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Not long after William Gibson hit the charts with his cyberpunk fiction, especially the groundbreaking (or Web-busting) Neuromancer, discussions were buzzing with ideas about how technology affects our culture and our beliefs. The essays that Steven Jones has collected explore cybersociety, online cultures, and their relationship not only to one another but also to traditional societies. The experiences of typically marginalized cultures--"cyberhate," Third World representation, gay identity in cyberspace, and punishment of "virtual offenders"--are also explored, as in Ananda Mitra's essay, "Virtual Commonality: Looking for India on the Internet." Virtual Culture is a cutting-edge book that addresses the effects and defects of discourse and community on the Web.
Book Description
Virtual Culture marks a significant intervention in the current debate about access and control in cybersociety exposing the ways in which the Internet and other computer-mediated communication technologies are being used by disadvantaged and marginal groups - such as gay men, women, fan communities and the homeless - for social and political change.
The contributors to this book apply a range of theoretical perspecitves derived from communication studies, sociology and anthropology to demonstrate the theoretical and practical possibilities for cybersociety as an identity-structured space.
Virtual Culture will be required reading for all students of communcation, media and technology.
