ABSTRACT
In a famous cartoon in the New Yorker a dog is pictured sitting in front of a computer screen. The text reads, ‘On the internet nobody knows you’re a dog’ (Steiner 1993). This cartoon symbolises readings of the internet that stress the anonymity of the user who is able to send and receive messages over the internet in relative obscurity. Cyberspace has been described as an altered reality, a virtual space, in which the normal rules of the real are changed, where in some senses anything goes. One criticism of this view identifies just how little anonymity the internet actually provides to its users (see Chapter 12 of this volume). Another reading, explored in this chapter, would stress the designers of internet activities rather than the user. It would point out how little control designers may have over the eventual users of their products and services. It is in this sense that I draw the reader’s attention to this cartoon. I want to ask whether those who wish to exercise control over users in networked learning have their perceived capacity to control students disrupted or reduced by the application of computer networks.
