CIBERCULTURE

While still an emerging field of scholarship, the study of cyberculture flourished throughout the last half of the 1990s, as witnessed in the countless monographs and anthologies published by both academic and popular presses, and the growing number of papers and panels presented at scholarly conferences from across the disciplines and around the world. Significantly, the field of study has developed, formed, reformed, and transformed, adding new topics and theories when needed, testing new methods when applicable.

Popular Cyberculture

Our disciplinary lineage begins with what I call popular cyberculture, a collection of essays, columns, and books written by particularly wired journalists and early adapters. Starting in the early 1990s, these cultural critics began filing stories on the Internet, cyberspace, and the "information superhighway" for major American newspapers and magazines. Significantly, what began as an occasional column in a newspaper's technology section soon became feature articles appearing on the front page, in the business section, and in lifestyle supplements, as well as within the new media/cyberspace beat of many mainstream magazines. Between 1993 and 1994, for example, Time magazine published two cover stories on the Internet while Newsweek released the cover story "Men, Women, and Computers." Moreover, in 1994, the second editions of the popular how-to books The Internet for Dummies and The Whole Internet became bestsellers.

Critical Cyberculture Studies

By the late 1990s, the study of cyberculture had arrived. Indeed, in the second half of the 1990s, many academic and popular presses have published dozens of monographs, edited volumes, and anthologies devoted to the growing field of cyberculture. Reflecting this growth, recent scholars take a broader view of what constitutes cyberculture. No longer limiting the field to merely virtual communities and online identities, a third generation of scholarship, or what I call critical cyberculture studies, has emerged. As with all emerging fields of study, the landscape and contours of critical cyberculture studies are, at best, chaotic and difficult to map. That said, I wish to argue that critical cyberculture studies contains four major areas of focus, each, as we will see, interdependent on one another.

An electronic forum for the discussion of the implications of subjectivity and community in Cyberspace.

We are all dwelling in cyberspace, coursing through the wires, becoming cyborg and becoming human, alone at the keyboard, together online. We are subjects of a realm which offers new ways of envisioning Self and Other(s), and where a global cyberculture is in the process of creation. Cyberculture is devoted to an examination of the new subjectivities and collectivities that are emerging. We are interested in the cultural, political, philosophical and psychological issues engendered, on all levels of the social.