Essay question: The idea of the internet as cyberspace has been a part of our contemporary culture for some time, particularly in the popular medium of film. But is the concept of cyberspace still relevant to our contemporary society? Discuss with reference to your own experience of contemporary media.
Canadian educator, philosopher and scholar Marshall Luhan once said, “All media exist to invest our lives with artificial perceptions and arbitrary values”. He believed that all media creates an abstract and symbolical environment in which the changes in its experiences affects us as a result. Media studies are strongly connected to the concept of cyberspace and now with the introduction of web 2.0, the effects of media on society have never been so emphasized upon. This essay will examine the idea of internet as cyberspace and its relevance to our contemporary society in terms of social networking.
To argue the relevance of cyberspace with the contemporary society we must understand what is meant by the term cyberspace. Cyberspace was first originated by William Gibson referring to an environment where users mentally travel in a world of data. Now however the phrase is used to refer to the World Wide Web (WWW). Nevertheless, internet and cyberspace cannot be defined as one. Internet refers to a network within other networks such as servers, mainframes and personal computers that use CMC technology and links users into an information sharing system. Although Gibson’s definition might sound fictional, it nonetheless mostly relates to and contains a sense of reality of what is being experienced now by users especially with the rise of web 2.0 and popularity of social media. Some people agree that using the net takes them on a journey, a different world or environment where they can share information, express their thoughts and feelings, chat, send emails and play video games. In that way, it takes the user on a journey of virtual reality.
The internet allows you to experience a different reality where you are free to do anything and therefore it affects the actual reality we live in outside of cyberspace. For example, critiques and psychologists believe that using social networking and chat sites such as Facebook and MSN could change the relations between people in a way that, it could not only create less conversation in reality because everything’s been said through the internet but they deny a community actually exists between people communicating only through machines (Wellman, 2004, p. 26). Three dimensional chat sites such as Second Life and IMVU offer a virtual experience and allow the user a freedom to become anyone and communicate with the virtual community in any way. It is as close to reality as possible, yet according to Dystopians, users don’t use their senses to communicate and that cannot be regarded as a community. Speaking from personal experience, I believe IMVU offers a sense of reality where you relate to your character because your character represents who you are in real life. Some people however do not agree that cyberspace or any form of media work in that way and does not affect our lives in any way. That said, is virtual reality an experience of anything at all or what Gibson calls ‘consensual hallucination’ (Bell, 2009. P. 22)? The question lies within how cyberspace affects our individual identities. The internet attracts so many users on a universal level and offers endless options for creativity; people are becoming more enfolded with the net. Users create and share videos through YouTube, images through Flickr and Photobucket, characters in 3D chat rooms, music through Myspace and much more. This type of creativity expresses people’s individual identities and therefore influences others’ identities. ‘Internet slang’ for instance, has grabbed the attention of so many users around the world due to its creativity. It contains words such as “LOL”, “BRB” and the recently popular “FTW” (an abbreviation of “for the win”) which are created by arbitrary users and shared worldwide. Telegraph.co.uk reveled that The Wisconsin Tourism Federation (WTF) was forced to change its name after it was noticed that its initials had a foul ‘cyber term’ definition (Moore, 2009). This is a good example of how much the internet does affect not only the public but businesses as well. Many users however use internet slang today and it has become a trend that expresses people’s personalities in addition to emoticons. This is evident that the net does influence people and has an effect on users. Another evidence of this is when frequently used sites such as Twitter or Google crashed on June 25th at the death of Michael Jackson; its users went off the deep end and freaked out because they could not use the service to get information on Michael’s death. This shows that the internet does affect people’s lives because they are so relied upon it and use it very frequently for communication especially social networking websites (Lees-Bell, 2009).
Technology has long been used as a method of communication.
This essay has shown that cyberspace is still relevant to our contemporary society as it affects users’ lives in a number of aspects. People now rely heavily on the internet for news, blogs, networking with friends and businesses, consuming, producing and sharing information and software, gaming and much more. Many people are influenced by what they see, read and experience on the internet because content spreads widely and rapidly. Social networking and content sharing communities such as Facebook and YouTube have been the main aspects of this relevance because both are a wide network of communication and sharing centre that attract a huge number of users.
References
Bell, David (2001). An introduction to cybercultures. http://books.google.com.au/books?id=MRNlLK6ZlMYC&pg=PA22&dq=consensual+hallucination#v=onepage&q=consensual%20hallucination&f=false
Lees-Bell, Heidi (26 Jun 2009). Google & Twitter crash at news of Jackson’s death. http://news.icm.ac.uk/technology/google-twitter-crash-at-news-of-jackson%E2%80%99s-death/2322/
Moore, Matthew (29 Sep 2009). WTF? Wisconsin Tourism Federation changes name after internet jokes http://connect.in.com/internet-slang/article-wtf-wisconsin-tourism-federation-changes-its-name-123977 9f5422d8e86c0548ab64102e5fa0c13361c4047b.html
Smith, Mark and Kollock, Peter (1999). Communities in cyberspace. http://books.google.com.au/books?hl=en&lr=&id=harO_jeoyUwC&oi=fnd&pg=PP15&dq=cyberspace+and+society&ots=JWSM5N6sAQ&sig=6q9B63tBYw65HoAY5hy7WCTknXo#v=onepage&q=cyberspace%20and%20society&f=false
Wellman, Barry (2004).The Global Village: Internet and community Vol 1. http://www.ideasmag.artsci.utoronto.ca/issue1_1/idea_s01-wellman.pdf
Thursday, October 22, 2009
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