History, approaches, themes and examples

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A slippery term to define

‘it is the culture of and in cyberspace’ (Read & Gessler, 1996: 306)

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‘To define cyberculture is to engage in obsolescence’ (Read & Gessler, 1996: 306)

For a counterview see Silver (2000) http://rccs.usfca.edu/intro.asp

Cyberculture is the culture that has emerged, or is emerging, from the use of computer networks for communication, entertainment and business. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyberculture

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‘...the study of various social phenomena associated with the Internet and other new forms of network communication. Examples of what falls under cyberculture studies are online communities, online multi-player gaming, the issue of online identity, the sociology and the ethnography of email usage, cell phone usage in various communities; the issues of gender and ethnicity in Internet usage; and so on.’ Lev Manovich (2002: 16)

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‘one of the two or three most complicated words in the English language’ (Williams, 1983: 87)

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Cyber = electronic?Cyber = digital?

Cyberculture or cybercultures? See Rheingold 1993

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Early studies tended to be US focussed (see ICANN)

One of the first to get connected (see ARPANET)

Academic study has focussed on Anglo-American examples

4 historical periods (see Jakub Macek, 2005 )1. 1950s-1970s2. 1970s-early 1980s3. 1980s4. Late 1980s-mid 1990s

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Cyberculture originates in the US hacker subculture

Cybernetic organism or ‘cyborg’ (M. E. Clynes and S. Kline, 1960)

‘hypertext’ (T. H. Nelson, 1960)

Emergence of ARAPNET project (1963)

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Cyberculture moves out of research institutes and universities

Intel’s miniature microprocessor (1971)

The Homebrew Computer Club

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Success of microcomputers explode across North America and Western Europe

Subcultures emerge (computer games, virtual communities, the digital avant-garde, etc)

Hacker = criminal24

Cyberculture becomes the norm

Spread of networked computers, unified by common software formats

Uptake of GUIs, HTML, etc

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Study falls into two camps: Dsytopia rants Utopian raves

‘From one side, cultural critics blamed the Net for deteriorating literacy, political and economic alienation, and social fragmentation’ (Silver, 2000)

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Cyberculture goes mainstream but with some strange depictions….

Johnny Mnemonic (1995, US, dir., Robert

Longo) http://www.youtube.com/

watch?v=bL_8Ugp9zI4 27

Revenge of the Luddites?

Techno-anxiety?

"life in the real world is far more interesting, far more important, far richer, than anything you'll ever find on a computer screen" (Stoll, 1995: 13).

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‘These highways -- or, more accurately, networks of distributed intelligence -- will allow us to share information, to connect, and to communicate as a global community. From these connections we will derive robust and sustainable economic progress, strong democracies, better solutions to global and local environmental challenges, improved health care, and -- ultimately -- a greater sense of shared stewardship of our small planet.’ (Al Gore, 1995, cited in Silver, 2000)

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Playing with gender?

Sex in cyberspace? Second Life?

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Conclusion

Cyberculture has a relatively short but rich history

Rapid acceleration of immersion in cyberculture

Pros/cons of this ‘new’ way of living?

Many arguments to be had….32

Kate Connolly, 2007, ‘Second Life in virtual sex scandal’, The Guardian, available at http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2007/may/09/secondlife.web20

William Gibson, 1984, Neuromancer, New York: Ace Science Fiction Jakub Macek, 2005, ‘Defining Cyberculture (v. 2)’ (trans: Monika Metyková and Jakub

Macek), available at http://macek.czechian.net/defining_cyberculture.htm Lev Mancovich, 2002, The Language of New Media, Cambridge (Massachusetts): MIT

Press. Howard Rheingold, 1993, The Virtual Community: Homesteading on the Electronic

Frontier, http://www.rheingold.com/vc/book/intro.html Dwight W. Read & Nicholas Gessler, 1996, ‘Cyberculture’ in David Levinson and Melvin

Ember (eds), Encyclopedia of Cultural Anthropology, New York: Henry Holt and Co. Available at http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/geog/gessler/cv-pubs/96cyber.htm

Kirkpatrick Sale, 1995, Rebels Against the Future: The Luddites and Their War on the Industrial Revolution: Lessons for the Computer Age, Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company.

David Silver, 2000, ‘Looking Backwards, Looking Forward: Cyberculture Studies 1990-2000’ in David Gauntlett (ed), Web.studies: Rewiring Media Studies for the Digital Age, London: Oxford University Press. Available at http://rccs.usfca.edu/intro.asp

Clifford Stoll, 1995, Silicon Snake Oil: Second Thoughts on the Information Highway, New York: Doubleday.

Raymond Williams, 1983, Keywords, London: Fontana. Wikipedia, ‘Cyberculture’ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyberculture last accessed

3/10/2008

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Images

Slides 4-6: Torley, http://www.flickr.com/photos/torley/3813317440/sizes/l/ Slides 7-8, 12: robjewitt,

http://www.flickr.com/photos/robjewitt/3962862496/sizes/o/ Slides 13-14: rafeejewell,

http://www.flickr.com/photos/raftwetjewell/3595416963/sizes/l/ Slide 16: musicmuse_ca,

http://www.flickr.com/photos/42304632@N00/498016780/sizes/o/ Slide 17: Dr Karanka, http://www.flickr.com/photos/jkaranka/1484368168/ Slide 18: Corey Leopold,

http://www.flickr.com/photos/cleopold73/2553585876/ Slide 22: viscousplatypus,

http://www.flickr.com/photos/pneumatic_transport/354459878/ Slides 31-32: rafeejewell,

http://www.flickr.com/photos/raftwetjewell/2965119497/sizes/l/

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Has the advent of cyberculture transformed how we relate to each other?

Have you ever experimented with your digital identity online to create a different version of yourself? (eg Second Life, Xbox Avatars, Nintendo Mii, etc). If so, how did you find this experience?

What does the future hold? Will it be a better tomorrow powered by information networks or will we become slaves to the machine?

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Gender online: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=neottqW4owg

Sceptics (Postman): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49rcVQ1vFAY

Gibson in Second Life: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QeuEo-F3JI

Visions of the future: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LlBgIO6Mp9A

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