'Dragging her dirt all over the net': Presence, Intimacy, Materiality V1.0
Article Sidebar
Published:
Jan 21, 2008
Main Article Content
Abstract
How is intimacy produced within digitally enabled communication platforms such as the mailing list? How do geographically dispersed subjects represent and ‘make present’ their identity? This paper addresses such questions through a case study of the email discussion group, Cybermind. Providing an evocative example of the power and affective relations across mailing list culture, the case study demonstrates that, contrary to the popular critical imagination, the linguistic and rhetorical behaviours of the online self function in a manner that is relatively predictable and therefore fairly stable. Thus the paper challenges the 1990s dream of the online, radically decentred subject. This does not overlook the fact that identity is always a performance and the product of highly mediated cultural, material and institutional forces. However, the complex interplay between technology, fantasy and materiality in the shaping of identity has not been fully explored. Crucial to the production of identity are the symbolic and technological relations of presence. Authors assume that the material signifiers of writing can be deployed to express, to make present, the particular version of subjectivity they wish to convey. Moreover, even the representations of multiple and playful selves are, in fact, quite carefully governed by their authors. The paper concludes with a discussion of the extent to which the socio-technical architecture of the mailing list is conditioned by fantasies of presence and economies of affect.
Article Details
Section
Articles
Authors submitting a paper to UTSePress publications agree to assign a limited license to UTSePress if and when the manuscript is accepted for publication. This license allows UTSePress to publish a manuscript in a given issue.
Copyright is retained by the authors who assert their moral rights. Authors control translation and reproduction rights to their works published by UTSePress.
Downloads of specific portions of the Transforming Cultures eJournal are permitted for personal use only, not for commercial use or resale.
Requests for permission to reprint or use any materials should be directed to the Author.
References
Bassett, C. (1997) "Virtually Gendered: Life in an Online World", in Ken Gelder and Sarah Thornton (eds) The Subcultures Reader pp.537-50, London, Routledge.
Baym, Nancy K. (1988) "The Emergence of On-Line Community", in Steven Jones (ed.) CyberSociety 2.0: Revisiting Computer-Mediated Communication and Community, pp.35-68, Thousand Oaks, Sage.
Belsey, Catherine (2002) Critical practice. London: Routledge.
Benedikt Michael (ed). (1991) Cyberspace: First Steps. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press.
Blood, Rebecca (2000) "Weblogs: A History and Perspective", http://www.rebeccablood.net/essays/weblog_history.html
Bruns, Axel and Joanne Jacobs (eds). (2006) Uses of Blogs. New York: Peter Lang.
Burkhalter, Byron (1999) "Reading Race Online: Discovering Racial Identities in Usenet Discussions", in Marc A. Smith and Peter Kollock (eds) Communities in Cyberspace, pp.60-75, New York, Routledge.
Coyne, Richard (2001) Technoromanticism: Digital Narrative, Holism, and the Romance of the Real, Cambridge, Mass, MIT Press.
Danet, Brenda (1998) "Text as Mask: Gender, Play, and Performance on the Internet", in Steve Jones (ed) CyberSociety 2.0: Revisiting Computer-Mediated Communication and Community pp.129-158, Thousand Oaks, Sage. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781452243689.n5
Derrida, Jacques (1976) Of Grammatology. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Dibbell, Julian (1996) "A Rape in Cyberspace: How an Evil Clown, a Haitian Trikster Spirit, Two Wizards, and a Cast of Dozens Turned a Database into a Society", in Mark Stefik (ed.) Internet Dreams: Archetypes, Myths, and Metaphors pp.293-313, Cambridge, Mass, MIT Press.
Gelder Ken and Sarah Thornton (eds.) (1997) The Subcultures Reader, London, Routledge.
Glotz, Peter, Stefan Bertsch and Chris Locke (eds.) (2005) Thumb Culture: The Meaning of Mobile Phones for Society, Bielefeld, transcript Verlag.
Gratton, Johnnie (2000) Expressivism: The Vicissitudes of a Theory in the Writing of Proust and Barthes, Oxford, Legenda.
Gregg, Melissa (2006) "Posting with Passion: Blogs and the Politics of Gender", in Axel Bruns and Joanne Jacobs (eds) Uses of Blogs, pp.151-158, New York, Peter Lang.
Gumbrecht, Hans Ulrich (2004) Production of Presence: What Meaning Cannot Convey. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Gumbrecht, Hans Ulrich and K. Ludwig Pfeiffer (eds.) (1994) Materialities of Communication, Stanford University Press.
Hall, Kira (1996) "Cyberfeminism", in Susan C. Herring (ed.) Computer-Mediated Communication: Linguistic, Social and Cross-Cultural Perspectives, pp. 147-170, Amsterdam, Benjamins. https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.39.12hal
Harvey, David (2005) A brief history of neoliberalism, New York, Oxford University Press.
Herring, Susan C. (2003) "Gender and power in on-line communication", in J. Holmes and M. Meyerhoff (eds) The Handbook of Language and Gender pp.202-222, Oxford: Blackwell. https://doi.org/10.1002/9780470756942.ch9
Herring Susan and Paolillo, John (forthcoming) "Gender and genre variation in weblogs", Journal of Sociolinguistics, 10(4), 2006; pre-publication version is available at http://www.blogninja.com/jslx.pdf
Hughes, Robert (1991) Shock of the New. London: Thames.
Jones, Steven (ed.) (1995) Cybersociety: Computer-Mediated Communication and Community, London: Sage.
Jones, Steven (ed.) (1998) CyberSociety 2.0: Revisiting Computer-Mediated Communication and Community, Thousand Oaks, Sage.
Kolko Beth and Reid, Elizabeth (1998) "Dissolution and Fragmentation: Problems in On-Line Communities", in Steven Jones (ed) Revisiting Computer-Mediated Communication and Community pp.219-229, Thousand Oaks, Sage.
Kollock Peter and Smith Marc A. (eds.) (1999) Communities in Cyberspace. New York: Routledge.
Lievrouw Leah and Sonia Livingstone (eds). (2002) Handbook of New Media: Social Shaping and Consequences of ICTs. London: Sage.
Lovink, Geert (2002) Dark Fiber: Tracking Critical Internet Culture, Cambridge, Mass, MIT Press.
McRae, Shannon (1997) "Flesh Made Word: Sex, Text and the Virtual Body", in David Porter (ed.) Internet Culture pp.73-86, New York, Routledge.
Miles, Adrian (2005) "Media Rich versus Rich Media" paper given at Blogtalk Downunder conference May 2005, Sydney: http://incsub.org/blogtalk/?page_id=76
Milne, Esther (2004) "'Magic bits of paste-board': texting in the nineteenth century", M/C - A Journal of Media and Culture, 6.6: http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0401/02-milne.php
Mitchell, William (1999) e-topia, Cambridge, Mass, MIT Press.
Munster, Anna (2006) Materializing New Media: Embodiment in Information Aesthetics, Hanover, Dartmouth College Press.
Porter, David (ed.) (1997) Internet Culture, New York, Routledge.
Poster, Mark (1990) The Mode of Information: Poststructuralism and Social Context. Cambridge, Polity.
Poster, Mark (1995) "Postmodern Virtualities", in Mike Featherstone and Roger Burrows (eds.) Cyberspace, Cyberbodies, Cyberpunk: Cultures of Technological Embodiment pp.379-382, London, Sage. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781446250198.n5
Reid, Elizabeth (1995) "Virtual Worlds: Culture and Imagination", in Steven Jones (ed.) Cybersociety: Computer-Mediated Communication and Community pp.164-183, London, Sage.
Rheingold, Howard (1994) The Virtual Community: Surfing the Internet. London, Minerva.
Rossiter, Ned (2007) "Symposium Review, (dis)LOCATIONS: A Code in Search of a Process." RealTime 47 (2002), http://www.realtimearts.net/rt47/rossiter.html
Sahay, Amrohini (1997) "'Cybermaterialism' and the Invention of the Cybercultural Everyday", New Literary History 28(3): 543-67. https://doi.org/10.1353/nlh.1997.0040
Sanbonmatsu, John (2003) The postmodern prince: critical theory, left strategy, and the making of a new political subject, NY, Monthly Review Press.
Sconce, Jeffrey (2002) Haunted Media: Electronic Presence from Telegraphy to Television, Durham, Duke University Press.
Senge, Peter, C Otto Scharmer, Joseph Jaworski, and Betty Sue Flowers (2005) Presence - Exploring Profound Change in People, Organisations and Society, London, Nicholas Brealey Publishing.
Sherry, Turkle (1995) Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet, NY, Simon & Schuster.
Slater, Don (2002) "Social Relationships and Identity Online and Offline", in Leah Lievrouw and Sonia Livingstone (eds.) Handbook of New Media: Social Shaping and Consequences of ICTs pp.533-46, London, Sage.
Sobchack, Vivian (1994) "The Scene of the Screen: Envisioning Cinematic and Electronic 'Presence'", in Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht and K. Ludwig Pfeiffer (eds) Materialities of Communication, pp.83-106, Stanford University Press.
Springer, Claudia (1996) Electronic Eros: Bodies and Desire in the Postindustrial Age, Austin, University of Texas Press.
Stefik, Mark (ed.) (1996). Internet Dreams: Archetypes, Myths, and Metaphors, Cambridge, Mass, MIT Press.
Stone Allucquére Rosanne (Sandy) (1991) "Will the Real Body Please Stand Up?: Boundary Stories about Virtual Cultures", in Michael Benedikt (ed.) Cyberspace: First Steps pp.81-118, Cambridge, Mass, MIT Press.
Stone, Allucquére Rosanne (Sandy) (1995) The War of Desire and Technology at the Close of the Mechanical Age, Cambridge, Mass, MIT Press.
Wellman, Barry and Caroline Haythornthwaite (2002) The Internet In Everyday Life, Oxford, Blackwell.
Baym, Nancy K. (1988) "The Emergence of On-Line Community", in Steven Jones (ed.) CyberSociety 2.0: Revisiting Computer-Mediated Communication and Community, pp.35-68, Thousand Oaks, Sage.
Belsey, Catherine (2002) Critical practice. London: Routledge.
Benedikt Michael (ed). (1991) Cyberspace: First Steps. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press.
Blood, Rebecca (2000) "Weblogs: A History and Perspective", http://www.rebeccablood.net/essays/weblog_history.html
Bruns, Axel and Joanne Jacobs (eds). (2006) Uses of Blogs. New York: Peter Lang.
Burkhalter, Byron (1999) "Reading Race Online: Discovering Racial Identities in Usenet Discussions", in Marc A. Smith and Peter Kollock (eds) Communities in Cyberspace, pp.60-75, New York, Routledge.
Coyne, Richard (2001) Technoromanticism: Digital Narrative, Holism, and the Romance of the Real, Cambridge, Mass, MIT Press.
Danet, Brenda (1998) "Text as Mask: Gender, Play, and Performance on the Internet", in Steve Jones (ed) CyberSociety 2.0: Revisiting Computer-Mediated Communication and Community pp.129-158, Thousand Oaks, Sage. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781452243689.n5
Derrida, Jacques (1976) Of Grammatology. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Dibbell, Julian (1996) "A Rape in Cyberspace: How an Evil Clown, a Haitian Trikster Spirit, Two Wizards, and a Cast of Dozens Turned a Database into a Society", in Mark Stefik (ed.) Internet Dreams: Archetypes, Myths, and Metaphors pp.293-313, Cambridge, Mass, MIT Press.
Gelder Ken and Sarah Thornton (eds.) (1997) The Subcultures Reader, London, Routledge.
Glotz, Peter, Stefan Bertsch and Chris Locke (eds.) (2005) Thumb Culture: The Meaning of Mobile Phones for Society, Bielefeld, transcript Verlag.
Gratton, Johnnie (2000) Expressivism: The Vicissitudes of a Theory in the Writing of Proust and Barthes, Oxford, Legenda.
Gregg, Melissa (2006) "Posting with Passion: Blogs and the Politics of Gender", in Axel Bruns and Joanne Jacobs (eds) Uses of Blogs, pp.151-158, New York, Peter Lang.
Gumbrecht, Hans Ulrich (2004) Production of Presence: What Meaning Cannot Convey. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Gumbrecht, Hans Ulrich and K. Ludwig Pfeiffer (eds.) (1994) Materialities of Communication, Stanford University Press.
Hall, Kira (1996) "Cyberfeminism", in Susan C. Herring (ed.) Computer-Mediated Communication: Linguistic, Social and Cross-Cultural Perspectives, pp. 147-170, Amsterdam, Benjamins. https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.39.12hal
Harvey, David (2005) A brief history of neoliberalism, New York, Oxford University Press.
Herring, Susan C. (2003) "Gender and power in on-line communication", in J. Holmes and M. Meyerhoff (eds) The Handbook of Language and Gender pp.202-222, Oxford: Blackwell. https://doi.org/10.1002/9780470756942.ch9
Herring Susan and Paolillo, John (forthcoming) "Gender and genre variation in weblogs", Journal of Sociolinguistics, 10(4), 2006; pre-publication version is available at http://www.blogninja.com/jslx.pdf
Hughes, Robert (1991) Shock of the New. London: Thames.
Jones, Steven (ed.) (1995) Cybersociety: Computer-Mediated Communication and Community, London: Sage.
Jones, Steven (ed.) (1998) CyberSociety 2.0: Revisiting Computer-Mediated Communication and Community, Thousand Oaks, Sage.
Kolko Beth and Reid, Elizabeth (1998) "Dissolution and Fragmentation: Problems in On-Line Communities", in Steven Jones (ed) Revisiting Computer-Mediated Communication and Community pp.219-229, Thousand Oaks, Sage.
Kollock Peter and Smith Marc A. (eds.) (1999) Communities in Cyberspace. New York: Routledge.
Lievrouw Leah and Sonia Livingstone (eds). (2002) Handbook of New Media: Social Shaping and Consequences of ICTs. London: Sage.
Lovink, Geert (2002) Dark Fiber: Tracking Critical Internet Culture, Cambridge, Mass, MIT Press.
McRae, Shannon (1997) "Flesh Made Word: Sex, Text and the Virtual Body", in David Porter (ed.) Internet Culture pp.73-86, New York, Routledge.
Miles, Adrian (2005) "Media Rich versus Rich Media" paper given at Blogtalk Downunder conference May 2005, Sydney: http://incsub.org/blogtalk/?page_id=76
Milne, Esther (2004) "'Magic bits of paste-board': texting in the nineteenth century", M/C - A Journal of Media and Culture, 6.6: http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0401/02-milne.php
Mitchell, William (1999) e-topia, Cambridge, Mass, MIT Press.
Munster, Anna (2006) Materializing New Media: Embodiment in Information Aesthetics, Hanover, Dartmouth College Press.
Porter, David (ed.) (1997) Internet Culture, New York, Routledge.
Poster, Mark (1990) The Mode of Information: Poststructuralism and Social Context. Cambridge, Polity.
Poster, Mark (1995) "Postmodern Virtualities", in Mike Featherstone and Roger Burrows (eds.) Cyberspace, Cyberbodies, Cyberpunk: Cultures of Technological Embodiment pp.379-382, London, Sage. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781446250198.n5
Reid, Elizabeth (1995) "Virtual Worlds: Culture and Imagination", in Steven Jones (ed.) Cybersociety: Computer-Mediated Communication and Community pp.164-183, London, Sage.
Rheingold, Howard (1994) The Virtual Community: Surfing the Internet. London, Minerva.
Rossiter, Ned (2007) "Symposium Review, (dis)LOCATIONS: A Code in Search of a Process." RealTime 47 (2002), http://www.realtimearts.net/rt47/rossiter.html
Sahay, Amrohini (1997) "'Cybermaterialism' and the Invention of the Cybercultural Everyday", New Literary History 28(3): 543-67. https://doi.org/10.1353/nlh.1997.0040
Sanbonmatsu, John (2003) The postmodern prince: critical theory, left strategy, and the making of a new political subject, NY, Monthly Review Press.
Sconce, Jeffrey (2002) Haunted Media: Electronic Presence from Telegraphy to Television, Durham, Duke University Press.
Senge, Peter, C Otto Scharmer, Joseph Jaworski, and Betty Sue Flowers (2005) Presence - Exploring Profound Change in People, Organisations and Society, London, Nicholas Brealey Publishing.
Sherry, Turkle (1995) Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet, NY, Simon & Schuster.
Slater, Don (2002) "Social Relationships and Identity Online and Offline", in Leah Lievrouw and Sonia Livingstone (eds.) Handbook of New Media: Social Shaping and Consequences of ICTs pp.533-46, London, Sage.
Sobchack, Vivian (1994) "The Scene of the Screen: Envisioning Cinematic and Electronic 'Presence'", in Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht and K. Ludwig Pfeiffer (eds) Materialities of Communication, pp.83-106, Stanford University Press.
Springer, Claudia (1996) Electronic Eros: Bodies and Desire in the Postindustrial Age, Austin, University of Texas Press.
Stefik, Mark (ed.) (1996). Internet Dreams: Archetypes, Myths, and Metaphors, Cambridge, Mass, MIT Press.
Stone Allucquére Rosanne (Sandy) (1991) "Will the Real Body Please Stand Up?: Boundary Stories about Virtual Cultures", in Michael Benedikt (ed.) Cyberspace: First Steps pp.81-118, Cambridge, Mass, MIT Press.
Stone, Allucquére Rosanne (Sandy) (1995) The War of Desire and Technology at the Close of the Mechanical Age, Cambridge, Mass, MIT Press.
Wellman, Barry and Caroline Haythornthwaite (2002) The Internet In Everyday Life, Oxford, Blackwell.