Cultures of the Internet

1
Cultures of the Internet

• The real self in digiSpacethe digiSelf in
  realSpace

2
Visual Space and Acoustic Space

• Acoustic space is a resonant sphere whose
  centre is everywhere and whose boundaries are
  nowhere (TT 76)
• The ear favours no particular point of view.
  It forms a seamless web around us. We cant
  shut out sound automatically. We simply are not
  equipped with earlids. Where a visual space is an
  organized continuum of a uniformed connected
  kind, the ear world is a world of simultaneous
  relationships. (MITM 111)

3
Four Founding Cultures of the Internet (Castells)

• Academic, ethos of peer recognition
• Hacker, ethos of cooperative sharing,
  contribution, recognition/meritocracy
• Communities, ethos of mutual assistance,
  continuity and viability
• Entrepreneur, ethos of profit

4
Life on the Screen / Who Am We? (Turkle) On
Multiple Identities

• The experience of playing selves in various
  cyber-contexts is a concretization of a way of
  thinking about the self, not as unitary but as
  multiple. In this view, we move among various
  self states, various aspects of self

5
McLuhan Says

• Work, however, does not exist in a nonliterate
  world. Where the whole man is involved there is
  no work. In the computer age we are once more
  totally involved in our roles. In the electric
  age, the job of work yields to dedication and
  commitment, as in the tribe. (UM 138)

6
Life on the Screen / Who Am We?On Multiple
Identities The digiSelf

• but if we have lost reality

7
Life on the Screen / Who Am We?Changing Our
Mental Model of Computers

• WSOTATOTSU
• Programming was a technical skill that could be
  done a right way or a wrong way. This linear,
  logical model guided thinking not only about
  technology and programming, but about economics,
  psychology, and social life.

• WSOTATOTSU
• Todays children are growing up in a computer
  culture whose dominant metaphors borrow from
  evolution, genetics, and neural networks. This
  makes the line between how computers work and how
  our minds might work seem far less rigid.

8
Life on the Screen / Who Am We?Computers as the
Totem of Postmodernism

• Characterization of postmodernism, the precedence
  of surface over depth, of simulation over the
  real, of play over seriousness
• Turbine, smokestack, pipes and conveyor belts
  powerful objects-to-think-with
• People use objects to work through powerful
  cultural images.

9
Life on the Screen / Who Am We?New Computer
Literacy

• This would take the cultural pervasiveness of
  simulation as a challenge to develop a new social
  criticism. It would take as its goal the
  development of simulations that help their users
  understand and challenge their model's built-in
  assumptions.

10
Anatomy of the Electric Crowd(E. McLuhan)

• Electric crowds are para-natural, transcending
  time, space and tangible objectives and goals.
  Existence or being is not an objective of the
  electric crowd rather it is its natural state.
  Consequently, the quality of the electric crowd
  is simply its quality or modality of being.

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Anatomy of the Electric CrowdAttributes

• Size is replaced by quality of relationships
  connections
• Extension of self is created, as opposed to the
  shedding of individuality (i.e. the ground
  shifts)
• Infinite mass and zero volume ?Infinite density
• No goal, direction, purpose or externalized
  objective
• Being-ness necessitates participation
  participation necessitates relationships,
  connections interaction

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Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace(Lessig)

• What does it mean to live in a world where
  problems can be programmed away? And when should
  we program problems away?
• Who defines acceptable norms and what is
  acceptable to regulate, given that these are
  conventionally tied to a jurisdiction or culture?
  Remember that in cyberspace, who, where and when
  become ambiguous.

13
Code and Other Laws of CyberspaceExample AOL

• Anonymity suggests freedom of action without
  consequence
• Total monitoring and limited ability to
  demonstrate en masse limits range of actions
• Regulation via architecture/code, as opposed to
  social norms or judicial processes
• Cost to leave is negligible

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Code and Other Laws of CyberspaceExample
Counsel Connect

• Online legal discussion forum in which
  participants use real names
• Reputation accrues in both realSpace and
  digiSpace regulation via social norms as opposed
  to architecture / code
• Cost to leave is relatively low, but affects
  realSpace existence

15
Code and Other Laws of CyberspaceExample
LamdaMOO

• Originally regulated through judiciary, and
  code later via social norms (with no realSpace
  consequences)
• When social norms (actions of the majority)
  proved inadequate, democracy (vote of the
  majority) was imposed
• Cost to leave is high characters take
  considerable time to build, but only exist in
  LambdaMOO

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Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace(Lessig)

• Code is always a regulator in cyberspace
• Non-code regulators have more or less relevance,
  depending on the culture (in staying), the cost
  (to leave) and the consequences (in either case).
• AOL ? Code is most relevant
• Counsel Connect ? Social norms
• LamdaMOO ? Democracy

17

• A Rape in Cyberspace
• by Julian Dibbell
• http//www.juliandibbell.com/texts/bungle_vv.html