Cyberpower: the Culture and Politics of Cyberspace and the Internet

Cyberpower Cyberspace and the Internet are becoming increasingly important in today’s societies and yet there has been little analysis of the forces and powers that construct life there. This book presents for the first time a wide ranging introduction to the politics of the Internet, covering all the key concepts of cyberspace. Subjects analysed include the collective imagination in cyberspace, the virtual individual and power and society as created by the Internet. The author uses examples ranging from cross-gendered virtual selves to the meaning of Bill Gates. In his questioning of who actually governs cyberspace and what powers the individual can control there, Tim Jordan presents a vast range of material, using case studies and original research in interviews as well as statistical and theoretical analysis. Organised around key concepts and providing an extensive bibliography of cyberspace-speak, Cyberpower will appeal to students as the first complete analysis of the politics and culture of the Internet. It will also be essential reading for anyone wondering how cyberspace is remaking global society and where the superhighway might be leading us. Tim Jordan is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Sociology, University of East London. Cyberpower The culture and politics of cyberspace and the Internet Tim Jordan London and New York First published 1999 by Routledge 11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2003. © 1999 Tim Jordan 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 known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book has been requested ISBN 0-203-44863-4 Master e-book ISBN ISBN 0-203-75687-8 (Adobe eReader Format) ISBN 0-415-17077-X (hbk) ISBN 0-415-17078-8 (pbk) Contents List of illustrations viii Acknowledgements ix 1 Power and cyberspace 1 Key concepts 1 Introduction 1 Cyberpower 2 Power 7 Max Weber: power as a possession 9 Barry Barnes: power as social order 11 Michel Foucault: power as domination 15 2 Cyberspace and the matrix 20 Key concepts 20 Introduction 21 Cyberspace: the science fiction vision 23 Cyberspace: the matrix of computers 33 History of a technology 33 Size, users and uses 49 Conclusion 55 Barlovian cyberspace 55 3 The virtual individual 59 Key concepts 59 Introduction 60 Axes of individual cyberpower: identity, hierarchy, information 65 Identity fluidity 65 Anti-hierarchical 79 v vi Contents A world made of information 85 Cyberpower at the individual 87 Cyberpower as a possession 88 Cyberpolitics: access and rights 89 Conclusion 96 4 The virtual social I: the social in cyberspace 100 Key concepts 100 Introduction 101 The social and the individual 107 Technopower 110 The spiral of technopower 115 Information overload 117 The complete spiral 128 The technopower elite 135 5 The virtual social II: the social between online and offline 142 Key concepts 142 Introduction 142 Cyberspace and production, consumption and politics in information societies 145 Production 147 Consumption 153 Politics 162 The informational space of flows 167 Online and offline 171 6 The virtual imaginary 179 Key concepts 179 Introduction 179 The collective imagination 181 Visions of heaven… 185 Cyborgs 187 Information codes 190 …and hell 196 Superpanopticon: cyborgs, minutiae and fear of cyberspace 201 Fear itself 204 Cyberspace’s imaginary 205 Contents vii 7 Cyberpower 208 Key concepts 208 Introduction 208 Relations between three types of cyberpower 210 The first war of cyberspace: elites and grassroots 214 Notes 219 Glossary 229 Bibliography 233 Index 248 Illustrations Figures 2.1 Internet host count 49 2.2 Internet user counts 50 2.3 Gender online over time 53 2.4 GVU activity on the Web 54 3.1 Moore’s law for Intel microchips 92 Table 2.1 Distribution of Internet hosts by region 51 viii Acknowledgements Sincere and very grateful non-cyberspatial thanks to all the following. Four generations of students in my third year unit ‘Cyberpunks’ helped form these ideas. Interviews with Mike Godwin, John Gilmore, Stanton McCandlish, John Perry Barlow, Lori Fena and Jonah Seiger provided a rapid education. Siraj Izhar and the Stalk provided helpful comments, as did Jordan Crandall and Eyebeam’s online discussion ‘Artistic Practice in the Network’. Paul Taylor taught me about hackers. Anonymous referees provided useful comments. Tony Higgins provided talk about all things computer and Alan Gavin about all other things. Stepping Stones provided a real-world counterpoint as this was written. Colleagues at UeL offered an always-exciting intellectual context. Funding from the Sociology Department at the University of East London meant teaching never overwhelmed research and allowed a sabbatical in which this book was completed. Barbara Harrison solved a sudden bout of technological determinism when, right at the end, all my computer resources failed. Rod Home and the Ashworth Centre for Social Theory provided an institutional home for six months at the University of Melbourne. Geraldine Williams and Joanne Mattingly at Routledge were always extremely helpful. Most of all, the Reds won again. And, of course, thanks to those I’ve forgotten. Thanks to Mari Shullaw at Routledge who took a chance with these ideas, shepherded a decent book proposal and provided excellent comments and support. Thanks to Mum, Jason, Gayle, Emerald, Denis, Mandy, Stewart, Georgy, Mark, Kim, Olivia and Mary for houses and fun in Melbourne. Thanks to Mum for all her support. But most of all, thanks to Kate and Matilda, especially for starting a second great adventure. May 1998 ix Chapter 1 Power and cyberspace Key concepts Virtuality Cyberspace can be called the virtual lands, with virtual lives and virtual societies, because these lives and societies do not exist with the same physical reality that ‘real’ societies do. With the emergence of cyberspace, the virtual becomes counterposed to the real. The physical exists in cyberspace but is reinvented. Virtuality is the general term for this reinvention of familiar physical space in cyberspace. Power Power is the name applied to that which structures culture, politics and economics. Power has many forms and there are many theories of power, but each draws its relevance from the sense that power names the things that determine how a life may be lived. Introduction Cyberspace now touches all lives. For some it has become as essential as the telephone or the letter. For others it is still a fearful whisper of technological promise. Sometimes we look on bemused, uncertain why all those little addresses that begin ‘http://’ appear in advertisements, and sometimes we are shocked by the possibilities, when a friend sends letters instantly across the globe through the telephone. When cables and phone lines are allied to computers, this parallel world of cyberspace is created. It is often called a virtual world because it does not exist in tangible, physical reality but in the light and electronics of communications technology. In the virtual world people live virtual lives, alongside their real lives, that may be as substantial as marriage and as insubstantial as checking a television guide. Even those uninterested in the virtual world are affected, often without their knowing. An automated bank teller gives us money because its communications in cyberspace authorise it to; after we have given our password and told an ATM what we want, it then uses a phone line to call a computer that decides whether our request is legitimate. Virtuality, whether chosen by us or not, has 1 2 Power and cyberspace grown parallel to reality and encompasses us all. Cyberspace and its virtual lives need their cultural, political and economic shapes analysed for their social consequences and meaning. Cyberpower provides this analysis by investigating the nature of power in cyberspace. To do this the nature of cyberspace must first be defined. Chapter 2 does this by exploring the interrelations between science fiction visions of virtuality’s possibilities and the reality of networked computers. On the basis of this broad understanding of where cyberspace came from and how it works, three regions of power in cyberspace will be analysed by defining in turn the types of power typical of individual lives in cyberspace (Chapter 3), of virtual communities or societies (Chapters 4 and 5) and of virtual imaginations that unify dispersed individuals as members of the virtual world (Chapter 6). With these three types of power defined their interrelations will be explored to create an overall characterisation of power in cyberspace (Chapter 7). Cyberpower will emerge as a complex form of power in which a digital grassroots find and use tools to gain greater choice of action in their lives but whose use of tools also fuels the increasing domination of a virtual elite over the nature of cyberspace and its capabilities. The power and paradox of cyberspace is its ability to liberate and dominate simultaneously. Cyberpower Virtual lives are different to the lives we all know. For a start, nobody takes their physical body there. Each of us might sit at a computer screen, conversing online with others, and our actions occur ‘out there’ in virtuality while our bodies remain seated at the terminal. We can travel the world meeting people, yet remain forever seated in our home. Certainly, we often have to wait in cyberspace and this gives a sense of distance, of the time needed to traverse a particular part of cyberspace, but this sense of distance has nothing to do with physical distance.

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