This week’s reading revolved around the ‘poetics, aesthetics, and ethics’ of the Internet as a database. So what is a database? The standard definition of the term is a ‘structured collection of data,’ however this model can vary (hierarchical, network, relational, and object-oriented) from one instance to another.

New media technologies are recognised for often adopting a database structure, rather than a linear, narrative form. Immediately, the hypertext system of the Internet springs to mind. Like a database, a webpage is made up of a coded, HTML file which consists of a sequential list of instructions for individual components. This material then correlates to what we view online – a collection of items such as text, imagery, video and links to other pages. They could not exist without the specific coding in the HTML file, as one tiny mis-type could result in a significant error.  In this sense, HTML coding is much like human DNA, in which sequencing of nucleotides code for specific traits on the body. Does this mean human genetics can be classed as a database system?

I think where they differ is the fact that webpages are continuously unfinished and infinitely changing. HTML files have the capacity to be edited post publication on the Internet – new content or links might be added. This is another feature of a database to which the Internet complies, whereas the human genetics system does not. The DNA we are born with remains our DNA for life, and generally we cannot alter it.

I know this is only the tiniest slice of what the reading was about, but it was just an interesting comparison that came to mind.