CROSSROADS IN CULTURAL STUDIES
Fourth International Conference
June 29 - July 2, 2002, Tampere, Finland

New Theoretical Approaches to the Self in Cyberculture

Organiser: Maren Hartmann

O'Riordan, Kate (University of Sussex, United Kingdom) MEDIATED IDENTITIES - A PARTIAL VIEW
Outlining some of the themes that have dominated discourses of cybercultural studies, I examine some of the implications of the changing understandings of the self as cyber-subject. I map out and question implications for Internet research ethics that these themes have in relation to media studies. The relationship between body/artefact has structured discourses of cyberculture from inception. Mapping some of the main tropes, from virtuality as transcendence to the pragmatics of wearable computing, I point to how an understanding of cyberculture, dominated by its polemics, has contributed towards the production of a research ethics that constitutes the body as data. The paper draws on two case studies, a text-based community site and web cameras sites. The paper concludes that feminist media studies and internet studies need to be re-coupled whilst re-thinking the implications of form and content as categories through which meaning is produced.

Hartmann, Maren (Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium) ONLINE LANGUAGE & THE (IM)POSSIBILITY OF THE NEW
Feminism (amongst others) has for some time focused on language as the locus of power. This focus is what in this paper is applied to online phenomena. I ask about the (im)possibility of the new, especially in relation to gender issues. More concretely, these problems are dealt with in an analysis of a particular sub-section of online language: user typologies as expressed in metaphors. The typologies under close scrutiny are 'webgrrl' and 'cyberflâneuse'. This selection is part of a wider analysis of user typologies, but the concentration here lies on the gender aspects. The problematic addressed in the paper are the limitations that (metaphoric) language online necessarily produces and how these limitations relate to questions of the material and the discursive. With the help of the examples, I will map the identities implied in the typologies and relate these to questions of power, language, gender and online phenomena overall.

Taylor, Paul (University of Salford, United Kingdom) HACKTIVISM - THE END OF MALESPACE?
Research into the computer underground has shown relatively little evidence of large-scale female involvement and/or influence. This paper explores some of the possible reasons for this gap using a number of theories ranging from the provocative to the prosaic. Drawing upon both fictional and non-fictional sources, particular attention is paid to the ways in which programming environments and their wider commercial settings are constructed empirically, conceptually, and rhetorically, as male-gendered spaces. Theevolution of hacking into the phenomenon of hacktivism is first described and then used to examine whether new possibilities are opening up within computing for environments less dominated by aggressive male attitudes.

Bassett, Caroline (University of Sussex, United Kingdom) SELF, SAME, CYBORG
I find an identity because I am narratable. I recognize myself when a narration resonates with the life I lead and the choices I make. My identity is continuous - I am a narrative thread. This story is also in flux; my story develops, its shape changes. What happens when the story spun by the narrator produces me as a cyborg, as somebody who contains machines? New ways of thinking about identity and/in interactive media are derived if the self is considered in narrative terms. These stand in opposition to theorisations of the subject and/in cyberspace based on performativity. Performative conceptions of the subject are helpful in theorizing the discrete moment within the machine (or the window). They are less useful in providing an understanding of subjectivation within interactive systems, where use is characterized by on-going movements between windows and worlds, and the self stands 'before' and 'after' the machine.