An Introduction to Cybercultures David Bell

NAMING NAMES 11111 2 3 4 5 6 An Introduction to Cybercultures 7 8 9 10111 1 2 3 4 15111 An Introduction to Cybercultures provides an accessible guide to the major forms, 6 practices and meanings of this rapidly-growing field. From the evolution of hard- 7 ware and software to the emergence of cyberpunk film and fiction, David Bell 8 introduces readers to the key aspects of cyberculture, including email, the Internet, 9 digital imaging technologies, computer games and digital special effects. 20111 1 Each chapter contains ‘hot links’ to key articles in The Cybercultures Reader, 2 suggestions for further reading, and details of relevant websites. 3 Individual chapters examine: 4 5 ● Cybercultures: an introduction 6 ● Storying cyberspace 7 ● Cultural studies in cyberspace 8 ● Community and cyberculture 9 ● Identities in cyberculture 30111 ● Bodies in cyberculture 1 ● Cybersubcultures 2 ● Researching cybercultures 3 4 David Bell is Reader in Cultural Studies at Staffordshire University. He is the 5 co-editor of The Cybercultures Reader (Routledge 2000). 6 7 8 9 40111 1 2 311 i CONTENTS 11111 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10111 1 2 3 4 15111 6 7 8 9 20111 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 30111 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 40111 1 2 311 ii CONTENTS 11111 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10111 An Introduction to 1 2 Cybercultures 3 4 15111 6 7 8 9 David Bell 20111 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 30111 1 2 3 4 5 6 TL E D 7 U G O 8 E R • 9 • T a p 40111 y u lo ro r & G 1 Francis 2 London and New York 311 iii CONTENTS 11111 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10111 1 2 First published 2001 3 by Routledge 4 11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE 15111 Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada 6 by Routledge 7 29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001 8 This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005. “To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s 9 collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.” 20111 1 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group 2 © 2001 David Bell 3 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now 4 known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in 5 any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing 6 from the publishers. 7 British Library Cataloging in Publication Data 8 A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library 9 Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data 30111 A catalog record for this book has been applied for 1 2 ISBN 0-203-19232-X Master e-book ISBN 3 4 ISBN 0-203-19235-4 (Adobe eReader Format) 5 ISBN 0–415–24658–X (hbk) 6 ISBN 0–415–24659–8 (pbk) 7 8 9 40111 1 2 311 iv CONTENTS 11111 2 3 4 5 6 Contents 7 8 9 10111 1 2 3 4 15111 6 7 8 Acknowledgements vii 9 20111 1. Cybercultures: an introduction 1 1 2. Storying cyberspace 1: 2 material and symbolic stories 6 3 4 3. Storying cyberspace 2: experiential stories 30 5 6 4. Cultural studies in cyberspace 65 7 5. Community and cyberculture 92 8 9 6. Identities in cyberculture 113 30111 7. Bodies in cyberculture 137 1 2 8. Cybersubcultures 163 3 4 9. Researching cybercultures 186 5 10. Last words 205 6 7 Further reading 208 8 Glossary 212 9 Bibliography 221 40111 Index 239 1 2 311 v CONTENTS 11111 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10111 1 2 3 4 15111 6 7 8 9 20111 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 30111 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 40111 1 2 311 vi CONTENTS 11111 2 3 4 5 6 Acknowledgements 7 8 9 10111 1 2 3 4 15111 6 7 8 This is the first book I’ve written on my own; without the benefit of a co- 9 author or co-editor to bounce ideas around with, I have inevitably had to 20111 rely on the generosity of those people around me, and I’d like to thank them 1 for showing interest in what I’ve been doing, as well as for all the practical 2 help they’ve given. I couldn’t wish to work in a better intellectual environ- 3 ment. Thank you, then, to colleagues and students in Cultural Studies at 4 Staffordshire University, and especially those who’ve shared the experience 5 of learning about cybercultures on the undergraduate module Technocultures 6 and the postgraduate module Cyberdiscourse. Those with whom I have shared 7 the teaching of these modules deserve special mention: Mark Featherstone, 8 Mark Jayne, Barbara Kennedy and John O’Neill. Extra-special thanks, as 9 always, to Jon Binnie and Ruth Holliday. Rebecca Barden, my ‘virtual editor’ 30111 at Routledge (virtual in the sense that we still haven’t managed to meet f2f ) 1 has been everything an editor should be: generous, enthusiastic, patient and 2 good-humoured. And good luck with parenthood, Rebecca! Thanks also to 3 Alistair Daniel and Sue Edwards for seeing the book through the production 4 process. 5 Finally, I’d like to dedicate this book to three people, all of whom ‘got 6 me started’ in one way or another: to Derek Longhurst, who got me started 7 with Cultural Studies; to Tristan Palmer, who got me started writing books; 8 and in memory of my father, Colin Bell, who got me started with science 9 and technology. 40111 Note: In this book, I will be making substantial use of essays published 1 in The Cybercultures Reader (edited by Bell and Kennedy 2000). In order to 2 signal the primitive hyperlink between this book and the Reader, when I cite 311 vii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 11111 or quote from an essay in the Reader, it’s indicated in the text, abbreviated 2 to CR. So, when I cite Andrew Ross’ ‘Hacking away at the counterculture’, 3 I’ve written (Ross CR), rather than ‘Ross (2000)’. Links to the Reader appear 4 at the end of each chapter, not in the bibliography. 5 6 7 8 9 10111 1 2 3 4 15111 6 7 8 9 20111 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 30111 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 40111 1 2 311 viii NAMING NAMES Chapter 1 11111 2 3 4 5 6 7 CYBERCULTURES 8 9 An introduction 10111 1 2 3 4 15111 6 7 My personal walkabout in cyberspace has given me glimpses of a truly 8 different world, and I wish to share them. 9 David Hakken 20111 1 ITTING HERE, AT MY COMPUTER, pondering how to start 2 S this book, how to introduce my own ‘walkabout’ in cyberspace, I 3 find myself struggling. Maybe it’s because I’ve just been reading and writing 4 about hyperlinks and the web as text – as text, moreover, that is open and 5 infinite, that has no beginning or end. But a book is still a linear thing, decid- 6 edly non-hypertexty – despite various authors’ unsuccessful attempts to 7 simulate on paper the experience of the screen (see, for example, Taylor 8 and Saarinen 1994; Case 1996; Bolter and Grusin 1999). So I have to abide 9 by the logic of the book, even if it seems increasingly contradictory in the 30111 digital age to do so. The move from books to bytes, to borrow Anthony 1 Smith’s (1993) phrase, is still far from complete – and so here I am, sitting 2 here, the cursor blinking at me, thinking of a way to introduce you to my 3 book. 4 If I was to try to define in a sentence what this book is about – some- 5 thing I often ask students to do with projects and dissertations – I would 6 have to say that it is about thinking through some of the ways of under- 7 standing what the term ‘cybercultures’ means. It’s a series of ideas, issues 8 and questions about what happens when we conjoin the words ‘cyber’ and 9 ‘culture’. Think of it this way, which I borrow from Christine Hine (2000): 40111 cyberspace as culture and as cultural artefact. Let’s work that formulation 1 through. First, what is cyberspace? It’s a slippery term, to be sure; hard to 2 define, multiplicitous. I think of it as combining three things, as the next 311 1 AN INTRODUCTION TO CYBERCULTURES 11111 two chapters of this book show: it has material, symbolic and experiential 2 dimensions. It is machines, wires, electricity, programs, screens, connections, 3 and it is modes of information and communication: email, websites, chat 4 rooms, MUDs. But it is also images and ideas: cyberspace exists on film, in 5 fiction, in our imaginations as much as on our desktops or in the space 6 between our screens. Moreover, and this is the important bit, we experience 7 cyberspace in all its spectacular and mundane manifestations by mediating the 8 material and the symbolic. As I attempt to track in Chapters 2 and 3, thinking 9 about what cyberspace ‘is’ and what it ‘means’ involves its own hypertex- 10111 tuality, as we mingle and merge the hardware, software and wetware with 1 memories and forecasts, hopes and fears, excitement and disappointment.

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