What are Cyberstudies?

This question must be addressed before this blog can discuss the issues mentioned in the first article. Cyberstudies are more than the casual observation of the Internet and other similar modes of telecommunication. It must be conducted with the passion of academic interest, the zeal of discovering connections and applied to the strict methodology of research. Steve Jones described in Virtual Culture (2002) that cyberstudies was the discussion of the discussion of “the communal, the social relationships…via the Internet and CMC” (9) and “its bias toward time, and not space, thought the Internet’s principal and popular definition is as a ‘cyberspace’.” (12, original emphasis included)

Most importantly, it is the observation of recording of the shockwaves created in the banded sea of the mediated public sphere. If one were to subscribe to the superstring theory of communication, then the smaller remark in an obscure cyberjournal can impact the broader cybercommunity and the unconnected outside world. The cybersociety creates, according to Christine Hine’s Virtual Ethnography, social formations through the polymorphic environment of the Internet, WAPweb or other interconnective methods of CMC. Interest and not spatial requirements create the non-traditional groupings can take “shared social experiences” of the group for analysis, discussion or exhibition. 

Cyberstudies should not be forced to limit itself in the cold confines of the server rooms or the vacuum of the chat rooms. The research can be conducted through the new connection points of the net (e.g., Web-Accessible Phones) and the new technologies that allow for greater access to the masses. This access calls for educated “future sight” not simply a game of “cheat the prophet” as discussed by GK Chesterton that keeps “the masses dark.” One should account for the trends of technology and patterns of social acceptance to newer information.