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Key Concepts in Cyberculture Studies

Key Concepts in Cyberculture Studies. The Question of Jargon. David Silver’s Three Phases of Cyberstudies. I. Popular Cyberculture II. Cyberculture Studies III. Critical Cyberculture Studies NOTE: Each stage does not replace the other, but continues & modifies >.

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Key Concepts in Cyberculture Studies

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  1. Key Concepts in Cyberculture Studies

  2. The Question of Jargon

  3. David Silver’s Three Phases of Cyberstudies • I. Popular Cyberculture • II. Cyberculture Studies • III. Critical Cyberculture Studies NOTE: Each stage does not replace the other, but continues & modifies >

  4. I. Popular Cyberculture • More journalistic than academic • Newness of medium led to wild speculation • Dualism: Utopian & dystopian visions dominate • Still exotic & a domain of the few • Frontier metaphor dominant >

  5. II. (Early)Cyberculture Studies • Virtual Community (Rheingold, 1993): virtual beats the real • Life on the Screen (Turkle, 1995): fragmented, post-modern identities • “Text as Mask” (Danet, 1995): fascination with identity play online (gender & racial “crossdressing”) (“wikidentities” as more recent variant) • Important, still useful approaches, but tendency to exaggerate gap between offline “real life” (RL) and online “virtual life” (VL) & focus on extreme cases • As Net has become less & less exotic, more & more a part of everyday life, more complex analyses have emerged >

  6. III. Critical Cyberculture Studies • Skeptical of broad, general claims • Based on more careful textual analysis & more empirical research via online ethnography • Looking more specifically at particular groups of users (and those unable or unwilling to become users) of digital technologies • Raises key question of how varying subject positions shape cyberculture experiences • Seeks to understand the ideas & practices that can facilitate technology for social inclusion >

  7. Technological Determinism • Technological determinism argues that technology has an independent causal power in changing society • Technological determinism argues that technology is the major source of social and cultural transformation >

  8. Critique of Technological Determinism • Technologies are always created individuals & groups deeply shaped by cultural assumptions & biases • Choices about which technologies to develop are always partly economic & social • Choices about which technologies become popular are deeply social & cultural • The uses to which technologies are put are deeply social & cultural >

  9. Technology-in-Society, orTechno-Cultural • Technologies are always have cultural assumptions built into them by culturally shaped producers • Technologies are always made available or not available by economic & social processes • The adoption and use of technologies is always a social process • Technologies are subsequently adapted, changed or replaced by ongoing social processes • Technologies are always techno-cultural; shaped by culture even as they shape culture >

  10. Cyberculture as Techno-cultural Process Three dimensions of cyberculture: Production process: engineers, designers, etc Textual process: web sites, etc. Consumption process: users, audiences, communities, etc. >

  11. Producing Cybercultures • Who are the hardware designers/engineers & what are their subject positions & work conditions? • Who are the assembly line workers & what are their subject positions & work conditions? • Who are the software designers & what are their subject positions & work? • Who are the web designers & what are their subject positions & work conditions >

  12. Producing Cybercultures, cont. • What cultural ideas are built into hardware? • What cultural ideas are built into software? • What cultural ideas are built into Web interfaces? • What cultural ideas are built into various webpage genres, templates & styles? • How can non-dominant cultures influence design? >

  13. Social “Text” • Any unit of meaning isolated for the purpose of analysis • In cyberculture analysis the “text” may be as small as one word or image on a web page, or as large as a whole community of users • Web “texts” include words, images, sounds, page layout, links and their interrelationships >

  14. Cyber-Textuality • What kinds of texts are online & what kinds are not? In what languages? • What cultural values are expressed in online texts & what cultural values are underrepresented? • What cultural groups have significant textual presence on the Web, & which ones do not? • What cultural groups are stereotyped or otherwise stigmatized in online texts? METHOD: Textual analysis >

  15. Users/Audiences:Consuming & Interacting with Cyberspace • What are people actually doing in cyberspaces? • How do people interact with online texts & environments? • To what degree to “users” resist or challenge dominant texts & expected interactions? • How have marginalized communities challenged dominant cultures online &/or created their own communities? METHOD: Online ethnography >

  16. How Culture Works All cultures, including cybercultures, have three main components: • 1) what people think and say (ideas; discourses) • 2) what people do (behaviors) • & 3) the things people make (material culture) Cyberculture studies looks at all 3 dimensions & their interrelationships >

  17. What Does Critical Cyberculture Studies Analyze? • 1. The social, cultural, economic and political interactions that take place in computer-mediated environments • 2. The storieswe tell about those interactions • 3. The social, cultural, economic and political conditions that shape, thwart or enable online interactions • 4. The technical design decisions, intentional and accidental, that shape digital cultures >

  18. Access & Identity/Representation • ACCESS: the degree, extent or kind of opportunities to use digital technologies; from the digital divide to technology for social inclusion • REPRESENTATION refers to the way in which a given individuals & group of people are portrayed in online environments; this involves questions of personal & cultural identity >

  19. Technology for Social Inclusion • Technologies for inclusion recognize the multiple social variables that create differing degrees of social power in relation to all things, including high technologies • Social inclusion refers to the extent that individuals, families, and communities are able to fully participate in society and control their own destinies, with the goal of furthering equal access to economic resources, employment, health, education, housing, recreation, culture, and civic engagement >

  20. Key Social Variables Shaping Cybercultures • Age • Class • Gender • Education • Language • Race/Ethnicity • Sexual identity • Political ideology • Geographic location (urban/rural, etc.) • Technological knowledge or Techno-literacy >

  21. Subject Position • A person’s subject positionis their location in relation to the combined major social variables (age, gender, race, class, etc.) • A person’s subject position largely shapes their viewpoint on the world as an individual-in-society • If identity is how you think about yourself, subject position is where social structures beyond your self place you in the world • Some elements of subject position can change over time, but they remain extremely good predictors of belief and action >

  22. Default Identity • Default identity refers to the process by which a straight, white, middleclass, Euro-American cultural assumptions, values & ideas were/are unintentionally built into hardware, software & cybercultures • Just as it is possible to change the default settings on most programs, it has been possible to move beyond this default identity to welcome more subject positions online • But just as default settings often remain invisible to most users & don't get changed, default identities have to be intentionally changed • There are still a number of ways and a number of places where the default identity dominates cyberspaces >

  23. Cultural Competency • Gaining depth of understanding of subject positions & cultures other than your own is the process of gaining various degrees of cultural competency • We develop a more or less automatic depth of understanding of the subject positions & cultures into which we are born & socialized • Achieving something like that depth of understanding of other subject positions & other cultures is far more difficult, but not impossible >

  24. Hegemony • Hegemony is cultural domination without overt force or coercion • Hegemony is a process by which groups with greater power lead those with lesser power to adopt their dominant ideas as common sense, even when those ideas work against fairness, justice or the self-interest of the dominated group • In ICT terms, hegemony has meant greater power to shape cyberculture in the hands of certain cultural groups & the default subject position >

  25. Examples of Cultural Hegemony • Mainstream pop music vs. alternative music • Women’s magazines vs. feminist magazines Cybercultural Hegemony • Corporate websites & portals vs. homemade ones • English language online vs. virtually any other language • Default identities >

  26. Cultural Imperialism • Cultural imperialism is hegemonic influence over cultural production (movies, TV, music, etc.) by one culture over others • The culture subject to cultural imperialism is overwhelmed & overridden by the dominant culture from outside such that local traditions are lost or transformed beyond recognition • The US & to a lesser degree Europe have been accused of cultural imperialism vis-à-vis most of the rest of the world • Japan has been accused of CI with regard to the rest of Asia (& sometime with regard to the US) • Smaller scale cultural imperialism occur within countries, between ethnically dominant & minority cultures, & between thedominant culture & subcultures >

  27. Stereotypes & Subtler Negative Images A stereotype is a negative or derogatory image that has been repeated often enough to evoke immediate recognition. Not all negative images achieve this degree of recognition through repetition, and often the most damaging images are subtler than stereotypes.

  28. Stereotypes, Images & Representational Systems While examples of “stereotypes” are not hard to find online & in games, there are also subtler forms of denigration & widerrepresentational systems based in systematic subject positioning within social structures that give hegemonic cultures greater visibility & power >

  29. Possible Discussion Questions • Cyberspace enhances human interaction vs. cyberspace distracts from human interaction? • Do online identities differ significantly from our offline identities? • The article is out of date; the article is up-to- date • What obligations, if any, do designers have to make the Web work for diverse populations? • What are the best strategies by which non-hegemonic cultures can get fair representation on the Web? <>

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