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THE FIFTH
ESTATE |
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World Wide Web is a new medium.
It is akin to the newspapers of last century, and it is different. These links were collected after South Australian magistrates were provided with limited access to the World Wide Web. As the magistrates grappled with the WWW, some began to ask the author questions about the nature of the medium itself. The easiest way to answer their questions was to email a copy of this file, a file to help them find their own answers. It has grown out of collaboration between work colleagues. What is "the Web"? The World Web transports information between
computers connected to the Internet. It is used to get around the
obstacles which incompatible The WWW has emerged as a result of simple
negotiated agreements about standards. The agreements are adhered to in
every jurisdiction The agreements are enforceable in none of these jurisdictions. Compliance often brings economic rewards; non-compliance brings isolation and economic demise. A common language of text based terms (" html tags") has been agreed upon, and is regularly revised, by academic and technical experts who participate in the World Wide Web Consortium. A new central agreement, the fourth updating of the standards, is currently nearing completion. These agreements have no legal standing, although
many other consequential agreements The tags are then used to design "server software", "html files", and "browsers". When "html files" are stored on a "server" computer connected to the Internet, other software ("browsers") use the html tags to access the information on the "server". The "browser" then prints the text, sound and graphics on the screen of the "client" computer, which is also connected to the Internet. The WWW has largely replaced the old university data storage sites, which used "gopher" and "file transfer protocol". Why is there so much rubbish on the WWW? The graphical face of the WWW has brought commercialisation and the public relations consultant to the Internet, formerly the exclusive domain of the military and the universities. The traditional student's home page, a learning exercise, has been replaced by an endless "graffiti wall" of personal homepages, a place where anyone with Internet access can mark the fact of their existence in cyberspace. Few organisations have coped well.
Data specialists, emulating textbooks which have economic limits on space and colour, serve up information without regard any but the most basic features of presentation. The information comes in black or navy, in 12 point 'Times New Roman' font, on a grey or white background, without sound or movement. It looks like this section of this file. Graphic artists, used to hard copy and television, are infuriated by their inability to dictate the final appearance of the page which reaches the reader. Often they are too distracted to look beyond technology, to look at content. The result has been a proliferation of electronic propaganda on billboards which needlessly repeat obsolete limitations. Billboards which contain the fax number of the relevant branch of the department, but not the email address. Governments and "good corporate citizens" are usually the worst offenders when it comes to the crime of wasting time and bandwidth. Courts are no exception. Enormous amounts of money are wasted in the process. Who gets some "Brownie Points"? Two very different Australian legal sites are supplying quality information which is nicely set out. Both site administrators are using the Internet to get information out to the people involved implementation, such as the people in and around the courts, people who are not working in the areas of academic research or legislative policy. Early in 1997 the Australian Institute of Criminology stopped using external consultants and put their web pages in the hands of their research librarian, John Myrtle. At home at night he taught himself to use html tags. Then he began the long arduous process of developing a site the hard way, building it by using a conventional commercial word processing package. The elves and their houses, in combination with the quality of the information, make this site. To see the elves, enter here: At Window on the Law, they do their level best to keep on getting the latest law and news out to those of us on the road to Bordertown. This is the Australian Attorney-General's web site. It publishes press releases, it is home to ScalePlus, the electronic law library which made our electronic public law libraries possible, and it is the home of the Advisory Councils which are charged with making the recommendations which will taking the Australian legal system into the next century. David Grainger is the person at the end of their email address. On top of the rest of his work, he bats the email queries coming in. |
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