[Air-L] What is web culture?

[Callahan, Ewa S. Prof.]

Hi all, 

Culture is a concept, so we can describe it the same way we describe
cultures in general (in terms of values and artifacts) although it is
rather like describing human (or world) culture. The Web in itself
presents a variety of different spaces, each of them with its own set of
characteristics. Is bloggers culture the same as Facebook culture? There
is probably some overlap, but number of people will embrace one, but not
the other.  

As someone pointed out, Web is an artifact, although we can still talk
about the culture of Internet users, who are similar to other cultural
groups that are identified on the bases of the activities they do (a
specific music culture, soccer culture etc) rather than national/ethnic
upbringing. Additionally, if we consider web an artifact, than we have
to keep in mind that its content is created by people of different
cultural (national/ethnic) backgrounds that will be reflected in the web
content and interaction. 

Someone mentioned once to me that the Web user culture can be described
in the terms of Hofstede's cultural dimensions (low power, high
individualism, masculine, etc.) but I have never found an actual
citation to that research. If anybody seen a study discussing web
culture from this perspective, please let me know. 

Best, 

Ewa Callahan
Assistant Professor of Communications 
Quinnipiac university

-----Original Message-----
From: air-l-bounces at listserv.aoir.org
[mailto:air-l-bounces at listserv.aoir.org] On Behalf Of Hall, Richard H.
Sent: Tuesday, January 15, 2008 1:14 PM
To: air-l at listserv.aoir.org
Subject: [Air-L] What is web culture?

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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