VIRTUAL reality, computer games, web interactivity and the notion of cyberspace - these are just some of the areas being researched in a new unit currently underway in Murdoch University’s School of Media Communication and Culture (MCC) Program.

CyberPraxis - a study of the Internet and its users by way of practical applications - has already proved a runaway success according to course co-ordinators and MCC lecturers, Dr John Richardson and Ms Ingrid Richardson.

Ms Richardson said key areas examined in CyberPraxis included how the internet could construct an identity in cyberspace and how the Net brought people together to create a sense of community.

“This is very different to face-to-face communication using physical and bodily markers,” she said.

“The course is also critical of the ‘cyber-hype’ generated in the media about the Internet’s ability to enable people to ‘escape their bodies’ using virtual reality, for example. To help students ‘get a grasp’ of virtual reality for themselves, we take them to a virtual reality parlour to experience it at firsthand.”

Primary research areas to be explored include interactive and Web TV, cyberhype (ie is cyberspace a ‘new’ experience), cyber children (the effects of the Net on children), Virtual Reality and the body, and issues of gender in Multi-User Domains (MUDs).

These topics, usually put forward by the students themselves, may be researched on the Internet using chatrooms and bulletin boards, according to the Richardsons.

“The first six weeks of the course provide useful background on the Internet by looking at the history of adjacent technologies, such as television, photography, cinema and computer games, which provide a ‘foreground’ to the Internet,” said Ms Richardson.

“These mediums are hugely important as they have already set up a pattern, or set of conditions, for the way in which we currently experience the Internet and cyberspace.

“In CyberPraxis we are mainly concerned with the ‘hows’ and ‘whys’ of a user’s interaction with the technology - how the Internet is read - and why it is such an important force.
“We also focus on how Internet technology is taking over – almost ‘colonising’ - all other technologies.”

CyberPraxis is aimed at a wide range of students - from those with marketing, media or multimedia backgrounds - to others with purely theoretical experience.

“Although website construction is an integral part of the unit, I would like to see students using their websites to express a full understanding of the Internet, rather than creating superbly-polished, technically-perfect sites with no substance,” said Dr John Richardson.

“The response to this special unit has been outstanding with more than 50 applicants when we were expecting only 20 or so.

“To cater for the extra demand, we are already planning a bigger and even more comprehensive unit for next year.”

In tandem with CyberPraxis, Dr Richardson also runs a unit entitled Image Literacy which explores the pervasive nature of photographs and their influence on our world through cinema (literally, moving pictures), newspapers, books, television and the Internet.