“The Medium” Is the Message

Abstract

It is our position (following Plaice and Kropf) that mathematics and software engineering does not provide a very good basis for understanding communities. These formalisms are necessarily influenced by a mechanical, atomistic outlook which sees collections as arbitrary assemblages of self sufficient individuals communicating point to point in a vacuum.

I suggest instead that ideas of Marshall McLuhan provide a much better starting point because they give a central role to the medium by which the members of a community communicate. Furthermore, I argue that the phrase “the medium” should also be interpreted in the sense used in (say) biology, as a nurturing extended substance (a plenum) which fills the space between the individuals and to some degree permeates their interiors.

Finally, I argue Swoboda’s context server project can be understand as realizing Plaice/Kropf “intensional communities” by formalizing and implementing a nurturing medium which permeates the (software used by) each community member.