Is it appropriate to conceptualise our daily online experiences as part of a ‘cyberculture’ or ‘cyberspace’?
Cyberspace can be defined as the connecting hardware, virtual space as territory or we can keep it simple and encompass our online experiences as part of the cyberculture. The hardware’s purpose is to connect the people who use it and it is nothing without them. We can’t really think of cyberspace as a concrete geographical or physical location. It is more of a metaphor for what we do online that shape our daily routines. For instance: online study, online banking, chatting, shopping and online games.
What are the differences between the ‘gibsonian’ and ‘barlovian’ notions of cyberspace?
Gibsonian cyberspace, named after cyberspace guru William Gibson, is a symbolic representation of cyberspace found in fiction and film.
Barlovian cyberspace, named after cyberspace guru Perry Barlow represents the intersection between reality and fantasy where most of our experiences as users occur.
Can we find ‘cyberpunk’ elements within the Internet, either via its technology, the way it is used or how it is portrayed?
As more of our lives are spent online due to advances in technology, more immaterial commodities and professions are created. Cyberpunk culture looks at how these technologies will be implemented and used in the future and holds a gloom view of what before us.
In 1983, Time magazine featured an article about the ‘machine of the year’—the personal computer as a great innovation. Technology can be portrayed in a positive and negative ways—the technophile and technophobe respectively. You can have romantic or cyberthriller movies that show the good sides of technology or cyberpunk style movies that deal with social anxiety of the technological future.
How does the way Internet and related technologies are ’sold’ affect our understanding of them?
Dery gives examples of Discovery Channel’s Beyond 2000 series and AT&T’s ads that portray advances in technology in a positive light. They present technological utopias with vision of a better life because of the technology. They avoid relevant issues that technology raises such as privacy invasion, possible data errors to name a few, not to mention existing problems of economic inequity and environmental depredation. It is a corporation vision and not for the individual’s benefit. For example reality shows us that instead of keeping our work easier and us out of the office, technology just keeps us reachable wherever we are, thus never really away from work or truly free for our recreational and personal activities.
Has the Internet / cyberspace / VR changed the images and stories in our popular cultures?
You can tell many things from words in a certain language and of a certain time and ours is sprinkled with cyber slang and with notions to our virtual personalities. A few examples out of many: instant messaging, email, SMS, LOL, IMHO, to google something or someone…
Bell gives an example of a song using cyberspace metaphors. I remember when to make a call you needed to dial. Phones don’t have dials anymore but the word dialling is still with us. New words are created everyday to accommodate the current need for descriptors of our online lives and activities.
What impact will web 2.0 have on our understandings of ‘cyberspace’ and ‘cyberculture’?
Web 2.0 is all about interaction - interaction between people through interaction between people and the machines. Web 2.0 is even more suitable for our cyberspace definition. You don’t just browse the net to find the information. Web 2.0 allows you to interact more freely with web applications and make things happen. It’s a change between being a passive user to an active participant. One of the new trends of web 2.0 are the community web sites where every user has an online identity and can interact with other online personas. I think Web 2.0 is taking us closer to our Cyberspace. On the other hand, Thomas mentions how the border between online and offline is not as defined as before because it’s easier to be online all the time.
References
Bell D., (2001), Storying Cyberspace 1: Material and Symbolic Stories in An Introduction to Cybercultures, London, Ruthledge
Dery M., (1996), Escape Velocity: Cyberculture at the End of the Century, Hodder & Stoughton
Thomas S., (2006), The End of Cyberspace and Other Surprises, The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies