[Air-l] Shades of "A Rape in Cyberspace"

['Gail Taylor]

Kelly Garrett wrote regarding this topic: "There seem to be two camps.  On one hand, there are those who argue that these are only games. [snipped] Others suggest that players of these games need to respond more rationally to the clearly fictional world. [snipped] The distinction between "real" and "virtual", which has become increasingly blurred in academic circles, seems quite prominent in many of these arguments. What metaphors will be most helpful to a large and diverse audience as they try to grapple with the issues raised by these 
technologies?  I think that finding these metaphors and getting them out into the world is an important contribution well suited to this intellectual community."

I spent a lot of years working at jobs that involved talking with others about technology change management issues in various settings (community, education, work). As opposed to talking about this subject using metaphors, it might be more helpful to use direct language when talking about human actions in virtual environments. In particular, grounding conversations in theoretical concepts of human behavior and court cases where individuals are being tried by a jury of their peers for online behaviors where the intent was to harm others, emotionally or physically. 

One of the theories that is receiving a lot of attention among technology developers and others who are interested in human-computer interactions is the theory of intentionality. Concepts of this psychoanalytic theory (i.e., agency, intent, motivation, volition, etc.) can be used to explore/explain various human actions related to those who develop online environments and others who choose to socialize in them.  Information about court cases is also readily available from online news databanks, such as Lexis Nexis, and web sites maintained by courts and attornies. Court cases related to the use of email would be a good starting point for conversations that would be discussing more abstract notions related to interactions in virtual spaces. You also might want to consider talking about the manner in which technology enables one-way, two-way, and many-to-many exchanges with others. In particular, power relationship issues directly related to interactions enabled by these vario!
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 communication modes. 

I had great success talking about changing practices by using a reality-based approach to the topic by assisting others in understanding how their actions, in real-worlds, are mirrored and also mimicked, in online enviornments. Use of metaphors is a common practice among members of the academic community. I've found that analogies are more often used in other settings among those who might have these type of conversations.

/Gail
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Gail D. Taylor, M.Ed.
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Human Resource Education Ph.D. Student
Educational Psychology Teaching Assistant
Library & Information Science Research Assistant

"Technology enables man to gain control
over everything except technology." -- 
Unknown