Laura Keneally 19:10, 29 Jul 2004 (EST)
Research Topic
Cyborgs and The Social Impact of Online Identity
Cunningham, S and Turner, G (ed). (2002).The Media and Communications in Australia. NSW: Allen and Unwin, ISBN
This book is relevant because it will help provide a way into understanding how online identity is placed within Australia. The chapters contained in The Media and Communications in Australia are written by some of the most highly regarded academics in media studies. The text is particularly helpful for my topic because each chapter provides a potential doorway into further information through the mention of magazines, important organisations and links. The end of each chapter is interesting because each reveals a different topic for discussion.
Haraway, D. (1991).Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature. New York: Routledge, ISBN 0415903875
Part three of this text, Differential Politics for Inappropriate/d Others would assist in my paper. Chapter eight, A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the late Twentieth Century examines the development of online identity within a feminist construct in relation to postmodernism. Haraway discusses the various issues that surround the cultural and social impact of online identity. The cyborg is important in my discussion because it is a result of new media technologies and also an embodiment of human interaction with the interface. Haraway explores in great depth the social relations of new media technology. She writes about the 'other life' and the private technological life that is relevant to my topic. Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature is helpful on many levels because Haraway questions the link between nature and the machine and the implications that combination has on identity. It is also a new technological intimacy that Haraway discusses-where the real is blurred with the unreal. Her discussion of this would assist with my paper.
Haraway, D. (2000). How Like a Leaf: an Interview with Thyrza Nichols Goodeve London: Routledge, ISBN 0415924022
This book is a series of interviews put together by Donna Haraway. It is revelatory and helpful because it reveals more about the nature of the growing lack of boundaries between the human and the machine. The interviews are historical and informative. The title, Simians, Cyborgs, and Women is potentially very useful towards my research. Each chapter provides new and enlightening information about new media and online identity and the fluid swiftness of change that surrounds this area.
Hartley, J (ed). (2002). Communication, Cultural and Media Studies: Key Concepts, (3rd ed). London: Routledge, ISBN 0415268893
The above text is important because it provides detailed summaries of all areas of new media technologies: communications, cuture and the media. Hartley is a leading theorist in this area and he offers both historical and precise definitions in all areas of new media technologies. Page 59-60 is enlightening and important for my topic because it gives a concise explanation of the 'Cyborg', (a merging of the computer with the human), and as a consequence a premise towards a deeper understanding of the issues and aspects involved in the discussion of online identity. Hartley explains that the "invocation of the cyborg" (Hartley 59) occurred through the writing of feminist theorist Donna Haraway.
Lessig, L. (2004),Free Culture. New York, The Penguin Press: ISBN 1594200068
As the author of The Future of Ideas: The Fate of the Commons in a Connected World and Code: And Other Laws of Cyberspace, Lessig is a leading light in the field of the internet and the impact it has had on society. Chapter Eight of Free Culture is called Transformers. Lessig discusses the kind of society we now inhabit because of the way the evolution of the internet has shaped the world. Lessig talks about the expectation of instant gratification, swiftness and "freedom" (source: Lessig p 105) the internet has created. The discussion provides an extremely useful academic theoreticians view and will help in my understanding of the impact of online identity upon society.
Nolan, A. Me, Myself and IM. Brandweek, Vol 42, Issue 30, August 13, 2001, 24.
Nolan writes about a teenage propensity towards multiple lives online in America. This article examines the nature of internet identity in regards to adolescents and suggests an aspect of online identity that is important for my topic: compartmentalisation of life. This playing with different personas is discussed. The article reveals that in 2001 'more than half of teens had more than one screen name or email address.' (source: Me Myself and I, 24.)It insinuates an interest in the 'other lives' and online identity of adults.
Tofts, D(ed). Carallaro, A and Jonson, A, (eds). Prefiguring Cyberculture, An Intellectual History. London: The MIT Press, ISBN 0262201453
Prefiguring Cyberculture offers both an historical and informative exploration of the themes involved in the combination of human life with technology. In it's introduction, the text employs the use of the expression 'posthuman'-the notion of which is relevant to my topic. The first chapter contains a great deal of general information about cyborgs and artificial intelligence. The text seems to question what it means for human beings to live and evolve with technological change. The book engages in discussion of the 'binary opposition'-that parallel between nature and the machine and the intimacy that is projected onto the interface. There is also a great deal of discussion about the social impact of online identity and the convergance of the biological with the technological.
Turkle, Sherry, (1995) Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet, New York, USA: Simon and Schuster, ISBN 0684803534
Sherry Turkle is a very important writer in the area of 'online identity'. In 'Life on the Screen', Turkle writes about the computer as a useful and necessary tool that serves to help society communicate and organise itself more effectively; however, Turkle takes this exploration a step further by examining the world of online identity. In 1995, the computer was already old, but online identity and the phenomenon of multiple personalities was relatively new and both were beginning to have a huge impact on society- culturally and socially. In the text, Turkle discusses her intriguing theory: through the blending of computers with human interaction with the interface, (the inanimate with the animate), there came to be and continues to be a perpetuation towards a change in the human mind.
Wagstaff, Jeremy, Get a Life, Virtually, Far Eastern Economic Review, vOL. 4, iSSUE 166, jAN 38, 2003, 34.
This article has a refreshing level of healthy cynicism that offers a wry look at the way human beings are now choosing to 'escape' to the online world in favour of a real life. Wagstaff introduces as the major theme of the article, an online game called The Sims Online-a game where people can be whoever they want to be socially. Quite often and sadly, the people involved choose to be someone 'better'. The Sims Online allows participants to create their own 'avatars'(Wagstaff: 34). This information is important for my topic because the idea of the avatar is a large aspect of online identity. The article is also a candid, funny and honest look at identity online. Wagstaff questions the legitmacy of the virtual world and exactly what it is that drives a human being to socialise in a simulated environment.
Laura Keneally 23:34, 12 Aug 2004 (EST)
ORGANISATIONAL ACRONYMS
PC: Productivity Commission. This organisation supplies regulation and advice to the Commonwealth government on social, economic and policy issues.
DCITA: Department of Communications, Information Technology and the Arts. DCITA assists the Commonwealth government in policy development in such areas as IT and the arts.
IIA: Internet Industry Association. IIA is a national body that provides policy advice to the government: http://www.iia.net.au
Laura Keneally 23:34, 12 Aug 2004 (EST) Laura Keneally 17:02, 16 Aug 2004 (EST)
