Digital Borderlands: Cultural Studies of Identity and Interactivity on the Internet

  • Bury R
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Abstract

Johan Fornas and his team deftly synthesize and theorize a range of concepts associated with "digital borderlands." They reject the terms "new" or "digital" media, which suggest a demarcation from older/other forms of media in favour of a framework that acknowledges complexity and continuity. "Borderland" carries with it a sense of not only a free space produced between two established categories but also ones of struggle and overlap (p. 2). This approach allows them to dismantle the problematic binary logic ("either/or"; "good/bad"; "real/virtual") that pervaded discussions of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in the mid 1990s. Rather than heralding a "second media age," for instance, Fornas et. al. speak of "the blurred distinction... between mass media and interpersonal media" (p. 25, emphasis in the original). Much of this critical work has been done already, but the broad scope of the discussion--digitality, Internet arenas, productive reception, hypertext, interactivity, and virtuality are but a few subjects--make it of particular value to non-specialist communications scholars, graduate students, and upper-level undergraduates. The "borderlands" of the field of study--cultural/communication/media/Internet--not just the object of study, are addressed as well. Even for those scholars who read and write in this area, the opening chapter is interesting because the authors do not simply deconstruct dichotomies but consider them "liminal case[s] of a much more complex continuum" (p. 26). They argue that cybercultural studies can work "retroactively," renewing an interest in, for example the telephone as an interactive technology. They also do some retroactive work, linking virtuality to art and "human culture from its very beginning" (p. 30).

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APA

Bury, R. (2004). Digital Borderlands: Cultural Studies of Identity and Interactivity on the Internet. Canadian Journal of Communication, 29(2), 227–228. https://doi.org/10.22230/cjc.2004v29n2a1440

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