In only a decade, it has become “impossible to think about life without the web”
jueves, 3 de marzo de 2011
Lev Manovich
The study of various social phenomena associated with the internet and other new forms of network communication.Examples on what falls under cyber-culture studies are online communications,online multi-player,gaming,the issue of online identity,the sociology and the ethnography of email usage ,cell phone usage in various commuunities and so on.
With the creation of the internet, the lifestyles of people around the globe have experienced a quick and drastic change. This new method of communication accounts for a large portion of how people interact, shop, learn, and transmit information. What used to take several months to cross from the Western Hemisphere to the Eastern Hemisphere now only takes a few seconds, courtesy of the power of electricity. While some may argue that the internet has only helped improve the cultures already existing, a valid argument may be made for the new internet subculture that has evolved. Americans in particular are notorious for spending more and more of their time in this new “cyberculture”.
The social interaction through social media on the web encourages identity growth, better 'real life' socialisation and better communication with friends and family. Many times, social media contribute to the evolution of identity construction and therefore life beyond the 'web bubble' and the impact on 'real world' culture.
Anonymity
Social media provides a platform where a user can be whoever they want to be or no one at all or so to speak. A user, under a disguise of an avatar, can portray themselves as they like and therefore be more open to healthy debate in social spaces on-line. This means that users can practice participating actively in a social way on-line which may encourage them to be more outgoing beyond the virtual reality.
Thanks to anonymity this also means that race and class issues are eradicated for the most part and their is a certain level of equality in the on-line social space.
This aspect of identity creation is a real choice for web users of social media and social networks and without the web many users would not have an alternative space to be who they want to be in a social environment without social pressures like stereotype expectations.
Language
As suggested by Marshall and Burnett, due to the nature of social media and social networks, there is a certain amount of universality created by the on-line spaces. A "web lingo" has evolved and users allow for cultural-language constraints to fall away as they adopt the new, evolved, web language which is gradually inserted into every day conversation.
For example someone might say "LOL" (Laugh Out Loud) instead of people actually laughing at their friend's joke at a party or "FML" (Fuck My Life) instead of "I've had such a bad day".
Again cultural disparities fall away due to the 'global village' effect created by social media and social networks eliminating cultural divides resulting in a new sort of identity thanks to a new sort of language.
Narcissism The web is an unlimited platform for identity exhibition and social networks like Facebook stimulate narcissism by allowing users to indulge in their own interests. This is taken further by people who extend onto blogs, vlogs and other arenas of virtual identity display where anyone can talk about anything they like, don't like or what they chose to ignore.
Marshall and Burnett note that this identity growth and need to want to showcase one's identity and aspects thereof not only allows for growth in identity but that the popularity of 'lurkers' or average web users consuming news on just normal people indicates a certain level of "web voyeurism" whereby users indulge in other people's lives for pleasure.
Gender
Despite technology having been eternally gendered as 'masucline' the web and its social spaces are now evolving so much thanks to the 'equalising' of users -thanks to aspects of identity impacted by the web as discussed above- that now a user can be grey instead of "are you 'pink' or 'blue'?"
This means that gender discrimination in the forms of: - oppression of women by men - pressure for men to be more masculine - trans-gender individuals being ostracised
for example are eradicated because no user has to give up their gendered identity.
Because users are then conditioned to see everyone as gender neutral this may ripple effect into 'real' social spaces eventually. In the meantime though anyone can encompass any gender or lack thereof as they like.
Collective identities “the web is an elaborate hub for the formation of new collective identities”and cultural groupings as defined by all the 'real' factors discussed above are eradicated as new ones form.
People can gather according to identity traits, personality similarities and industry paths instead of what they look like, sound like or separated by geographic positioning.
. The Internet is creating new kinds of meeting places and work areas and the possibilities of new types of relationships acroos time and space. Certainly,the internet is shaping language practices in the Deaf community, with an interest in how new tools mediate and influence human behavior, including language and the organization of interaction. This includes the development and manipulation of a computer-mediated image of self and other, creativity and problem solving in new communicative spaces, creating reciprocal perspectives, new participation frameworks, and specifics of language change. For the first time, deaf people can communicate using manual visual language, in many cases their native language, across space and time zones. This groundbreaking situation makes the Deaf community a particularly productive site for research into relationships between technological innovations and new communicative practices.
" members of the deaf community are increasingly using the internet to find and connect with one another "
Cyber - culture is the set of social expectations, etiquette, history and language used by the collection of people active on the World Wide Web.Just as the non-cyber world is separated into cliques and countries, the cyber world is separated into taxonomies and web spheres.The countries of the world are partially represented in cyberspace by the country domains, but more than ever people are less connected by language and locale and more by common interest.The importance of this cyber-culture to educational technology is that it is the ground upon which we should build our e-learning frameworks as it is rapidly becoming common ground for every connected person in the world.
Over the years cyber culture has been changing rapidly.This is partially because the browsers and website are capable of so much more rich media than in the past, and partially because the internet is becoming ubiquitous in mainstream offline society.Everyone in the real world has to have a connection to the cyber-world we have constructed.Businesses can mark their success by the strength of their online brand.Some trends in use of the internet show that internet users have been decreasing in age.For those younger in age, there are social networking sites such as Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter, all of which serve to maintain connections with numerous friends. Users on these sites may post what they are doing – which all their friends are able to view – and comment on what other people are doing. It may be the world’s largest gossip chain, and not a word has to be spoken for it to happen. Friends and siblings may not speak for over a year, yet they will still be able to tell what the other party had for breakfast that morning. Rumors can be started on networking sites, and they can sometimes ruin “real-life” friendships, if they are vicious enough. It seem silly to think that something typed on a computer screen can have such a far influence, but such is the power of the internet.
The world changed when the internet was invented.The internet has evolved to serve many purposes.It has evolved over time to become more and more useful to the point where it is very difficult to find a person whose life is not affected by the internet .
