1.1 What is the Internet?
The Internet is in a constant state of expansion. When it first came into being nearly twenty years ago, it was originally intended to perform as a fail-safe military communication system in the event of a nuclear war. The technological foundations of the Internet (or ARPANet, as it was originally known) are quite basic. The general idea is that information (or communication) does not only flow directly from the originating node to the receiving node, although it has that ability. The network is created by remotely located computers in conversation with each other. Information, in digital form, flows from the originating point to the destination over these ‘nodes’ on the network, by the shortest route possible. This method is known as ‘packet switching’, and in many ways resembles the ‘penny post’ idea launched in the UK in 1840 by Sir Ronald Hill, where information
…or letters (packets) are passed (switched) from one point to another until they reach their destination. The main difference is that [the Internet uses] a network of computers linked by telephone cables … rather than a network of mailbags and vans.[1]
However, if one of the nodes on this particular route has been ‘taken out’ or is unavailable, the data simply uses an alternative node or set of nodes to make the necessary transition. Theoretically, nodes can be added ad infinitum, which means that, effectively, the Internet cannot be viewed as a finite, fixed resource or quantity.
Cyberspace, however, is more difficult to define. The term was originally coined in 1984 by the Science-Fiction Author, William Gibson. In his book Neuromancer, Gibson described a place that was not a place, or in his words, a “consensual hallucination”.[2] The word ‘cyberspace’ is currently used to refer to a number of different things. Sometimes it is used as an alternative term for ‘virtual reality’. Frequently, it is used to define the space where your attention is when you are interacting with other people through electronically mediated communication.[ 3] This idea of attention-space can encompass other technologies apart from computers, including the telephone. If this definition is applied, it is possible to say that cyberspace has been with us since the invention of such technologies. The amount of attention - and therefore immersion into cyberspace - has been growing exponentially since that time. Most often, cyberspace is simply used to mean the Internet in general, or at least the ‘location’ of the network (i.e., nowhere). Sherry Turkle, a psychologist with an interest in the Internet and issues of identity commented on this apparent lack of location or spatiality in her 1995 book Life on the Screen, noting that “Cyberspace is not reducible to lines of code, bits of data, or electrical systems”.[4] However, there is evidence of a geography of cyberspace, although not one which can be mapped with Cartesian co-ordinates. It is important to recognise that “like the real world [cyberspace] is discontinuous. People cannot experience a virtual world in its entirety all at once”.[5]
One of the most common questions asked by those who are unfamiliar with the nature of the technology is ‘Where is the Internet?’ This is a logical question to come from people accustomed to dealing with material, bounded objects, locations and resources. The answer to this question is also straightforward, and is based in grasping a fundamental understanding of the geography of the technology. The Internet does not exist as or at any specific physical location, but instead exists in an eternal state of construction or invention, brought about through continuous networking (communication) between the nodes. In essence, therefore, the Internet does not exist in one place. Rather, it exists in the action of networking, in much the same way as conversation is constructed through the linking of individual words, and the action of participating in dialogue. Therefore, it could be argued that ‘Internet’ is an active verb.
1.2 Hard Hat Area
Many pages on the World Wide Web part of the Internet, whether about corporations or individuals, contain a disclaimer: ‘This Page is Under Construction’. This statement is usually accompanied by a representation or parody of the symbols usually associated with road-works or construction sites in the non-virtual world. Such symbols can include strips of black and yellow tape or triangular red, black and white icons of ‘Men At Work’. However, it is certainly a strange statement to make, considering that the entire Internet is itself under construction, and, by very definition, cannot ever be completed, at least in the traditional sense of the word. As long as there is networking occurring - both social and electronic - the Internet will exist and be continuously re-invented.
The phrase ‘Under Construction’ is an interesting one to consider from the perspective of Social Science. Anthropologists and other social scientists have discussed the theory that culture is itself a construction, and the term ‘cultural construct’ is in frequent use. Similarly, it is now understood that perception is not a passive experience. We are constantly constructing the world (through perception, etc.) as much as the world is constantly constructing (shaping, changing and influencing) us. The idea of a ‘passive media’ such as television takes on a new perspective when it is understood that the process of watching a soap-opera requires the brain to unconsciously perform startling feats of interpretation and imagination just to make sense - images - out of the millions of pixels and lines fired rapidly at the screen, not to mention understanding the plot.
It is widely known that certain schools of psychology have, for a number of years, considered the notion of personhood and personality as being part of an ongoing process of construction or development. Sociologists and anthropologists have also written about the various processes involved in community-building and (perhaps more importantly) the maintenance or preservation of established community. This process can include political systems, social or human geography, or be concerned with cultural aspects such as ritual interaction or prestige. Various researchers have also endeavoured to create relevant and encompassing yet flexible definitions for ‘community’ itself. In recent years such consideration and research in anthropology has taken a marked turn towards studying phenomena such as social interaction, cultural geography, and community maintenance on and concerning the media of the Internet. This change has taken place alongside similar developments in the fields of sociology, communication studies, psychology, economics and political science. This relatively new media - and certainly new ‘field’ - has captured researchers’ attention as being both relevant and interesting to anthropology. Allucquére Roseanne Stone, a researcher based at MIT’s prestigious Media Lab, points out that just as “the last of the untouched ‘real world’ anthropological field-sites are disappearing, a new and unexpected kind of ‘field’ is opening up”.[6] She goes on to explain intriguingly that On-Line communities are “incontrovertibly social spaces in which people still meet face-to-face, but under new definitions of both ‘meet’ and ‘face’”.[7] Research into the relatively unexplored territory of cyberspace is also considered to fit well with the ever-expanding range of human, social and cultural ‘fields’ which anthropology now covers.
1.3 Research Objectives
As a direct result of considering the almost organic and constantly evolving nature of the Internet, I began to examine the ways in which sociality on the Internet was constantly ‘Under Construction’. How does this construction affect sociality in the ‘real’ world? It quickly appeared that the process of construction on the Internet could reflect similar ongoing developments of individuals, community and culture, both on and off the Internet.
Over nine months, I conducted a thorough ethnographic investigation into the constructions of sociality that are generated on-line. Through this original research, combined with a study of recent literature on this subject, as well as more general works on culture and community, it is my hope that an overview of the way that anthropology is beginning to understand culture and community in the context of cyberspace will be created.
