The Individual within the Collective

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The Individual within the Collective: Virtual Ideology and the Realization of Collective Principles, Jan Fernback, (1996) Virtual Culture: Identity and Communication in Cybersociety ed. Steve Jones, Thousand Oacks: Sage Publications Ltd.

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Keywords: collective, computer-mediated communication, public sphere, counterpublics, virtual community, Gemainschaft, Gesellschaft, social contract, communications decancy act, virtual agora


Summary of key points raised in the text:

  • Like in the physical world, there are tensions between the individual and the collective in cyberspace.
  • Computer-mediated communication (CMC) users assume that they can overcome the tyranny of geography through cyberspace.
  • Cyberspace has become a new arena for participation in public life - what agora was to the Greeks - an arena for political debate and education.
  • Habermas: the public sphere - cyberspace might serve as a public sphere similar to the coffee houses in 18th century France and Britain, where public debate was taking place.
  • Fraser's critiicism towards Habermas: Borgeois men dominated these public spheres where they practiced their own skills of governance.
  • Counterpublics(Fraser): gays, feminists, anarchists, and other factions tend to form in response to the dominant public spheres.
  • Rheingold: Virtual communities perform the functions of Gemeinschaft community - Our need for human association is so strong that we will seek to build communities of interest in cyberspace because we might have no better option.
  • Simmel: Individual identity is based partly on social existence. Therefore an individual needs a sense of contributing to the greater community.
  • Dewey: True self knowledge is only achieved through the experience of community life.

Democracy requires individual participation in the creation of collective life.


Discussion Notes & Afterthoughts:

  • Is the term Urbanism any valid today?
  • American cul;ture ase the dominant paradigm of virtual community studies
  • How open and unmodderated is the political debate within counterpublics?