Virtual Case vs Physical Case
Case Western University exists as a physical place, as well as a virtual space. These two ideas cause a mixture of the physical campus and the virtual campus in the minds of the students.
At the campus, there is a large variety of writing that can be seen as one person walks from one side of campus to another. The most common way of communicating to the students as they travel around the campus is through the writing on the sidewalks. This is the most efficient because it can be written wherever there is a sidewalk and is easily viewed as the students walk past it in order to get to class. These writings tell students of events occurring on the campus. Another way of giving information to the students is all the signs, telling what is in each building. This helps the students to find their way around the campus and to find the buildings they are looking for. This is extremely helpful for those people who are visiting Case and also for new students. Finally, there are flyers posted all over the campus. These flyers are used in a similar manner as the chalk writing, allowing the students to know of events. All of the above are physical ways the campus uses writing to show the physical aspects of the university.
On the other hand, there is also the virtual campus, or the on-line campus. The writing on these again includes sites for different organizations and events that are occurring on campus. Also, there are on-line maps that allow the students to figure out how they are to go from class to class. Finally, the students all have e-mail addresses that allow them to communicate to the other students. These methods closely relate to the methods used in the physical world.
This relationship causes a mixing of the physical world and the virtual world in the mind of the student. For example, the e-mail addresses are the most mixed into the physical world. The students believe that the e-mails are a physical place to receive mail. When one asks a student for their address, the idea that the student has a physical address to send them mail rarely crosses their mind and they readily give out their e-mail address instead. This shows a clear mixture of the physical world and the virtual world, through the mixture of the physical address and the e-mail address that all the students accept to be their “address.” Finally, all the organizations have a physical meeting place, as well as a meeting place on-line created through e-mail and their websites. This further meshes the line between the physical world and the virtual world. Through the combination of the physical meetings and the virtual meeting place, the group becomes a mixture between a physical organization and a virtual organization.
Here, at Case, the uses of physical and virtual writings are used in such a way that the line between the two becomes so vague that it becomes unclear what is virtual and what is physical groups and organizations.
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