Internet Dwelling, Cyborgs, and the Matrix of Modernity: an Empirical Inquiry with Critical- Hermeneutic Features Andrew Felder
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Duquesne University Duquesne Scholarship Collection Electronic Theses and Dissertations Fall 2004 Internet Dwelling, Cyborgs, and the Matrix of Modernity: An Empirical Inquiry with Critical- Hermeneutic Features Andrew Felder Follow this and additional works at: https://dsc.duq.edu/etd Recommended Citation Felder, A. (2004). Internet Dwelling, Cyborgs, and the Matrix of Modernity: An Empirical Inquiry with Critical-Hermeneutic Features (Doctoral dissertation, Duquesne University). Retrieved from https://dsc.duq.edu/etd/533 This Immediate Access is brought to you for free and open access by Duquesne Scholarship Collection. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Duquesne Scholarship Collection. For more information, please contact [email protected]. INTERNET DWELLING, CYBORGS, AND THE MATRIX OF MODERNITY: AN EMPIRICAL INQUIRY WITH CRITICAL-HERMENEUTIC FEATURES A Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Psychology Department McAnulty College and Graduate School of Liberal Arts Duquesne University In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy by Andrew J. Felder Director: Paul Richer, Ph.D. October 22, 2004 2 Name : Andrew J. Felder, M.A. Date : October 22, 2004 Dissertation Title : Internet Dwelling, Cyborgs, and the Matrix of Modernity: An Empirical Inquiry with Critical-Hermeneutic Features APPROVED _____________________________________________ Paul Richer, Ph.D., Director APPROVED _____________________________________________ Daniel Burston, Ph.D., Reader APPROVED _____________________________________________ Michael Sipiora, PhD., Reader APPROVED _____________________________________________ Russell Walsh, Ph.D., Chair, Department of Psychology APPROVED ______________________________________________ Dr. Constance D. Ramirez, Ph.D., Dean McAnulty College and Graduate School of Liberal Arts 3 Abstract Amidst modernity’s expanding electronic social matrix, this cultural-historical inquiry explores the technological construction of human being (e.g., cyborgs) and sociality in the America Online cyberscape. A two-tiered critical-hermeneutic method enables exploration of the broad rationalizing historical narrative and the localized play of virtual discursive practices impacting human meaning construction, selfhood, and social practice. A third and fourth tier of inquiry occasions integration of “psychological” meanings found in research participant experiential descriptions and interviews. This four-tier interplay reveals a bodily ethic enabling participants to modify subjectifying Internet practices toward meaningful social ends. Otherwise, eclipsed interpretive bodily powers contribute to “undecidability” about meaning constructions and identities. Despite multiple identity solicitations, normalization of objectified and schizoid being, and “panoptic” e-surveillance, participants pursued genuine and personally satisfying encounters. 4 Table of Contents Title Page p. 1 Signature Page p. 2 Abstract p. 3 Table of Contents p. 4 Introduction: The Subject and Sociality as Configured by Modernity and the Internet p. 10 Literature Review p. 15 Images of the Future Handed Down from the Twentieth Century p. 15 The Cyborg p. 16 “2001” p. 18 “The Matrix” p. 20 The Scope of the Virtual Mis-en-Scène p. 22 Cyberspace Explored p. 24 Digital Subjectivity p. 26 The Physiological Perspective p. 28 Technocultural View p. 35 Psychological Perspective p. 39 Continental Philosophy Perspective p. 45 Critical Theory Perspective p. 48 Critical Internet Research p. 53 Philosophical Grounding of the Research Method p. 58 Methodological Differences?: Heidegger and Foucault on “Depth” p. 59 5 Methodological Differences?: Heidegger and Foucault on Historical Continuity and Discontinuity p. 67 Summary of Research Purpose and Guiding Presuppositions p. 70 Purpose p. 70 Methodological Presuppositions p. 71 Literature Review-Based Presuppositions and Research Questions p. 73 Research Design p. 73 Phenomenon to be Studied p. 74 Research Participants and the Protocol Question p. 74 Research Components p. 76 Procedure p. 77 Results p. 79 Section I: Person-Centered Data p. 81 Protocol #1: Internet Related Themes – Rochelle p. 83 Protocol #2: Internet Related Themes – Bryce p. 89 Protocol #3: Internet Related Themes – Dawn p. 91 Person-centered narrative p. 93 Section II: Local and Cultural-Historical Data p. 95 Local Internet Site Data #1: America Online (AOL) Critical Themes from Code p. 98 Local Internet Site Data #2: AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) Critical Themes p. 99 Technocultural-Historical Themes #1: “The Question Concerning Technology” p. 101 Themes: Forms of being a “self” p. 102 6 Themes: Forms of relation with the world p. 103 Technocultural-Historical Themes #2: Technology as Symptom And Dream p. 105 Themes: Living the body p. 106 Themes: Forms of being a “self” p. 108 Themes: Forms of relation with the world p. 112 Technocultural-Historical Themes #3: The Saturated Self p. 114 Themes: Forms of being a “self” p. 115 Themes: Forms of relation with the world p. 117 Technocultural-Historical Themes #4: Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace p. 118 Themes: Forms of being a “self” on the Internet p. 119 Themes: Forms of relation in different Internet worlds p. 120 Technocultural-Historical Narrative p. 121 Introduction to the Situated Global Narrative p. 125 Section III: Situated Global Narrative p. 127 Discussion p. 133 Discussion Outline p. 133 Descriptive Summary of Results p. 134 A thematically sketched cyborg story p. 137 Results Re-view p. 143 Response to literature on cyborgs and physiology p. 143 Implications for further inquiry into cyborgs and physiology p. 146 Response to the technoculture literature p. 148 7 Implications for further inquiry into virtual technoculture p. 151 Response to literature on psychological issues p. 154 Implications regarding the literature re-view on psychological issues p. 158 Response to the Continental philosophy literature review p. 161 The Continental philosophy literature re-view implications p. 163 Response to critical literature on cyberspace p. 163 Implications of the critical literature re-view on cyberspace p. 166 Conclusion p. 167 Research Study Limitations and Suggestions p. 169 References p. 172 Appendix A: Consent to Participate in Research Study Form p. 179 Appendix B: Research Advertisement p. 181 Appendix C: Questionnaire – Rochelle p. 182 Appendix D: Written Protocol #1 – Rochelle p. 183 Appendix E: Interview Transcript #1 – Rochelle p. 187 Appendix F: Questionnaire – Bryce p. 199 Appendix G: Written Protocol #2 – Bryce p. 200 Appendix H: Interview Transcript #2 – Bryce p. 202 Appendix I: Questionnaire – Dawn p. 206 Appendix J: Written Protocol #3 – Dawn p. 207 Appendix K: Interview Transcript #3 – Dawn p. 209 Appendix L: Local Internet Site Data #1: America Online (AOL) Analysis p. 216 Appendix M: Local Internet Site Data #2: America Online Instant Messaging 8 (AIM) Description p. 218 Appendix N: AIM Chat Room Rules and Guidelines p. 222 Appendix O: Extended AIM Encryption Description p. 224 9 Naming the “things that are absent” is breaking the spell of the things that are; moreover it is an ingression of a different order of things into the established one – “le commencement d’un monde.” Herbert Marcuse One-Dimensional Man 10 Introduction: The Subject and Sociality as Configured by Modernity and the Internet A few bytes beyond the cusp of the twenty-first century, Western culture increasingly finds itself held within the sway of a cyberspace-human nexus. This entwinement has yet to be articulated in a manner that attends to the relationship between discourses of modernity and first person accounts of experience. The following culturally informed inquiry seeks to accomplish just that – it seeks to address the reciprocal transformations always already occurring when one’s being in the world is infused with the possibilities afforded by Internet sociality. In the words of Kenneth Gergen (1991), “As we become increasingly conjoined with our social surroundings, we come to reflect those surroundings” (p.49). The cultural-historical setting for exploring the impact of reliance upon basic forms of Internet sociality appears to be optimal inasmuch as the explosion of the 3D Web revolution heralded by software architects of the 1990s remains largely unrealized (e.g., Kushner, 2004; Hunter & Lastowka, 2003; Ronnblom, 2002). Catching sight of the recent historical context of lived out transformations informed by Internet use can be, in the words of Michel Foucault (1978), a way of providing a “history of the present” – a way of contributing to a chronicle of subjective transformations which stand as the effects of contemporary historical force-relations. When we are able to gaze back upon the historical shifts that coincide with the mobile productions of power and knowledge, Foucault suggests that “things appear in a very different light” (p.17). Thus the production of subjects and the meanings they live are understood differently in the light of the interplay of force-relations. Similarly, Martin 11 Heidegger (1962) understands the historical situation Dasein (the human way of being there) finds itself thrown into as participating in Dasein’s disclosure. Dasein as “ futural . is in the process of having-been, [and] can by handing down to itself the possibility it has inherited, takes over its own throwness . .” (p. 437). Here, Heidegger also recognizes the import of history. In addition, Heidegger understands