tangible, yet it is

everywhere. And because it is everywhere, we must find ways to describe it. Perhaps the internet is a

layer that overlaps physical geography in the way that Stoffle’s storyscape overlays physical space. It is a

conceptualization tied to physical space that explains or influences the way that physical geography is

perceived. People have gone about this in several ways, one of them being mapping.

Mapping is a logical way of trying to understand the internet, given the idea behind geographical

maps. A map is an abstraction of physical space that visualizes what is being talked about in a way that

makes it easier for those unfamiliar with the region to understand. This has been done in several ways by

those who study the internet and its effect on people and landscapes around the world.

One of these ways is by mapping interactions of people and the transfer of data onto real physical

locations. Several examples of this come from the Internet Geography Blog, which takes articles from

various sources that visualize the internet in different ways. [Place Figure 1 here] Figure 1 shows a map

of the proportions of internet users in various countries in the world (Wyatt 2004:242-261). Countries

with more users are shown as physically larger. [Place Figure 2 here] The map in Figure 2 is from a 1999

BBC article about the internet, and shows data being exchanged among some of the larger networks in the

world (Worldmapper 2008). Both of these maps show a relationship between the interactions and data

being exchanged and a real physical location. These maps would be used by those doing research about

the internet or trying to understand real world connections, perhaps for analysis.

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Figure 1

Figure 2

[Place Figure 3 here] A second type of conceptualization comes in the form of maps like Figure

3, where different types of internet communities are mapped onto nonexistent locations that resemble

physical geography (XKCD 2008). This type of mapping is also used to help people better understand the

proportions of internet users utilizing specific types of sites. Rather than making a connection to real

physical places, new “places” are created in order to allow people to visualize the size and scope of these

online communities. The label “communities” lends itself to map visualization; viewers begin to make

connections between online networks and place. However, these maps are not used so much for analysis

or research as to establish an in-group understanding of the types of sites internet users are familiar with.

The names ‘Blogipelago’ or ‘Sea of Memes’ probably make little sense to those unfamiliar with the sites

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these names refer to (personal weblogs and image boards, respectively). To users, however, this

conceptualization evokes a shared understanding of the significance these sites have in their use of the

internet, and the shared discourse about these sites in their “real” lives. As Apaches use place names to

conjure up stories that evoke lessons and shared emotions (Adams 1997:155-171), naming and mapping

these places calls to mind the reason people “congregate” there to interact and share and connect. In this

way, humorous diagrams such as this one function as a cultural map of a region particular to a certain

cultural group (internet users) just as the Apache maps that Basso studied during his fieldwork reflect the

Apache names, use and significance of a geography they may perceive differently from other cultures.

Figure 3

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Talking about the Internet

Shared discourse about the nature of the internet is manifest in language as well as mapping. Just

as maps are models of physical space, metaphors are models of ideas – in this case, the way we

understand the internet. A map is not a place; likewise a metaphor is not the nature of the internet.

Instead, a metaphor makes understanding the internet easier, just as maps make it easier to see the

connection between people, data, and physical spaces.

There are several types of metaphors used to explain the internet, and each type explains it in

terms of a different context. Several types of metaphors from Wired magazine included pictures of the

internet as “revolution, evolution, salvation, progress, universalism and the American Dream.”(Wyatt

2004:242-161) Many of these images come from the idea of the “Digital Revolution” and the ways our

communication is changing and progressing. Researchers see the internet as a “Holy Grail” of research

where it is possible to encompass many different types of sources in one place. Nevertheless, there are an

abundance of metaphors that liken the internet to physical models, and apply those to behavior. Paul

Adams noted the similarities in talking about the internet and about place:

“A vocabulary of place – the nouns room, hall, highway and frontier; verbs such as dwell, enter,

inhabit, surf and build – is increasingly employed to describe new communications media and

their use….Place metaphors most commonly applied to computer networks include the electronic

frontier, cyberspace, and the information superhighway. Participation in computer networks is

described in quotidian terms drawn from every imaginable environmental situation, suggesting

not simply a virtual place, but an entire virtual geography, with off-ramps, rooms, lobbies,

dungeons, lairs, cafes, pubs, offices and classrooms.” [Adams 1997:155-171]

These various types of metaphors present the internet in a variety of lights, each appropriate to

different users and contexts in which the metaphor functions as an explanation. The dynamic nature of

the internet affords this plurality; because interactions and reasons for using the internet differ from

person to person, each model or metaphor can be “correct” according to the context in which it is used.

In this way, it is equally plausible to conceptualize the internet as a series of wires exchanging binary

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codes, or as a café where users can meet to share and exchange conversation. According to Adams, this

flexibility is the reason we use metaphors, as well as to construct significance:

“A metaphor’s usefulness lies not in revealing something about reality but in producing a

cognitive jolt and thereby affecting beliefs…On this account, metaphor does not contain

meaning; it provides a starting point for the construction of meaning. By linking two ideas

previously unlinked, metaphors destabilize taken-for-granted realities, bringing about change in

human-environment relationships and social relations.” [Adams 1997:155-171]

Taking the example of an internet café, this method of thinking becomes apparent. The link

between the image of a physical café and the interactions that go on in an internet café (an actual online

message board, distinct from the cafes where people can go both to eat and use computers) demonstrate

the link between these behaviors, and possibly the reason for labeling the message board as such. A

physical café is a place where people can eat, share food and conversation, exchange ideas and rapport.

This same type of intellectual or personal conversation takes place in many online message boards, sans

the physical setting and opportunity to meet face to face. However, this type of exchange was recognized

by those who labeled the online community an “internet café.” In this case, those who created the label

looked at behavior that takes place outside the web, found a type of online interaction that was analogous,

and used this metaphor to describe it. A message board is not a café, but the type of conversational

exchanges that take place over coffee and sandwiches is mapped onto the exchanges that take place in

online message boards. Upon hearing this label, we understand how the interactions there work, and act

accordingly.

Another example of a spatial metaphor that has come to characterize a particular type of online

behavior is that of the MUD, or Multiuser Dungeon. According to the definition at mudconnect.com:

“A MUD (Multiple User Dimension, Multiple User Dungeon, or Multiple User Dialogue) is a

computer program which users can log into and explore. Each user takes control of a

computerized persona/avatar/incarnation/character. You can walk around, chat with other

characters, explore dangerous monster-infested areas, solve puzzles, and even create your very

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 own rooms, descriptions and items. You can also get lost or confused if you jump right in…”

[Gibson 2007]

This example encompasses three layers of importance in constituting the internet as a place. A

Dungeon is a physical space; Dialogue is the way we communicate, and a Dimension can describe a

context or setting in which these behaviors take place. In the name ‘MUD’ alone, these three components

are not only present, but synonymous. The interactions of players using MUDs takes the metaphor

further; a MUD can be somewhere a person “goes” to enjoy leisure time; it can become an obsession or

an escape from interacting with other people face-to-face. Conversely, it can function as the focus of

shared experiences when players of games carried out in MUDs converse about their in-game experiences

in “real” life. In either case, it is a context in which players interact with other players in ways that are

(largely) impossible in the physical world. The labeling of this domain as a “dungeon” gives it the feel of

a physical place, and moreover, an isolated one evoking the sense of danger or adventure apparent in

many of the roleplaying games carried out in such programs. The types of behavior, both online and in

the “real” world evoked by this term indicate experiences carried out in the game. Not only has this type

of gameplay become common on the internet, but multitudes of sites and MUDs exist for this express

purpose. The understanding of a MUD and the experiences players have there, create a subculture of

gamers who may interact only through this medium and never meet in “real” life. For them, the internet

has become a place to share these experiences. The use of the term “dungeon” and the shared

understanding of the interactions that happen in one have constituted the internet a “place” for these

people.

Metaphors, then, not only reflect what internet users see the internet as now, but allow them to

express views about what it should be. Sally Wyatt, in her article on the subject, states her idea that

metaphors not only work as descriptors, but also indicate what actors think about the future of the

medium:

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 Metaphors are thus not only descriptive; they may provide clues to the design intentions of those

who use them and, as such, they may help to shape the cognitive framework within which such

actors operate. When deployed by social actors, metaphors are not always merely descriptive.

Their use is not simply an innocent attempt by commentators or politicians to demonstrate their

own imaginative capacities or to appeal to the imaginations of their audiences. Metaphors also

have a normative dimension; they can be used to help the imaginary become real or true. [Wyatt

2004:242-261]

Talking about the internet as a “place” makes us see it as such, and thus dictates our behavior

“there.” If we conceptualize this space, or context as something tangible, a stage on which we can

interact with other human beings and carry out transactions, this initiates the idea of the internet as a

place. The combination of the idea of the internet as tangible combined with the idea of a social context

as constituting “place” legitimizes the idea of cyberspace as important a place as the banks, supermarkets

and coffee shops in which our face-to-face interactions take place.

Difference Between the “Virtual” and the “Real”

As a “place”, the internet shares many of the characteristics of face-to-face interactions, but our

speech regarding it marks it as something “other” than the places we’re used to. It is not simply space, it

is “cyberspace.” It is not reality, but “virtual reality.” What does it take, then, to constitute a place as

“real”? What is “virtual,” and what constitutes our ideas about reality and identity? How are these

wrapped up in our conception of existence and of self? These are only a few of the questions brought to

light by our distinguishing the internet as “virtual.” It would take much more space than this paper allows

to discuss what each person and culture uses to describe and express existence and identity. Such a

pursuit would not be profitable, perhaps. Nevertheless, the mere existence of the internet and the

questions its nature brings to light beg an explanation for our behavior regarding its creation and use.

At first, the dichotomy between the virtual and the real sounds simple enough. Reality would be

the actions that are played out day-to-day, face-to-face with other human beings in real time and space.

Virtual actions are those that take place on a screen, with machines, or at the least with people represented

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by an avatar or profile that may or may not reflect that person’s physical identity. However, with the rise

of business and interactions carried out through the internet, this line becomes more blurred. Regardless

of the identity projected by people using the internet, these people remain the actors behind the image

they are projecting. And if they choose a certain image to project themselves, are they not in some way

portraying a part of their identity with that image? While role-playing games and forums may not be a

physical embodiment of how players or posters live in the real world, the time they spend playing these

games and posting in forums takes up part of their day. It is something they do, and a part of themselves

that they communicate through cyberspace, whether the marks they leave are tangible or not.

These interactions may take place anonymously, but they communicate the same information that

a face-to-face interaction would; online bankers and merchants exchange currency just as shoppers in a

store would. The medium of exchange may be different, but that does not make the interaction any less

“real.” Likewise, people who communicate through online fantasy games may not actually be walking

through those environments, and may appear to other players as elves or animals. Nevertheless, they are

able to communicate with each other through chat features. This gameplay is part of their everyday lives.

It may not be reality as we perceive it, but is at least an extension of it. As illustrated by the example of

users constructing place through the use of MUDs, interactions on the internet are very much sectors of

reality that shape users’ realities and self-perceptions.

A disturbing case study that highlights the prevalence of American internet users’ utilization of

online “realities” and the very real faces behind their avatars comes from the online game World of

Warcraft. In this fantasy game, players navigate through a landscape, trade resources and fight enemies

they encounter along the way. They also have the opportunity to communicate with other players while

online. Because of the enormous scope and infinite objectives of the game, it is addictive and players

often spend hours online each day. Some players become so addicted, in fact, that they will turn to

sources outside the game to help them accomplish objectives so that they can advance through the game.

The currency used in the game can be accumulated by players and put up for sale on sites such as

Ebay.com where other players can purchase in-game currency for real money. Taking the desire for

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success in the game a step further, players of the game may even hire other players to accomplish difficult

objectives for them. For this reason, in China, sweatshops sprung up where people skilled in playing

World of Warcraft would play the game – sometimes in 12-hour shifts each day - in order to obtain

resources that can be sold over the internet for real currency to those wishing to advance in the game.

The conditions in which these players live are often poor; they are often sleep-deprived and

malnourished, overworked and underpaid (Barboza 2005).

This seems an extreme condition to be putting any human being through, but even more so for the

advancement of a player through a fantasy game in their leisure time. However, it has become clear that

such online games have become a more integral part of some people’s realities than a mere leisure

activity. Some of those who “play for pay” do it willingly, glad to be paid for an activity they enjoy

(Barboza 2005). For the (often geographically distant and oblivious) purchaser of this currency, World of

Warcraft has become more than just a game as well. It is an extension of the player’s identity to which

they have become attached, and this attachment affects their wellbeing. Whether most players know

about the conditions of such sweatshops is uncertain, and whether if they do they would let such behavior

continue is undiscernable. Nevertheless this is an example of how real are the implications of online

communities that skeptics might discard as “virtual.” The medium or place within which the interactions

take place may be virtual, but their implications in physical space are very real.

Rethinking Place

The metaphors that we use to describe the internet, then, may be some legitimization for our

behavior there. If we talk about it as a place, it makes sense to interact there as we would a “real world”

place. In fact, through the discussion of place as a stage or context, referring to the internet as a place

becomes plausible. The case studies and examples mentioned here have illustrated that trying to pin a

single metaphor onto the internet and let it try to explain the medium’s nature (be it a geographical

metaphor or any other) may be more confining than defining. And what profit would the definition be in

the end, if we try to pin down the internet’s nature when it may be different for different users, in

different contexts? This paper has illustrated that:

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 1. Our cultural definition of place may need to be redefined to include virtual spaces, where

interactions and implications are just as “real” as they are in physical space

2. The way we talk about the internet shapes the way we conceptualize it, and consequently the

way we behave through it

3. This conception of the internet as a place affects our interactions and ideas of self, reality and

identity.

For many of these “slippery” terms, there is no one succinct definition that will suffice to explain

our thoughts and intentions. In fact, from culture to culture and person to person within each culture,

these definitions would likely vary. This is important to remember as the medium of the internet

continues to grow and change. The goals of this vast network of communication are in the hands of each

of its users. Those who have access to the internet have the power and choice to make of it what they

will. Ideas about the future of the internet are numerous and varied. Whether it will develop into a

primarily informational and communicative tool or “devolve” into the so-called “mindlessness” of

imageboards that support racist comments and harassment of its users is unforeseen. It is important to

remember that for those of us with access to the internet, “we are all in this together.” Whether the

medium becomes a political and informational soapbox or a domain for trolling and the posting of

amusing images is neither a good or a bad thing. It is simply a digital manifestation of human nature

through language, and maintained through the language of code and text. Hence, our ideas about place

may need to change to adjust for inclusion of social contexts like the internet. Our language has already

changed to accommodate new tools and phenomena that have gained prominence through the use of the

internet. This will persist as we continue to use metaphors to define and explain the place we call the

internet.

18
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