Virtual Culture: Identity and Communication in Cybersociety

Virtual Culture provides a unique analysis of a previously undocumented aspect of the cybersociety. Until now, the debate about participation in cyberculture has tended to focus on the ways that certain segments of the population are denied access to communications technologies. By contrast, the contributors to this volume scrutinize the way in which under-represented groupsùgay men, women, and special interest groupsùare exploiting the opportunities that the Internet provides for social and political change. Virtual Culture presents contributions from a range of subject disciplines, including communication, sociology, and anthropology in order to reflect on the diverse paradigms currently engaged in the study of electronic communities and networks. It sets out the definitions, boundaries, and approaches to the studies of these topics while demonstrating the theoretical and practical possibilities for cybersociety as an identity-structured space. Virtual Culture will be required reading for all students of communication, media and technology.

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.