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.
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