Key Texts - Megan Hyslop

Virtual Culture - Edited by Steven G. Jones

This was one of my key texts. I read parts of this book to try and help me gain some insight into the subject area of cybercultures. 

Quote from this book I found interesting:

"Communication can be defined in several ways: it means passage from one place to another, and it means the transmitting of a message. In terms of the highway it means an unending flow of traffic - perhaps much of it essentially aimless, a kind of search for some place or person to help reinforce our identity; it also means the signs and billboards and lights and signals - a chorus of communication such as no generation has ever before seen." (p4)

An Introduction to Cybercultures - David Bell

This was another one of my key texts. I also read parts of this, I found this more useful. I have found quotes in this book that have helped me in trying to understand what cybercultures is.

I found a quote in this book which I felt was a definition of cyberculture/cyberspace:

" Cyberspace: A new universe, a parallel universe created and sustained by the world's computers and communications lines. A world in which the global traffic of knowledge, secrets, measurements, indicators, entertainments, and alter-human agency takes on form: sights, sounds, presences never seen on the surface of the earth blossoming in a vast electronic light." (Benedikt CR: 29)

Another quote from this book where David Bell himself tries to define cyberculture I found useful:

"Cyberspace is, I think, something to be understood as it is lived - while maps and stats give us one kind of insight into it, they are inadequate to the task of capturing the thoughts and feelings that come from, to take a mundane example, sending an email."(p2)

Another quote I likes and feel is true, especially in more contemporary internet sites:

"Words on screen are quite capable of...creating a community from a collection of strangers." (Howard Rheingold)

-I think this is interesting because this is effectively what happens when you meet anybody over the internet, or if you do online gaming. The people you meet are strangers, but you feel like you know them.

Carrying on the idea of community: 

"bunkering in is about something really simple: being sick of others and trying to shelter the beleaguered self in a techno-bubble... Digital reality is perfect. It provides the bunker self with immediate, universal access to global community without people: electronic communication without social contact, being digital without being human, going on-line without leaving the safety of the electronic bunker." (Kroker and Kroker CR: 96-7)