Jamming the Media Glossary (Online Edition)

Basement Area Networks [BANs]

As increasing numbers of people have more than one computer in their home, they're networking them together into what's been called basement area networks.

Cyberstation

Coined by Wired, cyberstation is an attempt (albeit a rather lame one) at identifying a new kind of interactive Net-based publication and virtual community. It's an ezine if it's a collection of static pages with graphics and a few sounds, it's a cyberstation if it includes audio, video, animation, applets, chat and conferencing (at least until someone can come up with a better term). Thanks to inexpensive conferencing software like O'Reilly's WebBoard, even amateur media-makers can build such cyberstations.

Influencers

Term used in marketing to refer to the people that professional trend watchers stalk (and often videotape) in hopes of spotting the next waves of fashion, music, extreme sports, etc. Much of the zine and alternative media "scene" is monitored by such trend watchers.

Microstar

Someone who's well-known and well-loved, but only within a small media universe (e.g. the Web, the zine scene, cable access television, newsgroups, etc.)

Organ Donor

An old or broken computer that's tossed onto a shelf and slowly stripped of its working parts as the need arises to repair other machines.

Raygunitis

A publication suffering from overworked, desperately-trying-to-be-hip design. Named after Raygun, the music and pop culture zine known for its sadomasochistic design and tortured typography.

Shopgrifting

Gratis renting of media technologies by buying items on credit and returning them under the 30 day no-questions-asked return policy offered at most superstores. Popular form of acquiring needed tech among media hackers.