History of Cyberculture Studies

David Silver outlines the history of cyberculture studies from its emergence in the early 1990's in his article "Introducing Cyberculture", the introduction to an excellent anthology of Critical Cyber Culture Studies. Silver divides the history of cyberculture studies into 3 categories - Popular Culture

Phase 1-Popular Culture

In the early 1990's the field emerged and Silver writes it is"marked by its journalistic origins and characterized by its descriptive nature, limited dualism and use of the Internet -as - frontier metaphor"(Silver)

Generally descriptive, including Time magazine covers and the like popular media took on the task of introducing the internet to the technological 'newbies' (pretty much everyone). In these beginning times two drastic worlds were painted for the imagination, with the internet as either the end of times, or the begininng of a new utopia. Silver points to Birkets (1994), Slae (1995) and Stoll (1995) as some of the key Internet dystopians of the 1990s literature. On the other side was Wired magazine's publisher Louis Rossetto and their executive editor Kevin Kelly, along side the tech magazine utopians was a host of politicians such as Al Gore.

The frontier metaphor is another defining characterisitic of the early days, William Gibson's (1984) Neuromancer is credited as the origin of this fronteir mentality in which, "a new frontier emerges, one whose currency rests less in geographic space and more in digital information".

Second Stage-Identity & Community

Silver characterizes the mid 1990's work: "cyberculture studies, focuses largely on virtual communities and online identities and benefits from an influx of academic scholars."


Julian Dibell's often cited work, "A Rape in Cyberspace; or How an Evil Clown, a Haitian Trickster Spirit, Two Wizards and a Cast of Dozens Turned a Database into a Society" was featured in The Village Voice in 1993. The article talks about "Mr.Bungle" a member of LambdaMOO who used a program to control the online actions of other members. The virtual community banded together to eliminate the character, her article articulated the complex identities and communities that exist within the virtual.

Silver writes,

"while cyberspace may lack for the most part the physical geography found in say, a neighborhood, city, or country, it offers users very real opportunities for collective communities and individual identities. It is upon these twin pillars -- virtual communities and online identies -- that cyberculture studies rests."

Key to articulating the idea of the virtual community were cyber scholars Sandy Stone and Howard Rheingold. Silver places Rheingold's The Virtual Community as the first pillar of cyberculture studies, and Sherry Turkle's Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet as the second. Both take an optimistic view on the internet articulating the internet as a space where through playing with multiple identities a more holistic sense of self is realized.

In the mid 1990's cyberculture due in large part to the work of Turkle and Rheingold, "cyberculture was often articulated as a site of empowerment, an online space reserved for construction, creativity, and community. Fortunately, however, this simplification was matched by the richness found in the nascent field's welcoming of interdisciplinary views."(Silver).

Sociology introduced interactionism and collective action dilemma theory, while anthropology began to explore the intersections of individuals society and networked computers. Cyber ethnographers entered users experiences in a variety of online areas. Linguists studied writing styles and feminist began to study gender within cyberspace.

Stage 3- Critical Cyber Culture Studies

The third phase cyberculture to include four areas of study-- online interactions, digital discourses, access and denial to the Internet, and an interface design of cyberspace -- and explores the intersections and interdependence between any and all four domains" (Silver) Beginning in the late 1990's the third generation of cyber scholarship emerged with a more complex perspective .

Silver point to the foundations of critical cyber-culture studies

*explores social, cultural, and economic interactions*

*unfolds and examines stories we tell about such interactions*

*analyzes wide range of social, cultural, political, and economic considerations which encourage, make possible, and/or thwart individual and group access to such interactions*

*assesses the deliberate, accidental, and alternative technological decision- and design - processes which, when implemented, form the network and its users*

In order to provide a context to the topics cyberculture scholars studies attempts to locate the ways in which the internet has been the internet has been constructed within culture in order to take a critical view of how we have come to define the field itself.

Other scholars have attempted to make new findings instead of rehashing the work of Rheingold and Turkle. These scholars look to the rules and etiquette created within virtual communities.

As Silver points out an important aspect that is underdeveloped is the brief yet rich history of virtual communities. In my own work with Second Life I have been amazed at the historical narrative described by Linden Labs and its community members as well as from journalists and scholars. SL has had its own rebellions, wars, political movements, and colonization.

---Discoursing Cyberspace---

"for some scholars (Borsook 1996; Sochack 1993; Ross 1991), cyberspace is not only a site for communication and community but also a generator of discourse…two disturbing discourses of cyberspace have emerged: the Net as frontier and cyberspace as boystown." (Silver)

These discourses reinforce gender norms that label women as weak and fragile and reinvoke the Individualist American myth.

--Getting Online--Access and Barriers

Few scholars have entered the study of marginality online, a necessary task! Issues of race, ethnicity, and sexuality do not disappear online but rather are key to the field. Silver points to the digital divide in which disparities of race, class, and region has continued to grow. Ethnocentrism also dominates the internet with English as the key language. Also newbie snobbery and exclusive language creates barriers to entering the net community. Male users tend to dominate the virtual but, female users have created their own spaces .

Silver points to the material questions of access but I am also interested in the way that a cyberculture literature review can be retold to include the work of marginalized people to highlight the ways in which people have navigated the web.

Within the next few years virtual learning environments are expected to take an increasing role in educational settings with one in five people expected to participate in a virtual environment (Prins, 2008; Traphagan, 2007) Yet the digital divide has not decreased. Critical pedagogy authors argue that the classroom should be a place that teaches students to question knowledge not merely reproduce it. In order to do so attention to students identity and cultural background are necessary as a step in engaging the power dynamics of the classroom.


I think our work is an examination of the performance of identity - or non identity within the net community of anonymous. A historical perspective is key. Performances of identity have always been key to education about identity and citizenship. National identity was dependent on these performances which negotiated contradictory identities, this required creating a unified ‘us’ that required an internal ‘them’ to identify against (Dickinson, Brian, & Aoki, 2006)
In order to increase the use of internet in the service of a pedagogy of the oppressed or a critical pedagogy, scholars must be connected with the technologies they use and understand the benefits and downfalls of them well enough to critique them. Instead of simply focusing on material access rhetorical educators must turn towards the technology itself and the ways that it is forming future democracies (Porter J. L., 1997; Ballif, 2001; Banks, 2006). As Banks writes, “Real access goes far deeper than the passive consumerism that drives almost all computer advertising and much technology policy - it is about the ability to use computers and the Internet as a means of production too” (p. 138).

Silver points to the importance of design or interface which, "can have a substantial impact upon the relative success of a site's intentions".


Silver cite's Nakamura's "Race In/For Cyberspace: Identity Toruism and Racial Passing on the Internet" showing how race has been designed out of the internet. This essay has been influential in my desire to understand how race and gender are designed within my thesis work on Second Life, how are they designed within the interface. It seems a glaring piece of work is missing from our work on anonymity online, race. How is anonymous and its interfaces intersect with race? On the YouTube videos I have the face is masked, yet what is underneath that face and the only skin is white as I have noticed. If anyone sees any alternate videos please point them my way. Also how can an interface which tells the story of our work to either enforce limiting views of identity or empower everyone to access the internet.

Other Sources Cited from my research
Ballif, M. (2001). Seduction, Sophistry, and the Woman with the Rhetorical Figure.
Opitz, A. (2006). The Primitive Has Escaped Control: Narrating the Nation in The Heartsong of Charging elk Studies. American Indian Literatures , 98-106.
Porter, J. (1998)Rhetorical ethics and internetworked writing. Greenwich: Ablex.


Prins, W. C. (2008). Unintended Outcomes in Second Life: Intercultural Literacy and Cultural Identity in a Virtual World. Language & Intercultural Communication , 101-118.

Traphagan, T. (2007). Evaluation of a Pilot Use of Second Life in an English Course: 2006-2007. UTexasPublication "http://web3.cc.utexas.edu/academic/mec/publication/pdf/fulltext/SecondLife.pdf">http://web3.cc.utexas.edu/academic/mec/publication/pdf/fulltext/SecondLife.pdf
***Other articles all cited within Silver's article***If you are trying to piece together the history of the internet this article is a GREAT place to start creating a literature review - as well check out this website - remember when reading the Silver article to look to the people he cites, citations are like links - only a click away!