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As
new communication technologies become a stronger thread in our cultural
fabric, ongoing research initiatives under the LabÍs aegis will explore
the impact of the integration of new media into all aspects of our cultural
lives social interaction, the global economy, art and entertainment, legal
and ethical issues, politics, education, health care, organizational/business
affairs, and religion. The digital culture emphasis of the lab intersects
with numerous other areas, in particular global communications, presence
and new media uses and behaviors. As individuals expand their spheres of
communicative interaction, they create new pathways of cultural experience
through immersion with new media (presence); new ways to engage with communication
technology (uses and behaviors); and cross-cultural communication.
Community as Commodity: Empowerment and Consumerism on the Web
Fernback
This research focuses on the myths of empowerment through interactivity
as well as the increasing use of online communication technologies to serve
commercial ends as opposed to communicative needs. Because much press about
the Internet focuses on its potential egalitarianism, there is a cultural
expectation that the Net can empower and democratize the citizenry through
interactivity. “Community” sections exist on local news-oriented
web sites as one manifestation of this notion. Often these community pages
have become commodities of sorts; one can purchase fellowship and belonging
with payment of the monthly online access charge and perhaps the exchange
of a few pleasantries. Habermas and other theorists have argued that the
public sphere of cultural discourse has become increasingly commodified
in the notion that fundamental social institutions such as community are
just as “purchasable” as any product. The quest for authentic
community is thus able to be replaced by the mere idea of community, an
ersatz community with no true referent (as illustrated in Baudrillard’s
concept of the hyper-real). This work examines the possibility that the
meaning of community has been transformed by this process of commodification
and hyper-realism. It uses local, media-centered web site community sections
(such as online newspapers) as loci for community participation and democratic
empowerment. The process of meaning construction about community through
the self-publication of group web pages is also explored. Discussion examines
how users are empowered generally as consumers rather than as participants
in a community of “producers” of meaning.
Net Waves: New Relationships in a Hyperlinked Age
Stewart / Fernback
This book is about the changing nature of roles and relationships as we
are all now potentially producers of meaning. These issues arise because
of the increasing relativity of information, the growing importance of context,
and the direct access individuals have to the media and their content.
The origin, nature, methods, and limits of human knowledge are changing
with the advent of the Internet.
We are
no longer strictly consumers of information, but producers of meaning.
The ability of anyone with access to online technologies to be an authority,
to be a publisher of fact, or to steal others’ facts, exposes the
frailty of knowledge in the information age. Assessing the validity
of knowledge from all media becomes more difficult as the nature of
authoritative factual knowledge is questioned. The cacophony of mediated
voices claiming to speak the truth is drowning out our ability to hear.
Thus,
that knowledge is increasingly relative, as there are fewer (or no)
gatekeepers when all are producers. This relativity of knowledge is
what Francois Lyotard termed “the death of the metanarrative”
– a cultural condition in which reality and truth are not distinguishable
from the appearance of reality and truth.
This state
of affairs has changed our relationships to one another, to institutions,
to society, to culture, and to the world. ü Also, we do not yet
know how to determine the relative value of one piece of information
from another, i.e., credibility. So, trust is at issue when everyone
is producing and few are listening.
Changes
in our relationship to media and information changes our roles in society
and, hence, our relationships to one another.
So, too,
has our vision of ourselves changed as we understand and negotiate our
new roles in society.
The Wired Community: The Construction and Meaning of Virtual Worlds
Fernback
Central to a vital public discourse on the nature of community in the information
age is the notion that computer-mediated communication might serve as a
means to achieve a new and resonant form of community. This research problematizes
the debate between the virtual communitarians, who argue for the legitimacy
of cybercommunity, and the popular wisdom, which claims that community resides
in “place.” Ideals of community are an enduring cultural theme
in U.S. society. The concern over “loss of community” as we retreat
into enclaves of special interests has yielded attention toward “virtual”
community or cybercommunity as a social corrective. But does the concept
of cybercommunity mean anything culturally? Community” is a cultural
ideal in the United States, and despite its occasionally oppressive qualities,
it has no pejorative connotation. Thus, observers of cybercommunity look
to the language of community to characterize the nature of social relations
in cyberspace without consideration of the complexity of our culturally
udnerstood ideas about community. Through an analysis of online conversations
and interviews with citizens of cyberspace, the actual practices and interpretive
strategies used by online community participants are compared with the real
social relations that emerge from their discourse. This study finds that
the metaphor of community is used by people online to describe their interactions
in cyberspace, but that the metaphor is one of convenient togetherness without
real responsibility. It suggests that virtual community must be studied
in a context that is historically informed about the nature of the social
consequences of new communication technologies.
Real vs. Virtual Dichotomy
Papacharissi
Recent research on the effects of Internet use is divided along the lines
of the now well-know “Internet Paradox,” which identifies the
Internet as medium that connects people virtually while further alienating
them in real time and space. Quantitative and qualitative research on the
Internet is divided, revealing evidence of the Internet as a social revitalizer
on the one hand, and as an alienating agent on the other. This study argues
it is not the results that are conflicting; rather, our own approaches in
interpreting these results are guided by the belief that online and offline
interactions somehow take place on separate social planes. Researchers often
highlight the fact that avid Internet users neglect their offline friends
and family, as if these users are not pursuing social contact with “real”
people online. Similarly, other researchers focus on the social bonds created
online, overlooking those that are sacrificed offline. Rather than view
this as a real vs. virtual question (engaging in never ending comparisons
of face-to-face vs. electronically mediated interaction), this work proposes
we view these results as indicative of the human need to finetune social
contact, manage time, and express identity in a modern world. Even though
there are crucial differences between face-to-face and online contact, it
is important to remember that all such social contact involves interaction
among real people.
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