Critical cyberculture studies - Edited by David Silver & Adrienne Massanari

Abstract

This collection’s wide-ranging contributions valorize critical cyberculture studies’ openness and flexibility, whether construed as field, discipline, or interdiscipline. It welcomes into its fold an unusually broad and heterogeneous array of empirical objects, theoretical orientations, and analytical strategies. In its sheer scope, this 25-chapter compilation is unparalleled. Chapters range from institutional analysis of Internet architecture to feminist analysis of emergent transhumanist narratives, to sociological analysis of the role of the culture of independence in the dot-com era. It also addresses badly needed global studies of cyberculture in diverse regions of Asia, as well as Scandinavia. In sum, the volume tackles its themes from numerous angles. But, unlike some other attempts at such ecumenicism and pluralism, the volume gives considerable coherence to such diverse perspectives. Two introductory chapters, the forward by Steve Jones and the introduction written by David Silver, lay out two master questions that undergird the book’s four substantive sections, namely: What is this thing called cyberculture? What are the kinds of scholarship appropriate to such an object?