New Media and the Internet (original) (raw)
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The Information Society, 1997
Futurist sensationalism, journalistic attention, constructivist theory, and appeal to technical determinism, all make the genre of literature on cyberspace, described as postmodern, visible and possibly influential. This paper takes issue with assertions in this literature that Internet communication alters cultural processes by changing the basis of social identity, and that it provides alternate realities that displace the socially grounded ones of everyday synchronous discourse. A main theme of the postmodern perspective on cyberspace is that Internet technology liberates the individual from the body, and allows the separate existence of multiple aspects of self which otherwise would not be expressed and which can remain discrete rather than having to be resolved or integrated as in ordinary social participation. The concepts under review presume a prior definition of self as a psychological unity, when the term is open to many definitions including the one that the self is a product of varying social contexts and is normally managed to accommodate them. Arguments from phenomenological hermeneutics are available to counter the plausibility of programming multiple selves, as the postmodern literature on cyberspace suggests can be done. The notion of fragmentation contradicts a substantial body of theory in social interaction based in the premise of coconstruction. Evidence of the socially grounded nature of interaction exists everywhere in cyberspace. Empirical examples include: list discourse that illustrates the situated significance of authentic identity in Internet professional groups; secondary research suggesting electronic communication is most successful as one genre in a communication repertoire; cases of home page self-presentation mediated through socially defined links; and evidence that the "virtualness" and alleged anonymity of Internet are illusory and therefore could not over time support a plausibly disembodied, depoliticized, fragmented "self".
The growing popularity of computer mediated communication (CMC), as shown in mushrooming digital technologies available for the public, has brought a unique challenge for researchers: new, emerging online practices are taken for granted so quickly that when they have been sufficiently incorporated into teaching and research, a sense of datedness is almost inevitable. As such, the merit of CMC research often hinges on whether a study can " capture the moment ", revealing the deeper social-cultural dynamics that will exist beyond digital infrastructure. In this regard, " Discourse and identity on Facebook " offers an insightful exploration into online identity construction and performance. It adds another welcoming volume to the widely-circulated Bloomsbury Discourse Series. The central focus of the volume is how Facebook, as a vibrant socio-cultural arena, mediates online identity manifestations. Based on a detailed longitudinal online ethnography of five Greek Facebook users, it convincingly demonstrates the diversity and complexity of online identity formation.
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Crossroads. A Journal of English Studies, 2013
It is an uncontroversial statement to say that we live in an age of the enormous influence of information technology. The Internet in particular has been instrumental in shaping and reshaping modern reality. It harbours millions of communities and social networks, where people interact with each other on a daily basis. What are we to think of them? Do they represent a new Renaissance of social interactions or rather a demise of the traditional community? In the following article I argue that it is something entirely different. The Internet, I propose, should be viewed as a new, different environment for communities to form and thrive. Not only are those communities formed online, they also display a wide range of features, which make them legitimate communities, and not entities impoverished in the social sense. Those communities have a profound effect on the identity of their participants.
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The Internet is the latest in a series of technological breakthroughs in interpersonal communication, following the telegraph, telephone, radio, and television. It combines innovative features of its predecessors, such as bridging great distances and reaching a mass audience.
Yesterday, today and tomorrow – To the discourse of social networks
The paper is a description of computer-mediated discourse (CMD) and offers insight into the history of social media, specifically social networking. Their origins are in communication via mobile phones so. "text messaging", which gradually passed into the chat (through web portals – a webchat and instantmessaging programs – ICQ, Skype) to create a compact unit in the form of social network, now known mainly through Facebook. The second line, which we follow in this description, is a view of language development and investigation of this type of discourse, stabilizing terms associated with CMC (computer-mediated communication) and CMD, while the outline of current and future trends in computer-mediated communication.