The cybercultural moment and the new media field

This article draws on Pierre Bourdieu’s field theory to understand the regenerative “belief in the new” in new media culture and web history. I begin by noting that discursive constructions of the web as disruptive, open, and participatory have emerged at various points in the medium’s history, and that these discourses are not as neatly tied to economic interests as most new media criticism would suggest. With this in mind, field theory is introduced as a potential framework for understanding this (re)production of a belief in the new as a dynamic of the interplay of cultural and symbolic forms of capital within the new media field. After discussing how Bourdieu’s theory might be applied to new media culture in general terms, I turn to a key moment in the emergence of the new media field—the rise of cybercultural magazines Mondo 2000 and Wired in the early 1990s—to illustrate how Bourdieu’s theory may be adapted in the study of new media history

Anti-computing

Anti-computing explores forgotten histories and contemporary forms of dissent – moments when the imposition of computational technologies, logics, techniques, imaginaries, utopias have been questioned, disputed, or refused. It also asks why these moments tend to be forgotten. What is it about computational capitalism that means we live so much in the present? What has this to do with computational logics and practices themselves? This book addresses these issues through a critical engagement with media archaeology and medium theory and by way of a series of original studies; exploring Hannah Arendt and early automation anxiety, witnessing and the database, Two Cultures from the inside out, bot fear, singularity and/as science fiction. Finally, it returns to remap long-standing concerns against new forms of dissent, hostility, and automation anxiety, producing a distant reading of contemporary hostility.At once an acute response to urgent concerns around toxic digital cultures, an accounting with media archaeology as a mode of medium theory, and a series of original and methodologically fluid case studies, this book crosses an interdisciplinary research field including cultural studies, media studies, medium studies, critical theory, literary and science fiction studies, media archaeology, medium theory, cultural history, technology history

The intertextual presence of cyberpunk in cultural and subcultural accounts of science and technology

This thesis looks at the relationship between cyberpunk science fiction and those sections of cyberculture most interested in the computer networks. This relationship is investigated in order to understand the nature of a recent cultural formation developed around the use of computer-mediated communications (CMC). By means of a textual analysis of pamphlets, books, articles, and electronic discussion groups, the thesis establishes the existence of an articulate cultural consensus among groups/theorists/practitioners involved in the politics of CMC. This consensus reveals a consistent opposition between the technology of industrialisation, which is characterised by uniformity and hierarchy, and a new technology defined in terms of diversity, and autonomy. The thesis argues that the political discourse of cyberculture is structured by an opposition between 'good' and 'bad' uses of technology. CMC can be used to establish a regime of decentralised surveillance or to promote a more democratic political participation. In the narratives elaborated by cyberculture, the technology of CMC is represented as being intrinsically democratic. Cyberculture also suggests that advanced technological skills can be used to counteract the most repressive uses of technology and to foster its more intrinsic progressive possibilities.These narratives are explored through the statements expressed by a series of groups, who are particularly active in relation to technology. The thesis investigates the ways in which Internet communities responded to the first laws which aimed to regulate the Internet. These were proposed by the Clinton administration in the US. The 'posthuman philosophy', a current of thought which believes in evolving humans into posthumans by using advanced technology, is also analysed in the accounts, offered by the Extropy group and the magazine Mondo 2000. The notion that the technology of CMC is inherently self-regulating and democratic is criticised in relation to 'cyberevolutionism', a popular discourse which sees the Internet as a self-regulating organism. Finally, the thesis argues that gender is the subject of much controversy in Internet culture

A cena cibercultural do jornalismo contemporâneo: web semântica, algoritmos, aplicativos e curadoria

Este trabalho discute os diferentes aspectos ciberculturais que o jornalismo contemporâneo vivencia, sobretudo a partir da emergência da web semântica e das funcionalidades técnicas dela decorrentes – como o uso de algoritmos e aplicativos. Explicamos os conceitos básicos deste conjunto técnico e sua correlação aos campos da Comunicação e do Jornalismo em particular. Apresentamos as possibilidades de aproximação de tal cenário com a atividade jornalística a partir de exemplos já em aplicação em marcas jornalísticas internacionais. Propomos a configuração do papel de curadoria para o profissional que irá atuar neste novo contexto cibercultural.This paper discusses the different cybercultural aspects within contemporary journalism experiences,mainly from the emergence of the Semantic Web and the technical functionalities that result from it, such as the use of algorithms and applications. We explain the basic concepts of this technical set and it’s correlation to the Communication and Journalism fields particularly. The possibilities of approximation of this scene within journalistic activity are presented due to examples which are already in application with international journalistic markers. We come up with a configuration of the curation role for the professional that will act within this new cybercultural context

Anti-computing

We live in a moment of high anxiety around digital transformation. Computers are blamed for generating toxic forms of culture and ways of life. Once part of future imaginaries that were optimistic or even utopian, today there is a sense that things have turned out very differently. Anti-computing is widespread. This book seeks to understand its cultural and material logics, its forms, and its operations. Anti-Computing critically investigates forgotten histories of dissent – moments when the imposition of computational technologies, logics, techniques, imaginaries, utopias have been questioned, disputed, or refused. It asks why dissent is forgotten and how - under what circumstances - it revives. Constituting an engagement with media archaeology/medium theory and working through a series of case studies, this book is compelling reading for scholars in digital media, literary, cultural history, digital humanities and associated fields at all levels

Anti-computing

Anti-computing explores forgotten histories and contemporary forms of dissent – moments when the imposition of computational technologies, logics, techniques, imaginaries, utopias have been questioned, disputed, or refused. It also asks why these moments tend to be forgotten. What is it about computational capitalism that means we live so much in the present? What has this to do with computational logics and practices themselves? This book addresses these issues through a critical engagement with media archaeology and medium theory and by way of a series of original studies; exploring Hannah Arendt and early automation anxiety, witnessing and the database, Two Cultures from the inside out, bot fear, singularity and/as science fiction. Finally, it returns to remap long-standing concerns against new forms of dissent, hostility, and automation anxiety, producing a distant reading of contemporary hostility.At once an acute response to urgent concerns around toxic digital cultures, an accounting with media archaeology as a mode of medium theory, and a series of original and methodologically fluid case studies, this book crosses an interdisciplinary research field including cultural studies, media studies, medium studies, critical theory, literary and science fiction studies, media archaeology, medium theory, cultural history, technology history

Imagining the thinking machine: Technological myths and the rise of artificial intelligence

This article discusses the role of technological myths in the development of Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies from 1950s to the early 1970s. It shows how the rise of AI was accompanied by the construction of a powerful cultural myth: the creation of a thinking machine, which would be able to perfectly simulate the cognitive faculties of the human mind. Based on a content analysis of articles on Artificial Intelligence published in two magazines, the Scientific American and the New Scientist, which were aimed at a broad readership of scientists, engineers, and technologists, three dominant patterns in the construction of the AI myth are identified: (1) the recurrence of analogies and discursive shifts, by which ideas and concepts from other fields were employed to describe the functioning of AI technologies; (2) a rhetorical use of the future, imagining that present shortcomings and limitations will shortly be overcome; (3) the relevance of controversies around the claims of AI, which we argue should be considered as an integral part of the discourse surrounding the AI myth

Imagining the thinking machine: Technological myths and the rise of artificial intelligence

This article discusses the role of technological myths in the development of Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies from 1950s to the early 1970s. It shows how the rise of AI was accompanied by the construction of a powerful cultural myth: the creation of a thinking machine, which would be able to perfectly simulate the cognitive faculties of the human mind. Based on a content analysis of articles on Artificial Intelligence published in two magazines, the Scientific American and the New Scientist, which were aimed at a broad readership of scientists, engineers, and technologists, three dominant patterns in the construction of the AI myth are identified: (1) the recurrence of analogies and discursive shifts, by which ideas and concepts from other fields were employed to describe the functioning of AI technologies; (2) a rhetorical use of the future, imagining that present shortcomings and limitations will shortly be overcome; (3) the relevance of controversies around the claims of AI, which we argue should be considered as an integral part of the discourse surrounding the AI myth

Processing (Post)humanism, Mediating Desire: Technology in the Works of Three Border Playwrights

New electronic technology, such as personal video cameras, videotape players, and the internet, has increasingly sparked interest from Northern Mexican border authors across genres. In Juan Ríos’s Generación Atari, Francisco J. López´s Cibernauta: cómo vivir atrapado en la red, and Bárbara Colio’s Teoría y práctica de la muerte de una cucaracha (sin dolor) and La habitación, technological innovations play a key role in the development of the central emotional conflicts. The four dramatic works relate new technology to an increased social openness regarding more diverse expressions of sexuality, yet they also portray existing hierarchies, fraught relationships, and tragic events that signal the limits and interruptions involved in the technological mediation of desire. Rather than any wholesale condemnation or celebration of technology, these works pose human-machine relations as an open question to be shared with and pondered by the audience