[Air-L] What is web culture?

Julian Hopkins j at julianhopkins.net
Tue Jan 15 19:49:14 PST 2008


Actually, I don't think there really is such a thing as 'web culture';
anything done online is intricately connected to the actor's offline
cultural context, and therefore to postulate a separate 'internet culture'
is mistaken, IMO.

However, viewing online behaviour as subcultural has its merits, and there
are perhaps clusters of behavioural patterns that make sense to analytically
separate.

I'm still thinking through this issue a lot, so I don't have any firm ideas
I'm afraid, but I can suggest a couple of resources.

Castells, Manuel. The Internet Galaxy: Reflections on the Internet,
Business, and Society. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001.
* Chapter 2 is called "The Culture of the Internet", and he does a good job
tracing various practices, and says the following: 
- Definition of culture: "a set of values and beliefs informing behavior...
collective construction that transcends individual preferences" (36-7)
- "Internet culture... four-layer structure: the techno-meritocratic
culture, the hacker culture, the virtual communitarian culture, and the
entrepreneurial culture" (37)


Postill, John. "Localising the Internet: Beyond Communities and Networks."
Sheffield: Sheffield Hallam University, UK, 2007. 20/9/2007
<http://jpostill.nomadit.co.uk/articles/postill_localising_net.pdf>.
* He argues for the use of the concept of field to understand internet
specific behaviour, which is useful I find.

The Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication (http://jcmc.indiana.edu/) is
also a good place to go to, if you haven't already.

Hope that's some help.

Julian

++++++++++
Blog: www.julianhopkins.net
Skype: julhop
IM: jfprhopkins at hotmail.com

------------------------------

Message: 5
Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2008 12:13:43 -0600
From: "Hall, Richard H." <rhall at mst.edu>
Subject: [Air-L] What is web culture?
To: <air-l at listserv.aoir.org>
Message-ID: <C3B253F7.18810%rhall at mst.edu>
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1) How would you define web culture?
2) How is it unique, in comparison to other cultures?
3) What are some good/classic resources on the web describing and defining
web culture?

... Thanks ... Richard

-- 
Richard H. Hall
Professor and Program Director, Information Science and Technology
Missouri S&T
http://mst.edu/~rhall




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