Social networks and Internet connectivity effects
By Caroline Haythornthwaite (Graduate School of Library and Information Science, University of Illinois)
ABSTRACT:
This paper explores the impact of communication media and the Internet on connectivity between people. Results from a series of social network studies of media use are used as background for exploration of these impacts. These studies explored the use of all available media among members of an academic research group and among distance learners. Asking about media use as well as about the strength of the tie between communicating pairs revealed that those more strongly tied used more media to communicate than weak ties, and that media use within groups conformed to a unidimensional scale, showing a configuration of different tiers of media use supporting social networks of different ties strengths. These results lead to a number of implications regarding media and Internet connectivity, including: how media use can be added to characteristics of social network ties; how introducing a medium can create latent tie connectivity among group members that provides the technical means for activating weak ties, and also how a change in a medium can disrupt existing weak tie networks; how the tiers of media use also suggest that certain media support different kinds of information flow; and the importance of organization-level decisions about what media to provide and promote. The paper concludes with a discussion of implications for Internet effects. 

The digital divide in Sydney : A sociospatial analysis
By Darren Holloway (Urban Frontiers Program, College of Arts, Education and Social Science, University of Western Sydney, Campbelltown Campus)
ABSTRACT:
In Australia, there has been limited research into the issue of the digital divide. Even less attention has been given to the social and spatial characteristics of this phenomenon, particularly within metropolitan areas. This paper attempts to fill this gap by examining the social and spatial characteristics of computer and Internet use in Sydney. The findings suggest that those individuals who are socially and economically disadvantaged have lower rates of computer and Internet use, and that these individuals also risk exacerbating their disadvantage status if these demand-side barriers are not addressed. If we are to address disparities in computer and Internet use in Australia we need to consider more fully the social and spatial nature of such disparities that prevent individuals from accessing such technologies in an increasingly 'wired' world. 

The military in the noosphere : ICT adoption and website development in the Slovenian Ministry of Defense 
By Darren Purcell (Department of Geography, University of Oklahoma)
ABSTRACT:
Websites are often used by governments to articulate particular views on international affairs, and even to lobby for a particular position. Using work by Arquilla and Ronfeldt (1999), Castells (2001) and Chadwick (2001) as a theoretical framework for understanding the importance that cyberspace holds for governments and states, the author analyzes the efforts of the Slovenian Ministry of Defense (MoD) to adopt the Internet to communicate with publics it defined as important. Through this website, the MoD literally served as a combatant in the noosphere, while displaying tendencies that Chadwick argues serves particular purposes in maintaining domestic political legitimacy. The analysis is based on a socio-semiotic approach (Hodge & Kress 1988) dependent on a well-developed understanding of the context within which signs and symbols exist. The paper outlines the role of the military in Slovenia, incorporates interview data with public relations staff in and then links these to a descriptive analysis of website content. The paper concludes that it is important for non-hegemonic states to actively contest cyberspace images in the noosphere, if only to serve the domestic public the state needs for legitimacy. Further directions in comparative work are proposed. 

ICT and institutional change at the British Library 
By Martin Harris (Department of Accounting, Finance and Management, University of Essex)
ABSTRACT:
The new information and communications technologies (ICTs) have stimulated a wide-ranging debate on the future of learning institutions in the age of the 'network society'. Recent academic commentary has tended to equate globalized information networks with commodification, the delocalization of learning, and threats to the public service traditions of higher education. This paper investigates the extensive programme of digitisation now under way at the British Library (BL), one of the world's largest knowledge providers and a key player in the UK research libraries network. The findings presented in the paper do not reflect the belief that the spread of global information networks will undermine the public service remit of large knowledge providers such as the BL – but the evidence does show that these providers are becoming more connected to other players in the digital environment, with inherently complex, and potentially far-reaching implications for the production of knowledge in the emergent 'network society'. 

Data protection legislation in the United Kingdom : From development to statute 1969–84 
By Adam Warren and James Dearnley
ABSTRACT:
This paper is primarily concerned with development of data protection legislation in the United Kingdom from the late 1960s through to the enactment of the 1984 Data Protection Act. Following a series of private members' bills calling for varying degrees of privacy legislation, the UK government commissioned two significant reports in the 1970s. The first, the Younger Report on Privacy (1972), established 10 principles for the handling of personal data that were to influence data protection statutes in Europe. The Lindop Report on Data Protection (1978) examined public- and private-sector computer systems, recommending a flexible legislative environment – with a set of broad principles guiding a data protection authority in its development of codes of practice aimed at various sectors of the economy. The far-reaching nature of those recommendations can now be appreciated in the work of the modern Information Commissioner's Office, 25 years after the publication of the Lindop Report. However, the momentum created by the two studies faded during the period 1979–82. Labour and Conservative governments respectively consulted further and objected to additional bureaucracy involved in creating a data protection authority. During this period of entropy, unpublished memoranda and correspondence demonstrated how former members of the Lindop Committee maintained the pressure on government, ensuring that their work was not forgotten. Eventually, overseas legislation and the need for the UK to maintain its position at the 'crossroads of the information highway' ensured that the UK, albeit grudgingly, enacted a Data Protection Act in 1984. By that time, the UK had lost the lead in defining data protection law and policy established by the Reports of Younger and Lindop. In highlighting findings from the Committees and efforts by dedicated individuals in lobbying successive governments in the late 1970s and early 1980s, the authors demonstrate the importance of preserving historical memory. 

The Internet and off-world power-flows
By David Lyon (Queen's University, Canada)
Abstract:
Surveillance, as the automatic electronic gleaning of personal data, has developed rapidly on the Internet, and the process is likely to intensify with the commercialization of such networked, computer-mediated communications. After placing this phenomenon in the context of already existing surveillance systems, some aspects of 'cyberspace surveillance' are examined. These include employment monitoring, policing and security, and marketing, the latter of which is the most generalized and the least perceptible to data subjects. 'Cookies' and 'spiders' are among the newer technical innovations mentioned, in relation to their social purposes. Possible explanatory frameworks are discussed, among which risk management, simulated surveillance, panopticism, and biopower are of particular importance.These may be used to question any mere theoretical preoccupation with discrete individuals, and readily identifiable organizations. It is argued, however, that such theoretical advances may often be complementary with, rather than exclusive of, those explanations that focus on questions of identity and personhood, or of difference and social division. How apparently 'off-world' powerflows in simulated surveillance situations actually reinforce real social inequalities, and the vulnerability of certain social groups to constraint or control, should be the focus of efforts to understand 'cyberspace surveillance'.

Preparing for Information-Age Conflict: Part One: Conceptual and Organizational Dimensions
By John Arqilla (US Naval Postgraduate School, USA) and David Ronfeldt (RAND, USA)
Abstract:
Prevailing hopes for the peace-enhancing tendencies of interconnectivity must be tempered by a realization that the information revolution augurs a new epoch of conflict, in which new modes of armed combat and social upheaval will emerge. We propose a four-part vision to prepare for this new epoch. This article spells out the first two parts - the conceptual and organizational (a second article will convey the doctrinal and strategic parts). In our vision, preparing for information-age conflict involves rethinking the very concept of 'information'. This is achieved by adding to the dominant view, that information is largely about 'information processing', a less-developed view that emphasizes the 'structuring' roles of information. In this latter view, embedded information is what enables a structure to hold its form; and this helps account for the successful functioning of all sorts of actors and systems, in peace as well as in war. The organizational dimension of our analysis holds that the information revolution favors the rise of the network form, in particular the all-channel network in which every node may communicate with every other. Transnational terrorist and criminal organizations in particular are gaining strength by resorting to new network designs. For state actors to cope with them, a key challenge is to develop hybrids of hierarchies and networks.

The Iron Cage of the Information Society
By Frank Webster (Oxford Brooks University, UK) and Kevin Robins (University of Newcastle, UK)
Abstract:
This paper offers an analysis and critique of recent thought about the 'information society'. It identifies two phases of futurism, the first a technological enthusiasm that characterised the early 1980s, the second, in the 1990s, which emphasises the transformative capacity of information itself. The second phase is examined at some length, focussing on the concepts of 'symbolic analysts' and 'informational labour' in the writing especially of Robert Reich and Manuel Castells.In current theory, information has been promoted to centre stage of economic affairs. A new intellectual agenda has been created, centring on features such as globalisation, the spread of networks, flexiblity, and the crucial role of educated labour. Three key aspects are identified: the death of communism and the triumph of capitalism, the re-emergence of meritocratic ideas, and the depiction of new class structures based on information. These are queried by empirical analysis of stratification trends and evidence from social history. Finally, it is argued that informational developments perpetuate processes of rationalisation and control, extending them to them in ways which might be seen as 'New Enclosures'.

Materializing Informatics: from Dataprocessing to Molecular Engineering
By Nigel Clark (University of Aukland, New Zealand)
Abtract:
Nanotechnology or molecular engineering is a hypothetical regime of technics based on the precision manipulation of atoms to form workable devices or useful structures. Its proponents suggest that 'nano' could extend the manipulability of digital information-processing to the material realm, raising the possibility that the 'information revolution' is only part of a far more encompassing set of technocultural transformations. Historical evidence of translation between systems of signification and modes of material transformation suggests that this prospect deserves serious consideration. Although the imperative of nanotech tends to be presented as one of extending control and design, it is argued that the self-replicating and possibly self-directing nature of 'intelligent' nanomachines raises the possibility of runaway dispersals. In this sense, nanotech may turn out to have more in common with autonomous digital entities - such as intelligent software agents, artificial life organisms or computer viruses - than with conventional data processing. It is suggested that the rise of autonomous, self-argumenting or 'autopoietic' machine systems - both digital and materialized - has radical implications for received notions of agency, perception and subjectivity in general. It also raises important questions about the desirability of democratizing access to the forthcoming technologies. The possibility of unregulated 'molecular hacking' has frightening implications, but so too does the prospect of the monpolization of nanotech developments by powerful social forces.

The World Wide Web of Surveillance: the Internet and off-world power-flows
By David Lyon (Queen's University, Canada)
Abstract:
Surveillance, as the automatic electronic gleaning of personal data, has developed rapidly on the Internet, and the process is likely to intensify with the commercialization of such networked, computer-mediated communications. After placing this phenomenon in the context of already existing surveillance systems, some aspects of 'cyberspace surveillance' are examined. These include employment monitoring, policing and security, and marketing, the latter of which is the most generalized and the least perceptible to data subjects. 'Cookies' and 'spiders' are among the newer technical innovations mentioned, in relation to their social purposes. Possible explanatory frameworks are discussed, among which risk management, simulated surveillance, panopticism, and biopower are of particular importance. These may be used to question any mere theoretical preoccupation with discrete individuals, and readily identifiable organizations. It is argued, however, that such theoretical advances may often be complementary with, rather than exclusive of, those explanations that focus on questions of identity and personhood, or of difference and social division. How apparently 'off-world' power-flows in simulated surveillance situations actually reinforce real social inequalities, and the vulnerability of certain social groups to constraint or control, should be the focus of efforts to understand 'cyberspace surveillance'.

Abstracts: Conference on Cultural Diversity in/and Cyberspace 

Keynote Address: "Digital Diversity and Multiculturalism in Cyberspace" - Ernest Wilson, Director 
Center for International Development and Conflict Management, University of Maryland 

In today's world there is growing global diversity in the international system, and growing cultural diversity here in the U.S., a phenomenon that I call 'double diversity' (i.e., diversity at home and abroad). This provides the context within which cyberspace is being constructed. What are the special challenges and opportunities that confront the United States in this context? (Asian Americans, Latinos and African Americans face special challenges and opportunities, which I take up in the talk. What are the political, institutional and cultural implications of the 'digitalization' of double diversity? 

"The Same Old Gender Plot? Women Academics' Identities on the Web" - Jill Arnold & Hugh Miller 
Department of Social Sciences, The Nottingham Trent University 

The World Wide Web has provided a new way for academics to find out about others' work and to present versions of their identity. In previous discussions we analysed how people present themselves in this new medium in terms of Goffman's ideas of the presentation of self, and commented on gender differences and on how issues of credibility and authority are handled by academics in their home pages. This paper reports discussions with women academics about how they have responded to this opportunity, both in how they use the Web to gain information and make contacts, how they present themselves in their own pages, and how they deal with the problems involved in presenting an individual identity within an institutional Web page framework. Women academics feel that the web has given them more freedom, and reduced some traditional gender and status differences (as has been found with other aspects of electronic communication), but they are still wary of it being "yet another way of carrying on the same old gender plot". In presenting themselves in personal home pages, many women academics feel a need to establish their credentials and entitlement to an academic identity. We suggest that women wish to own a gendered identity in order to challenge the assumed maleness of academic representation. However, they were ambivalent about the use of a self-photo on their home pages (most wanted to avoid it, but found it friendly and validating on other women's pages). This is an example of how the vulnerability of themselves as women remains part of their persona as academics. The findings are discussed in the context of Gergen & Gergen's idea of the 'intelligible self', and the way the World Wide Web allows women academics new possibilities for establishing and creating an identity acceptable to themselves. 

The Turing Game - A Participatory Exploration of Identity in Online Environments - Joshua Berman, Ph.D. Candidate, Amy Bruckman, Assistant Professor - College of Computing, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia 30332-0280 - Email:{berman,asb}@cc.gatech.edu 

Issues of personal identity affect how we relate to others. As online culture becomes an increasing part of everyday culture, it becomes more and more important for us to understand how it affects who we are. However, identity in the online world is still poorly understood by both the general public and the research community. At the Georgia Institute of Technology, we have created an online game to help us explore and teach about these issues. This environment, called The Turing Game, is available on the Internet, and has been played by more than 9000 users. Players from seventy-six countries on all seven continents have used the game to learn about issues of identity and diversity online through direct experience. 

The Importance of Understanding Identity In Online Environments 

Online communities are becoming an increasingly important part of how we as societies learn, work, and play. Educational initiatives such as Net Day (Benguerel, 2000) in the United States and Computers For Schools (Government of Canada, 2000) in Canada are connecting schools to the Internet in unprecedented numbers. Although many of the initial applications of the Internet in educational settings has been for information retrieval, there are now many projects for children and adult learners that involve participation in shared social spaces, connecting children to each other (Bruckman, 1999). In these cases, it is important to ask what these interactional spaces are like. Do gender, race, or other issues affect the way students learning them? There are researchers who believe that traditional classrooms are not gender-equitable, that is, male students are advantaged in these spaces (c.f. American Institutes for Research, 1998). Is the same true in online spaces? Is gender meaningful? The Turing Game hopes to help students, teachers and families understand and address these issues. 

In a similar way, we are increasingly using online communities as an important part of how we work and play. From telecommuting to company bulletin boards, employees are working, and being assessed online (Sproull, L. & Kiesler, S., 1991). How are these spaces situated in cultural landscapes? Do they reflect the cultures that a corporation or other entity already possesses? Do they alter the power structure with respect to proxemics such as race, age and beauty? The Turing Game might help employers and employees alike to understand these issues by directly experiencing them. 

Finally, with the explosive rise in popularity of networked multiplayer games (c.f. Gallagher, K. & Graves, M., 1996) it may be reasonable to expect that, for the generations growing up today, a certain part of personal growth will take place in these online spaces (Turkle, 1995). From dating to funerals, there are increasingly important social rituals being performed online. Often, in these most intimate of moments, trust is crucial. Can the Internet support this kind of trust when so much about identity appears to be fluid? Play and pure social interaction in online communities may also raise interesting issues of identity for participants. Therefore, we have also created the Turing Game for those who play, and grow, online. 

There are common questions in all of these cases. Do men and women behave differently online? Can you tell who is a man and who is a woman based on how they communicate and interact with others on the Internet? Can you tell how old someone is, or determine their race or national origin? In the online world as in the real world, these issues of personal identity affect how we relate to others. However, identity in the online world is still poorly understood -- both by the general public and by many online community designers. 

At the Georgia Institute of Technology, we have created a game to help us explore and teach about these issues. In this environment, which we call The Turing Game, a panel of users all pretends to be a member of some group, such as women. Some of the panelists, who are women, are trying to prove that fact to their audience. Others are men, trying to masquerade as women. An audience of both genders tries to discover whom the imposters are, by asking questions and analyzing the panel members' answers. Games can be about aspects of gender, race, or any other cultural marker of the users' choice. After each game is played, a complete log of the game is posted to the World Wide Web for reflection by the participants and others. The Turing Game was released on the Internet in July of 1999 as a free, downloadable application. It has attracted more than nine thousand users as of February 2000, from all seven continents. These users have played more than seventy types of games of their own design from race and gender to age and national origin. 

Are You a Black, Jewish, Gay, Brazilian Woman? - The Games of The Turing Game 

The game has been about whatever our users decide to make it about. By simply editing text files on their own computers, Turing Game participants can create games about any subject they would like. By looking at the popularity of different game types, and the special characteristics or difficulties of certain game types, we can learn interesting lessons about the state of cultural identity in online and other communities. The first two game types given to participants were about gender, but more than 95% of the remaining game types have been user-created, about other kinds of cultural categories. Table one shows most commonly played of these game types. 

Table One - Types of Games Played, By Popularity 

Game Type Percentage 
Gender 51% 
Age 16% 
Sexual Orientation 7% 
Geography 7% 
Honesty 6% 
Religion 4% 
Marital/Parental Status 2% 
Race 1% 
Other 6% 

However, as the table indicates, more than half of the games that people play are gender games. Gender games are most commonly written about in press accounts of the game, and gender is the topic most talked about on the Turing Game mailing lists. The simplest explanation is that gender was the first type of game provided, before users added their own types. However, there may be additional deeper reasons. People play gender games with both serious introspection and a spirit of fun. The games reflect the offline cultural understandings of many of the users. It is okay to explore issues of stereotypes about gender, to ask tough questions about the relationship between gender and discourse, or gender and personal beliefs. It is even acceptable, as play, to pass as another gender, in settings such as parties. This comfort in dealing with gender carries over and leads to games with exploration and communication, games that are popular with both new and veteran users. In contrast, the games about race have been largely unsuccessful. Users are much less comfortable with pretending to be a member of another race, and they are uncomfortable even admitting to the stereotypes they may have about race. Even when enough users are willing to try one of these games, the game itself often lacks discussion, and thus opportunities for reflection and exploration. Questions often stay with the mundane and unemotional, and participants rarely try this game twice. In this way, the Turing Game reflects, and can potentially give us insight into, our societal norms. 

Other games have similar implications about the online and offline cultural groups that they represent. Users are often surprised by types of games that are fun, and the types of games that make them think the hardest. With more than 70 types of games created so far, there are still new games appearing every week. 

Conclusion - A Tool for Understanding

It is clear that online communities are becoming an increasingly important part of how we learn, work and play. Issues of identity, then, in those communities, will continue to grow in importance. The Turing Game is a tool to help people explore this poorly understood area through direct, personal experience. 

Citations 

American Institutes for Research (1998) Gender Gaps: Where Schools Still Fail Our Children. Foundation Report. Washington, DC, American Association of University Women Educational Foundation. 
Benguerel, Jason (2000) }Net Day [Website] The Net Day Corporation. Available from: [Accessed 8 February, 2000]
Bruckman, Amy S. (1999) The Day After Net Day: Approaches to Educational Use of The Internet. Convergence. 5:1, Spring, pp.24-26
Gallagher, Kevin M. and Graves, Michael (1996) Electronic Gaming: The Dawn of a New Reality in Forrest, Edward J. (Ed.) Issues in Interactive Communication [Website] Florida State University. Available from: [Accessed 14 February, 2000]
Government of Canada (2000) Computers for Schools - Programme des Ordinateurs Pour les Ecoles [Website] Government of Canada. Available from: [Accessed 8 February, 2000]
Sproull, Lee and Kiesler, Sara (1991) Connections: New Ways of Working in the Networked Organization. Boston, MIT Press.
Turkle, Sherry (1995) Life on The Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet. New York, Touchstone. 

Cyberspace and Youth Cultural Styles - Brad Warren, M.A. (Dip. Ed.). - Deakin University, Australia 

Youth styles, especially spectacular subcultural styles such as Punk, Goth, Raver and so on, have been dramatically revitalised and reconfigured as a result of their ongoing development and promulgation over the internet. 

In the latter half of the 1970s, "Spectacular Subcultures" were theorised by the Birmingham Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies (CCCS) to be organised reactions to very specific socio-political conditions. Now, twenty years later, many of the subcultural forms studied by the CCCS still exist (although often in increasingly diversified and hybrid forms), not least because of their appearance on the 'net, in dedicated chat rooms, as parts of personal websites, and as parts of the "official " websites maintained by bands whose music has attracted a subcultural following. 

Today, the relationship between subcultural participants and their styles is markedly different from what it once was. In many cases, subcultural styles have either outlived or moved beyond the socio-political conditions of their original emergence, thus the semiotic relationships between styles and what they originally signified have become severed, to the point where stylistic subcultural ensembles now hang in space - in cyberspace - and can be selected, mixed-and-matched and adapted by each new subcultural affiliate to his or her own ends. That is to say, today, an inversion has occurred whereby styles now assume primacy; they are collections of signifiers without firm signifieds, readily available over the internet for all to pursue and to manipulate and thus facilitate their own meanings.
Originally, theorists of subculture placed an emphasis on "resistance " and rebellion. Today, while such themes may still be important in a great many cases, I would like to shift that emphasis and stress the importance of subcultural identity construction, using tools and contexts available in cyberspace (there are many recent publications that prove useful in this regard - cf.: Wallace: The Psychology of the Internet (1999); Gordon: The Internet: A Philosophical Enquiry (1999). 

The emphases of my paper will be threefold: 

1. An introductory ethnographic analysis of contemporary youth subcultures, with particular attention paid to where they may be found in cyberspace; 

2. A comparison of "cyber-versions" of subcultures with their more "earthbound" equivalents. It is interesting to note how the internet has aided the perpetuation of many (sub)cultural forms that originally had no connection with cyberspace whatsoever. Some time will be spent examining cross-referencing between cyberspace and "real " space; take, for example, the widespread promotion of websites in earlier media forms with already recognised positions as parts of subcultural milieu, such as niche magazines, fanzines and CD covers. I maintain that these inter-relationships are mutually beneficial, resulting in a symbiosis between the cyber- and the "real" that enriches both.
Further, the uses and limitations of the `net in the perpetuation of subcultures are, to a large extent, dictated by individuals' access to technology. Reconfigurations of subcultures' socio-economic makeups are also occurring as a result of their promulgation over the internet. This issue is of particular interest given that the original, CCCS theorisations of subcultures stated that they were all decidedly working-class forms. There is now considerable evidence to the contrary, not least the existence of youth subculture on the internet at all, given the obvious correlations between technological have-nots and financial have-nots. (The extent and nature of the gap between technological information "haves" and "have nots " is addressed in detail in Everard's Virtual States (2000)); 

3. Because of the relative anonymity of cyberspace (see, again, Wallace's The Psychology of the Internet), it provides hitherto unavailable opportunities for people interested in subcultural participation to test various subcultural identities without firm commitment. Examples of internet sites where such "tests" might be conducted will be provided, along with discussion of the tests\rquote relative validities (for example: how easily are "real " Ravers distinguishable from "cyber-only " Ravers in a chat room?; and how much can "chat-room Raving" really help a potential Raver develop their chosen subcultural identity?).
It is hoped that this paper will facilitate, not only a greater understanding of the potentials held out by the internet to youth subcultures, but also a heightened awareness of the fruitful and (I would argue) essential cultural interactions between the cyber- and the "real ". 

Online Bonds and Offline Boundaries: Teens and discussions of difference - Lynn Schofield Clark, Post-Doctoral Fellow and Research Associate - Center for Mass Media Research, University of Colorado 

Analyzing data from focus groups and in-depth interviews with African American and Euro-American teens who have participated in Internet teen chat rooms, this paper examines how teens talk about diversity and difference in their social circles, and how they discuss what happens when they meet other young people online. While I detail some of what I believe are the advantages of my methodology, the paper also explores some of the conundrums of conducting offline qualitative research about online practices. In particular, I consider the constraints on conversations of difference in light of both the public scripts of tolerance and the ways in which the researcher is interpreted by the research participant in interview situations. 

The Digital Voice of Black Germany: Opportunities and Dangers of an Online Discussion on Afro-German Identity - Isabell Cserno - Department of American Studies, University of Maryland 

German discourse on race and ethnicity, both in the past and in the present, failed to develop usable theoretical frameworks for the Black German community. This paper attempts to frame a developing discourse on German racial identity that is taking place on the listserv of the Black German Cultural Society. Due to the lack of race as a central category in German identity, and because of the cultural and historical connotations of the German word ‘Rasse' (race), namely its association with the mass murder of over six million Jewish people, the American discourse of racial identity will be applied to the Afro-German cultural and historical context in order to frame Black German identity with theoretical concepts that allow Afro-Germans to express their distinct identity both as blacks and Germans. 

The paper will focus on the hazards as well as opportunities of the Internet and its electronic discussion lists for the fruitful discussion of identity for the Black German community. The majority of the discussion on this listserv is in English, largely because many of the participants currently reside in the United States or because English is one of their mother tongues since some of their parents are African American. Issues such as American cultural imperialism regarding a discourse on blackness as well as the dominance of the English language in discussions about racial identity both on- and offline, especially in the context of Black Diaspora Studies, will be addressed in this paper. Cultural diversity in cyberspace will be addressed through an analysis of the complex relations between the dominance of English and Anglo-American discourses and discussion on racial identities outside the English speaking world. 

Building a Cyber Center with Community Art - Chris Drew - Uptown Multi-Cultural Art Center, Chicago 

This interactive presentation will invite the audience to participate in building a "Cyber Center" devoted to diversity using an offline contribution form (see samples enclosed). I will offer practical insights to on-line community building activities, explaining our use of on-line volunteers and methods of including those not yet on-line. I will share insights gleaned from building our site. 

A "Cyber Center" is a website that is able through its content to attract a new audience to a growing community and to sort and present the many related websites of its extended community to its growing membership in an entertaining and useful manner. It is a hub for a targeted audience and the sites seeking their traffic. It creates opportunities for discourse and meeting similar to the BBS of the eighties but on a global scale using graphics as well as text. 

Any community growing around a topical area will likely find a number of such sites actively promoting the community's growth. We are positioning the website of the Uptown Multi-Cultural Art Center as a "Cyber Center" for a "Community of Diversity" on the Internet. Our presentation will explain how we are accomplishing the foundation for this endeavor on a shoestring budget. 

ART-ACT, our Anti-Racist T-shirt Art Contest Tour, is an international art contest seeking graphic black & white images on the theme of pro-diversity/anti-racist reflections. It is an outgrowth of our summer-long annual "Art of the T-shirt " exhibit series shown in Chicago public libraries for ten years and our seven year old "Screen Print Workshop for Artists " program. ART-ACT is the focus of our on-line community building effort. Our need to build the involvement of artists and our audience not yet on-line encourages us to create interactive opportunities that include artists and the public who are as yet untouched by the Internet. Through the interaction that results - this on-going activity has the potential to attract global interest and new audiences to our topic area promoting the activity and information on other related sites. 

ART-ACT is a series of web pages presenting art work by artists submitting to our theme contest. Artists may submit on-line or off-line. Below each featured art work on-line are three opportunities for the public to help build our content. First - you - the public - may write comments on the issues presented in the art work, building over time a discussion around each work. Second, links to articles or essays related to the issues reflected in the art are solicited for listing below the art. Third, space is provided to list related websites. Below all this is a final link to a page of links providing solutions to hatred for those who wish to create change. 

ART-ACT and the website segment it is building will continue beyond the length of this contest. We intend to seek funding to repeat this contest and to continue to show previously submitted work by artists with their blessings. As the body of art builds around our themes of Diversity and Anti-Racism, our networked community and traffic will also grow. We intend to continue to seek out ways to publish the opinions and to involve those off-line as well as those on-line. 

Through our interactive forms we will invite those attending our presentation and the conference to contribute. We hope this activity will help in bridging the digital divide and to building a stronger Community of Diversity on the World Wide Web. Our initial results and future plans will be included in this presentation. 

Keynote Address: Transnational Digital Subjects: Constructs of identity and ignorance in a Digital Economy - 
Radhika Gajjala - Bowling Green State University 

What do terms like "Race" and "Gender," "Ethnicity," "Nationality" and "Geographic location" mean in the context of cyberspace/cyberculture? If, as the famous New Yorker cartoon says, "on the Internet no one knows you're a dog," why bother with theories of culture and difference when discussing computer-mediated-communication? One of my co-travelers in cyberspace has the following signature file attached to his email messages: 

New Yorker Cartoon (Internet Savvy Dog):
"On the Internet, no one knows that you're a dog."
Art McGee (Internet Ignorant Dog added to cartoon):
"What's wrong with being a dog? " 

This signature file questions the need for us to disguise who we are. Indeed, why should it be assumed that it is wonderful for "dogs" - women, colored people, and people on the periphery of the westernized logics of consumerism - to be able hide who they are and to be able to disguise their gender, race and culture in favor of passing as white? 

Transnational/travelling subjects at the present time in history come into being at the intersection of traveling analogue and digital contexts within what has come to be termed as the Digital Economy. Constructs of identity and ignorance occur within a discursive framing of the Internet and digital technologies that allows the ‘unconnected' in the present to be negatively equated with the ‘illiterate' of the past" (Warnick 5). Furthermore, "silence" online as well as the inability to coherently articulate self-identity within discursively and socially available categories and subject positions, while adhering to the prevailing dictates of "nettiquette" within online contexts could construct even the "connected" as "ignorant" or marginally connected. The Internet is situated within an Anglo-American hegemony which emphasizes the importance of modern Science and Technology for individual empowerment and privileges the discursive production of "whiteness" as a mode of assimilation/equality. In addition, mainstream discourses (for example, see Negroponte and Tapscott) that surround the use of technology are immersed in Utopian narratives, rooted in Enlightenment narratives of Progress, which are also implicit in notions of "Development" and "Underdevelopment" that divide the world into spatial hierarchies of the "developed North" as opposed to the "underdeveloped South." These mainstream celebratory discourses regarding technology are immersed in a technological imaginary (Robbins, 1995) that which is an "intoxication" with the notion that technology will deliver us from the imperfections of our present world. 

In a climate where technology service industries such as those that recruit and "traffic" in immigrant programmers (outsourcing, offshoring etc) are becoming increasingly crucial to the functioning of a "Global" digital economy, what are the socio-economic and cultural contradictions in relation to race, class and gender, that emerge? The Digital Economy operates against an optimistic (euphoric) backdrop. Objectives of the architects of Digital Capitalism are "to develop an economy wide network that can support an ever-growing range of intracorporate and intercorporate business processes." (Dan Schiller, 1999) Various transnational issues occur at the intersection of configurations of power that emerge out of Digital Capitalism and transnational labor flow. I ask - what might be dominant socio-cultural patterns and directions embedded in Digital Capitalism. Will the implicit structuring of digital finance and e-commerce allow for any kind of empowering or even "subversive" uses of technology as is being claimed by various technophiliacs around the world? This project examines digital communication at the intersection of various existing theoretical frameworks, namely "global," "transnational," "international," "development," "subaltern studies," "feminist" and "postcolonial" approaches. 

The Construction of Gender and Race in a Massive Multiplayer On-Line Role Playing Game - Mindy Miron Basi, Ph.D. - University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 

The increasing popularity of games played online in real time by thousands of computer users has brought the construction of gender roles by the players into sharp focus. The elements of these games, as conceived by game authors, programmers, and artists present players with conflicting values and perceived gender roles. The addition of various character races, aligned evil and good, add another dimension of interaction. The freedom allowed in game play, as a function of the game as well as the construction of player-characters by on-line users finds the environment of such gameplay rich in examples of how gender and race are considered and constructed. Through an avatar of a moving cartoon-like characters, virtual bodies express notions of Western masculine and feminine behavior in group interactions. 

The game Everquest, an example of such a massive multiplayer role playing game (MMRPG), is the focus of my study of gender roles and construction in this medium. The game's parent company, Sony Corporation, claims that Everquest has a subscriber base of 50,000 individuals and there can be as man y as 12,000 people on line at any given time playing this game in real time. Players interact with one another on chat screens as they play the game, the goal of which is to gain levels of "experience" and obtain in-game money and items. The game is constructed to have both male and female characters of a number of fantasy races, which include good and evil elves, humans, trolls. Ogres, Erudites (a race of African-American appearing humans), Halflings (adopted from Tolkien's fantasy fiction), dwarfs, and gnomes. Female characters in the game are drawn with very obvious female characteristics: large breasts, tiny waists, and protruding buttocks. They are dressed as a basic character in bikini outfits or harem-type clothing (as Barbara Eden wore in I Dream of Jeannie). Male characters are drawn with bulging muscles if they are in human form, and wear a significant amount of more clothing than the basic female characters. Both male and female drawings both as three dimensional characters and the art on the display box are obviously meant to evoke sexual imagery. Players can choose to play either a male or female character. Despite the obvious gender differences, the characters are designed to have no differences in game play-playing abilities are the same for either. Once players create a character as a virtual body in cyberspace and give it a personal name and identity, players give the character their own the notions of male and female behavior. 

The issues that arise from individuals who play the game through their characters, as virtual bodies in space, is what makes the study of on-line gaming so fascinating. Computer mediated communication highlights the dimensions of anonymity, distance, and the breakdown of age barriers. As the interaction s between players unfold, the expectation of gender roles, both male and female, come sharply into play. Women characters may be discriminated against as being less than good fighters; sexist language is rampant, often placing women in traditional roles of ‘eyecandy' rather than equal partners in play; sexual harassment and even virtual rape is not uncommon. Players are anonymous and it is not possible to tell the age or gender of players during gameplay; however, the treatment of women characters reflects many of the gender roles that occur outside of the virtual world. The designers of Everquest made an attempt to create a virtual world that was not encumbered with male and female differences; the players have taken that world and shaped it into a reflection of their own attitudes toward gender and the roles of men and women in a society. It is both chilling and enlightening to see how players from all over the world establish a society where gender roles and characteristics are aligned with those espoused in traditional Western culture. This paper explores some of the interactions in the virtual environment of Everquest, using qualitative methods of observation and interviews with players. I explore gender roles and the explication of gender in game play, with attention to the roles male and female characters adopt as they animate the virtual bodies of their characters. My paper will include general demographics of game players, on-line interactions, and an analysis of the construction of gender in the world of Everquest. 

Virtually Belonging: Risk, Connectivity and Coming Out On-line - E. H Bassett and K. O'Riordan - University of Brighton 

This joint paper will look at the construction of identity in an online community formulated through sexual difference. Cyberspatial communities have many components and constitute varying levels of community. This paper will examine a self defined, lesbian community, which collates home pages, provides chat forums and presents information and entertainment specifically for groups defined through sexual difference. The focus of this study will be on the construction and performance of identity in relation to coming out on-line. 

Coming out is a central narrative to lesbian identity. In considering the implications of coming out in an on-line community issues of private and public space are central. Coming out on-line can be seen as both an alternative to and augmentation of, coming out off-line. The paper will question whether on-line communities sustain performative utterances. For instance in what ways are statements of sexual identity in on-line and off-line sites equivalent? The concepts of both performative and descriptive utterances will inform this analysis. 

In order to address how sexualised bodies emerge in virtual spaces an analysis of how users present themselves on-line will be made. The signifiers used, perceived levels of acceptance and rejection, and the construction of boundaries will be considered. In this analysis the production, fostering and performance of community on-line will be viewed through the themes of risk and connectivity. 

The Post-Gender Identities as a Metaphor: Gender Construction in the Cyberspace - Jasna Koteska - Central European University, Budapest, Hungary 

The post-gender identities is a term taken from the "classical" work of Donna J. Haraway, The Manifesto for the Cyborgs, 1991, about the late twentieth century identites as a recognition of the world without gender. (p. 150) The construction of gender in the Cyberspace and the resulting identities we are going to investigate, are taken from the following Philip K. Dick's novels: Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?, 1968; The Simulacra, 1964; Dr. Bloodmoney, or How We Got Along After Bomb, 1965; Ubik, 1969; Galactic Pot-Healer, 1969; and The Man Whose Teeth Were Exactly Alike, 1984. 

The cyborgs, hybrids, chimeras, androids and other identites that are apearing in the Philp Dick's novels invoke the nature/culture reduction, and the body/machine polarity; Deckard, the main character from "Blade Runner", movie based on the Philip K. Dick: Do the Androids Dream about the Electric Sheeps? says: "She didn't know that she is a replicant", meaning that the self-reflection is bluring human/animal/machine boundaries; but also male/female polarity is in the question. During the test Rachel argues: "Are you trying to find out if I am a replicant, or a lesbian?" Philip K. Dick's identities are body texts, codes, and you can no longer say who is a man and who is a machine; or who is male or female. It leads to the new distribution of power, and is not only dependant on "the myth of original uniity"(p. 151, Harraway), but it goes the step beyond the myth, because the concept of the cyberspace includes the ultimately liberating concept that rejects (gender) supposedly masculine iconography. 

The few questions we will try to answer during the work will be: In what way the notions of cyborgs and coded text are represented, without the notion of the "other" or even the gender itself? Why will the Para-Olympic games be more important in the future? What is the role of the modern medical technology? Is biotechnology a metaphor in the Philip Dick's work, or is it becoming a reality? Can a human being produce the object of knowledge that will reduce the line between the humans and machines? Why is it that every step beyond this boundary actually represents a search for a common language? 

The following theoretical literature will be used: Donna J. Haraway, Simians, Cyborgs and Women and Primate Vision; La Mettrie: Man a Machine; Gilbert Herdt, Third Sex, Third Gender; G. Deleuze/F.Guattari: A Thousand Plateaus; J. F. Lyotard, The Inhuman; Leslie C. Jones, Transgressive Femininity: Art and Gender in the Sixties and Seventies; Martine Rothblatt, Apartheid of Sex, and A Manifesto on the Freedom of Gender; K. Bornstein, On Man, Women, and the Rest of Us; Kessler L. The Medical Construction of Gender. 

Surfing in Public: Race, Public Access, and the Internet Experience - Elizabeth Tunstall - Sapient Corporation 

This paper addresses the relationship between the public access of the Internet for many blacks, Hispanics. and Native Americans in Chicago s Lakeview Area and their experiences of the Internet content. While Asians/Pacific Islanders and Whites have relatively greater access at to the Internet at home Native Americans, Blacks, and Hispanics [as those who have relatively lower incomes, education levels, and/or levels of employment] tend to access the Internet at public facilities, such as schools and libraries. Do the public nature of their surfing' the 30 minutes time constraints, and class differentiation affect their experience of Internet sites? These groups are said to engage in online activities that can result in their economic advancement, such as taking educational courses, engaging in school research, or conducting job searches, but how do they surf entertainment sites. Looking at Internet users at Chicago public libraries, I examine both the sites lower income and education Native Americans, Blacks. and Hispanics surf on the Internet and how they "experience" the content of sites. I argue that they experience these sites differently due to the public nature of their surfing and the bourgeoisie content of most of these sites. 

"'Black like virtual me': student reactions to online cultural diversity" - Nicolas Proctor - Simpson College 

During the fall of 1999, two of my sections of the first half of the American History survey used the web to role-play people of various ethnic backgrounds. This was as part of a web-based historical simulation that was an extension of my interest in having students write about various historical issues from the "historical first person." This simulation took this approach one step further by assigning students various multicultural roles and allowing them to interact with one another in a historical context throughout the course of the semester. (The site is available at: www.simpson.edu/~proctorn/croatan). 

The simulation began in the late 17th century. At the outset, I assigned each student a family; they were then responsible for making key decisions for that family (where to live, how to eat, how to participate in politics, etc.). When they made these decisions they needed to consider factors like race, gender, property, location, and family composition. They took these actions in the context of historical developments like the development of the market, the American Revolution, and industrialization, which, they soon realized, looked quite different depending on your position in society. 

The reactions of my students to this imposition of "virtual cultural diversity" were quite varied. For the most part, they expected the class to be a survey of great accomplishments by great white men. A few were taken aback when confronted with the challenges of taking the role of an enslaved Ibo woman or a family of Senecas. At first, some students were paralyzed by the exoticism of their families. One student admitted. "I can't think of any black women before Rosa Parks." Another asked, "What can I do as an Indian, die?" 

While some students expressed their frustration, others pitched into the project with gusto and began researching subjects as varied as Seneca burial customs, the internal economy of slavery and African drum communications. Later in the semester, several families of (virtual) African decent attempted to coordinate a slave uprising. The brutal suppression that followed came down hard on several African-American families who knew nothing of the conspiracy. Their outrage in the classroom -- "why are we being punished just because we are black?" -- brought the injustice of slavery and racism home with dramatic force that ordinary lectures, class discussions, and readings rarely equal. Interestingly, the students playing these particular families were all white. 

I would like to present a paper that describes the project and the experiences of my students. Several of the themes of your conference instantly suggest themselves, but two, the construction of race in cyberspace and teaching issues of diversity in cyberspace, seem like perfect fits. Presenting a paper at this conference would be particularly rewarding since it would offer an opportunity tor informed discussion about these issues. Other scholars would undoubtedly have valuable suggestions for how I might improve the simulation for future use. 

The Revolution Will (Probably) Not Be Digitized: An Overview and Analysis of MP3 and the Recording lndustry - Vincent Stephens - University of Maryland at College Park 

Between the fall of 1998 through the present, various popular media publications have reported on the MP3 technology and an assortment of issues related to the technology. Most of the articles about MP3 focus on one or several selected topics including defining the technology technically, describing its practical usage for consumers and assessing the current and potential controversies MP3 has generated among record companies, recording artists and MP3 users. The purpose of this paper is to give an overview of the technology and its related controversies, including high profile court cases and record industry responses. This paper also introduces several issues relevant to the integration of MP3 including the recording industry's historic relationship with recording technology and consumers and the "real world" impact this technology will have in how the public listens to music and accesses developing Internet-related technologies with a particular focus on the "digital divide." 

Encoding/Decoding Cyberspace: Towards a Theoretical Framework for Exploring Cultural Diversity In and Out of the Net - David Silver - Department of American Studies, University of Maryland 

During the better half of the last decade, the majority of scholarship in the interdisciplinary field of cyberculture has taken two major approaches. The first attempts to situate cyberspace within its proper historical and cultural context, focusing especially on the economic and institutional considerations of the development and subsequent flourishing of cyberspace. The second examines the digital domain as an already existing site of interaction, exploring the ways in which users communicate with one another, from communities of shared interests, and experiment with online identities. Significantly, not to mention surprisingly, the two approaches are seldom brought together. 

This presentation offers a theoretical framework with which to explore cultural diversity and/on the Internet. Building off of Stuart Hall's Encoding-Decoding model, this presentation suggests that cyberspace is best understood within a number of instances, including an online environments' moment of inception, subsequent design, and application by users. Framing my discussion within the study of two such environments the - Blacksburg Electronic Village and the Seattle Community Network - I hope to reveal the relevance and utility of Hall's model. In particular, I wish to argue that the potential for and limitations to cultural diversity within the BEV and the SCN is informed significantly by the ways in which the respective networks were developed, designed, and implemented.