Virtual Culture Identity and Communication in Cybersociety [Paperback]

Virtual Culture marks a significant intervention in the current debate about access and control in cybersociety exposing the ways in which the Internet and other computer-mediated communication technologies are being used by disadvantaged and marginal groups - such as gay men, women, fan communities and the homeless - for social and political change.

The contributors to this book apply a range of theoretical perspecitves derived from communication studies, sociology and anthropology to demonstrate the theoretical and practical possibilities for cybersociety as an identity-structured space.Virtual Culture marks a significant intervention in the current debate about access and control in cybersociety exposing the ways in which the Internet and other computer-mediated communication technologies are being used by disadvantaged and marginal groups - such as gay men, women, fan communities and the homeless - for social and political change.

The contributors to this book apply a range of theoretical perspecitves derived from communication studies, sociology and anthropology to demonstrate the theoretical and practical possibilities for cybersociety as an identity-structured space.Introduction - Steven G Jones
The Internet and Its Social Landscape - Steven G Jones
The Individual Within the Collective - Jan Fernback
Virtual Ideology and the Realization of Collective Principles
Virtual Commonality - Ananda Mitra
Looking for India on the Internet
Structural Relations, Electronic Media and Social Change - Joseph Schmitz
The Public Electronic Network and the Homeless
Why We Argue about Virtual Community - Nessim Watson
A Case Study of Phish.Net Fan Community
Gay Men and Computer Communication - David Shaw
A Discourse of Sex and Identlóè