Metaphor is a powerful device because it a/effects the way we think about the web. It opens up some spaces to imagine the intangible nature of the Internet and closes down others.
Information Superhighway
The metaphor that comes to mind most readily is that of infrastructure. The superhighway, the road that carries Internet traffic around the network. The network itself represented as a road network, with major roads or superhighways and smaller roads and side streets. We can imagine data zooming along the wide smooth superhighway, battling with choke points as the traffic piles into over loaded and unsuitable road junctions. It reaches its destination and parks up on our computer hard drives.
Its not a metaphor loaded with emotion, its not pretty, its not really visible architecture. It is an invisible utility imagined as tarmac. We won't be able to park at the side of the road and see a wonderful and graceful suspension bridge made of data or admire the arc of a fly over. It is a metaphor that focuses on efficiency and capacity. On economic benefit, the information economy driven by the net and operated by knowledge workers.
Inside the metaphor
However, it can take on a more interesting dimension if we start to inhabit the metaphor. In Aliens, alien beast live in the darker recesses of the cargo bay. In the Matrix the metaphor is reversed. It is made to appear real, but isn't. As occupants of the metaphor we may have to leave the well lit information superhighway and travel down the dark alleys, where virus and monsters and evil doers live. Our network, our information superhighway, carries with it our darkest fears of living in a dysfunctional place, the crumbling inner city, the derelict housing estate, the crime ridden streets/network.
Are we even safe in our metaphorical houses when something evil can hitch a ride right into our computer, right into our homes. Be careful what you metaphor.
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