The Individual within the Collective
Revision as of 23:27, 17 October 2010 by Yiorgos Bagakis (talk | contribs)
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.
Moderators:
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 culture are the dominant paradigm of virtual community studies
- How open and unmoderated is the political debate within counterpublics?