Information superhighway

The term information superhighway ( also: Data Highway, occasionally: Infobahn ) is a metaphor often used especially in the second half of the 1990s for the Internet. It is a somewhat free translation of the English phrase Information Highway (also: Information Super Highway), which is used as such in German-speaking as a variant of information superhighway.

Origin

The term was coined in the U.S. government's " High Performance Computing and Communications " in the election campaign and in the Clinton administration about September, 1993 by Al Gore and designated a disputed mission statement for either national ( " National Information Infrastructure " ) or global ( " Global Information infrastructure " ) and comprehensive information infrastructure. The term initially referred to information highway that is on another high-speed network, but was not the purely technical aspect in the foreground, but the content of information provided. However, the idea itself goes back to as early as 1991 discussed " National Research and Education Network ", which would replace the outdated NFSNET.

Following the development of the West ( "Go West" ), proclaimed by the pioneers of vorangangenen century Clinton and Gore the equivalent of the information age of the 21st century: As part of an application-oriented technology initiative was started with the establishment of the " National Information Infrastructure "; directly at the White House in Washington, for example, the " National Information Infrastructure Task Force " was settled. Staffed with senior U.S. policy-makers panel illustrates the importance that was attached to the fastest possible development of a national information infrastructure at the political level. These infrastructures were - but never implemented because the Internet much of the projected functionality already long since fulfilled - despite considerable initial investments.

The term in German-speaking

Content meant Information Highway the same as what was intended in the Federal Republic since the 1970s: an integrated, broadband universal network with features such as the networking of all schools and libraries, and - later - of services such as the commercial distribution of digital video (Video -on-Demand ), Interactive TV, teleshopping and video conferencing over IP.

(: Infobahn also casually ) conducted a series discussion in Germany has been using the term information superhighway. Powered by the media coverage took the presence of terms such as information superhighway information superhighway and multimedia in the German -speaking world from around 1994 continuously. At least since the turn of the year 1994/95 dominated the topics global networking and multimedia coverage of computer magazines. As of 1995, this particular also the content of popular computer magazines, called forth a flood of journalistic start-ups and finally reached the book offer established publishers.

The CeBit trade fairs in 1995 and 1996 as well as the CeBit Home in 1996 were also influenced by trends in global networks and multimedia. Finally, the conventional press took up the trend. So published the " mirror " for example, in March 1996 a "mirror Special" entitled " The multimedia future"; the issue of 11 March 1996 was online under the slogan "The World. D @ s network " and reported in detail on the Internet. Even regional newspapers such as the "Berliner Tagesspiegel" taught a rubrics, which dealt exclusively with the new technology ( "Interactive" ). Online services and the internet was so firmly established in the public consciousness. The term information superhighway, however, had now finally lost by the inflationary use of the word in the media and with the predominantly sole reference to the technique its original and primary reference to the content of education; so the German Telekom said for example already in their catalog 94/95 of the product " information superhighway ISDN".

The vision of " information highways" offered only a model, but there was disagreement about the specific implementation; for example, was " information superhighway " much speculation about the necessary technical requirements of, but mandatory specifications did not exist. Largely unclear was how the substantial financial investments are to be applied to develop the necessary global infrastructure. Even if the intercontinental connections and backbones of the " information highways" could be applied by a collaboration of government and private sector financiers, would remain the majority of the households of the "Global Information Infrastructure " cut off: The existing narrowband telecommunication links are not enough to the planned multimedia of universal services network, such as video -on-demand to transport. Large parts of Africa and Asia can not even rely on a nationwide telephone network, completely apart from broadband multimedia services currently.

With the term information superhighway was originally tried safety, purposefulness, clarity, speed and effectiveness to connect to the Internet. However, the expression aims more at the mental concept of " order" from instead on the "freedom ", which is also reflected in the new meaning of the word surfing. The term information superhighway has therefore been widely criticized as a false picture and could not displace the common metaphor of " surfing ".

This will most likely not succeed in the future, because the term information superhighway and its synonyms are only rarely used in German-speaking today. There was thus obtained a query in early March 2010 at the Online Archive of the Austrian daily newspaper "Die Presse" for the entire period from January 1, 2001 to February 28, 2010, only 21 Results for Internet traffic, and 24 matches for the data highway. In this case, both expressions are mainly to be understood as synonyms for konnotationsfreie Internet. As a secondary meanings of the two words seem almost exclusively "broadband" and "high speed ". At the same time a query resulted in the online archive of the "Frankfurter Rundschau " for the period 1 January 2005 to 28 February 2010 for search term information superhighway 23 results for the search term data highway no results were found. At the same query modalities Highway were for the expression information of the "Press" 14 and the "Frankfurter Rundschau " turn 0 results output.

That the information superhighway metaphor was a phenomenon of the early days of the Internet in the 1990s, also proves an appropriate evaluation of print articles that "Der Spiegel" published in the German news magazine. In 1993, the term appeared there for the first time, has a peak in the year 1995 and since 2001 has been barely detectable.

An example of the use of the language picture of the highway is a statement of the Austrian Chancellor Franz Vranitzky in a parliamentary session:

" When we talk about the future of our country, we do not come around it should be noted that there are new messages completion of the construction sites of the information superhighway, the information highway almost daily. Not everything that is offered, has already motorway character. There are a wide variety of networks according to standard, built to size, rebuilt, and so on, and all the invites to enter. We need to not miss the benefits and advantages of this modern technique and technology, deal with it ... "