Where Blacks are on the Net: exploring African American cyberspace.The African American African American Multiculture A person having origins in any of the black racial groups of Africa. See Race. presence on the Internet is usually understated, if not completely ignored, by the mainstream media. But contrary to popular belief, there are numerous stops in cyberspace Coined by William Gibson in his 1984 novel "Neuromancer," it is a futuristic computer network that people use by plugging their minds into it! The term now refers to the Internet or to the online or digital world in general. See Internet and virtual reality. Contrast with meatspace. that are run by, and for, people of african descent. There is no need to limit our Internet experience to areas of the major online services specifically designed for blacks. The powerful Altavista search engine (www.altavista.digital.com) retrieved 100,000 Web sites on topics relating to relating to relate prep → concernant relating to relate prep → bezüglich +gen, mit Bezug auf +acc the African Diaspora The African diaspora is the diaspora created by the movements and cultures of Africans and their descendants throughout the world, to places such as the Americas, (including the United States, Canada, the Caribbean, Central America, and South America) Europe and Asia. . Among the many ways to tap into Afrocentric content on the Internet are chat sessions, Web sites, drums, newsgroups This is a list of newsgroups that are significant for their popularity or their position in Usenet history. As of October 2002, there are about 100,000 Usenet newsgroups, of which approximately a fifth are active. and directories. Try the following for starters. Directories are excellent sources of information for Afrocentric content, and generally provide links to the recommended Web sites. The Universal Black Pages (UBP UBP United Bermuda Party UBP United Bermuda Party (Bermuda) UBP Université Blaise Pascal (France) UBP Universal Black Pages UBP Ulusal Birlik Partisi (National Unity Party, Cyprus) ) is a great place to start (http://www.gatech.edu/bgsa/ blackpages.html). Developed by the Black Graduate Students Association at Georgia Tech, the UBP is an extensive listing of Pan-African Web pages. These sites are indexed by subject headings such as professional organizations, history and business. UBP also provides links to these Web sites and includes a searchable database Refers to databases on the Web that are searchable by typing in a query. The term is quite redundant because all databases are searchable. In fact, that is one of their major features. . There are quite a few publications (or e-zines) targeted at blacks that have made their way onto the Net. The Network Journal (www.tnj. com) provides professional and small business news, in addition to columns on technology, taxes and other useful information. It also includes links to other sites of interest to African Americans. An electronic version of the quarterly newsletter that advocates African American involvement in technology, The Coltduit (www. imhotech.com) also provides links to other interesting sites. Black on Black Communications (www. i-media.com/BOBC) is another ezine that offers information from an Afrocentric perspective. However, it is available only by subscription - issues will be e-mailed to you once you subscribe. Be sure to stop by Be's site (www.blackenterprise.com). There are places on the Internet that cover a wide range of topics related to the African experience. the World African Network (www. World African Net.com), the Black Information Network (www.bin. com), CPTime (home.earthlink. net/-afrolink/), MelaNet (www. melanet.com), AfriNet (www. afrinet.net) and NetNoir (www.netnoir.com) are just a few. Rather than jumping from one Web site to another, you will find at these sites self-contained Afrocentric areas of interest such as business, people, sports, community and education. You can enter these areas and find stories, pictures, sound, video, etc., relating to these specific topics. Chat rooms which allow real-time interaction on specific topics are usually available as well. In addition to chat rooms, there are other ways to communicate with black people online, including drums and newsgroups. Drums are African American mailing lists that allow you to post e-mail messages to a large number of subscribers. In turn, any of those subscribers may post a response to your e-mail. To listen in on a drum, send an e-mail saying "subscribe" to the drum closest to you. There is a national drum at FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) A group of commonly asked questions about a subject along with the answers. Vendors often display them on their Web sites for use as troubleshooting guidelines. @drum.ncat.edu (see "March to the Beat of a Different Drum A Different Drum is an independent record label and online store based in the US state of Utah, specializing in synthpop and related genres. They have released albums, singles, and compilations. ," Techwatch, June 96). Similar to a drum, a newsgroup newsgroup Internet forum for discussion of specific subjects. Newsgroups are organized into subjects (e.g., automobiles); each typically has several subgroups (e.g., classic cars, Formula One racing cars). consists of messages posted by many people to a central location. However, instead of the messages coming to you automatically as a subscriber, you need to retrieve the messages yourself. Using a news reader, you type in a newsgroup location, and a series of e-mails on a single subject will be sent to your computer. Some interesting African American newsgroups can be found at soc. culture.african.american (a general topic newsgroup), alt. music.africana (African music African music, the music of the indigenous peoples of Africa. Sub-Saharan African music has as its distinguishing feature a rhythmic complexity common to no other region. ), and bit.tech.africana (technology). This is only a small sampling of African-related materials on the Net. The Internet is a tremendous mine of information, so start digging. |
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