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Cultures of the Internet

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Title: 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.

11
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

12
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

14
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

16
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
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