Internet - How Real is Cyberspace?

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How Real is Cyberspace?

The term ‘Cyberspace’ was first coined by William Gibson and defined as “a consensual hallucination experienced daily by billions of legitimate operators” (Gibson 1984, 67). This term has come to shape the evolving universe that encompasses today’s society as Cyberspace is a realm which exists on the Internet and is becoming immensely used globally. “Online experiences challenge what many have traditionally called identity, as on the Internet many people recast identity in terms of multiple windows and parallel lives” (Turkle 1995, 72). The mode of freedom is constructed through computer culture because individuals can access unlimited information and create unlimited identities. However, extended freedom is illusionary and detrimental in this sense as it also creates limitations to identities within relationships and challenges human existence (Miah 2000, 211). Therefore, “cyberspace is actually more profound for its challenge to identity construction and existence, then for its emancipatory function” (Miah 2000, 211).

“Relationships emerging as a result of e-mailing facilities…are able to collapse the social barriers of geography and status” (Miah 2000, 216). Web users now have the ability to interact with other users all over the world at any time. The Web has become a new meeting place for relationships to begin and progress. No longer is it necessary for individuals to meet face-to-face or reveal their true identity because they are now able to disguise themselves behind their computers and avatars and live multiple, unrelated lives simultaneously (Miah 2000, 211). The dilemma with this newly established sense of freedom to seek new relationships is that online encounters actually limit intim...

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...aphies: The Spatial of Leisure, Gender, and Sexuality.” Leisure Studies 18(1) pp. 19-39. (Cited in Miah pp. 211)

Capurro, R. “Beyond the Digital” (1999) (available at http://www.capurro.de/viper.htm

Gibson, W. (1984) Neuromancer, Gollancz, London. (Cited in Miah pp. 221)

MacKinnon, R. (1997) “Virtual rape”. Journal of Computer Mediated Communication, 2(4), On-line: http://www.ascusc.org/jmc/vol2/issue4/mackinnon.html. (Cited in Miah pp. 219)

Miah, Andy. "Virtually Nothing: Re-Evaluating the Significance of Cyberspace." Leisure Studies 19 (2000): 211-225.

Rheingold, H. (1991) “Virtual Reality”, Mandarin, London.(Cited in Miah pp. 221)

Rojek, C. (1995) “Decentered Leisure”. Sage London (Cited in Miah pp. 211)

Turkle, Sherry. "Multiple Subjectivity and Virtual Community at the end of the Freudian Century." Sociological Inquirer 67 (1997): 72-84.

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