An Introduction to Cybercultures, Part 2 (pp. 113-207)

Key Terms

Identification – Stuart Hall uses this term to indicate the fragmented and multiple moves that we make in constructing identity. Rather than a stable or essentialized idea of identity, looking at identifications opens up insight into how identity is constantly “in process.” For identifications in cyberspace, a useful heuristic can be looking at personal rhetorical choices in relation to the affordances/constraints of designed systems.

Cyber-capital – The performance and representation of cyber-skills as a means of gaining cultural capital; this can be represented through skills related to design, but also through the consumption and display of cutting-edge technology products.

(the) posthuman – transformation of the operations of the human body (sensory, cognitive, motor-based) through electronic prostheses; not necessarily sci-fi and apocalyptic, though, as Hayles notes that posthumanism involves “extending embodied awareness in highly specific, local, and material ways” (qtd. in Bell 143).

Cyborg – A concept that relates to many different configurations of machine and organism; Gray et al. outline “types” of cyborg technologies such as restorative, normalizing, reconfiguring, and enhancing (qtd. in Bell 149). Also important in the idea of the cyborg is its mythical/fictional status, and how that informs our everyday, material interactions with technologies.

Visible Human – Refers to the U.S. National Library of Medicine’s work to produce complete, accessible digital data for a male and female human body; critiques of this project have included the normalization of a biomedical standard for human bodies (e.g., Waldby’s “The Visible Human Project: Data into Flesh, Flesh into Data”).

Technological subcultures – In Bell’s terms, this kind of cybersubculture is distinct from others (e.g., TV fan cultures) in that they depend on the infrastructures of cyberspace to exist; for example, MUD communities have developed because of the formal features of cyberspace, whereas other subcultures have moved over pre-existing activities and conversations into cyberspace.

Hacker ethic – A belief system characterizing the “computer underground” (Bell 180); this ethic both adopts a political stance and tries to clarify the public image of hackers. How this ethic has been presented is interesting in terms of cyber-capital (above): hackers claim to rely on meritocratic criteria of skill performance rather than other markers of social status.

Key Theorists

Hall – fragmentation of the individual, unified subject; concept of identification (above); difference and identity (identity is constructed through acts of exclusion).

Hayles – theory of the posthuman; calls for a critical consideration of posthumanism in terms of sustainability and “long-range survival” (qtd. in Bell 146).

Haraway – highly influential in developing the idea of the cyborg; points to the simultaneous reality and virtuality of the cyborg; also deconstructs the binaries of human/animal, organic/machinic, and physical/non-physical through the lens of the cyborg (Bell 152).

Jenkins – Jenkins’ work on fan cultures and emphasis on their active cultural work (rather than passive media consumption) has laid the groundwork for studies of cybersubcultures, especially fan cultures; in terms of community and meaning-making, these themes are important to carry over as we look at online cultural formations.

Mitra and Cohen – While the following aren’t necessarily “theorists” in the purest sense, I wanted to devote space to a couple of major figures who have come up in terms of cyberculture research and methodologies. Mitra and Cohen present a methodological framework for doing textual analysis in cyberspace, including “intertextuality, nonlinearity, a blurring of the reader/writer distinction, ‘multimedianess’, ‘globalness’ and ephemerality” (qtd. in Bell 193). This framework, especially in terms of nonlinearity and ephemerality, has some interesting parallels with Deleuze and Guattari’s rhizome.

Hine – calls for careful definition of ethnographic contexts for cybercultures research; discusses ethical issues in terms of researcher transparency; presents a series of principles for online ethnography but emphasizes that what counts the most is an adaptive, flexible approach (Bell 201).

Key Themes

Reworking & fragmentation of identity in cyberspace – this theme relates to Hall’s general discussion of identity and identification, but also points to the affordances and constraints of how identity works in cyberspace (e.g., though avatar construction, textual and visual strategies for representation, etc.)

Identity “play” and “authenticity” in relation to gender, race, sexuality, etc. – tension between fantasies and possibilities of taking on a “new” gendered, racial, and/or sexual identity (e.g., Nakamura’s discussion of identity tourism) and the problem of authenticity: what is the “authentic” referent, if any, for these forms of identity construction?

Relation between bodies (physical/virtual) and sense of self – the problem of making bodies into who we want to be or become; Bell comments on the “fit” between bodies and selves (139).

“Evolution” of and beyond the human with body technologies – relates to the idea of prostheses and medical technologies as steps beyond the human, and also the threats of evolutionary termination of the human or ideas that the human is obsolete, as Stelarc has suggested (Bell 144).

Transformation of “sub-” and fan cultures in cyberspace – these cultures are increasingly distributed and geographically collapsed, and we need to evaluate how gender relations and other cultural formations play out in these cybercultures as compared to earlier, off-line iterations; also, the kinds of texts produced by fan cultures have shifted in cyberspace, although some have carried over and been remediated in certain ways (e.g. zines and e-zines).

Determining value of online sources – here’s a familiar one! As a writing teacher, I’m often confronted with, and often talk with my students about, questions of value, credibility, and authorship in relation to using online sources to write. These questions and concerns are important to keep in mind as we do studies in these spaces, especially in terms of trying to figure out what online texts represent in terms of research value.

Legitimacy and ethics of cybercultures research – questions here include the necessity of doing multi-method or multi-site research, and how we frame/qualify claims after doing fieldwork or textual analysis; also, there are ethical questions about researcher transparency and public/private distinctions as we do cybercultural studies.