Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
notion manifested in her famous use (but not invention) of the term ''cyborgs''
(cybernetic organisms), complex articulations of tissue and technologies that
seamlessly integrate humans and machine. Similarly, Graham and Marvin (
1996
,
p. 107) note that ''Humans and machines (have) become fused in ways that make
the old separations between technology and society, the real and the simulated,
meaningless.'' Such a trope problematizes dominant conceptions of ''nature'' as
non-mechanical. In relying on telemediated networks so heavily, mobile phone
and internet users become part of a cybernetic system in which humans and non-
humans co-constitute one another, a theme dear to the hearts of actor-network
theorists.
Deibert (
1997
, p. 182) holds that ''the postmodern view of the self 'fits' the
hypermedia environment—ways that suggest it might resonate strongly as that
environment deepens and expands.'' He cites in particular increasingly blurry
notions of authorship and intellectual property rights on the internet. Rather than
being passive consumers of information, the internet has allowed many people to
become active producers, or in Ritzer and Jurgenson's (
2010
) term, ''prosumers''
or what Bruns (
2008
) calls ''produsage.'' Web 2.0 technologies facilitate the
creation of websites that allow instantaneous user interactions, such as blogs. The
interactive websites characteristic of Web 2.0 allow users upload locations into
online content and apply their data in diverse ways fostered an unprecedented
democratization of geographic knowledge, often with roots far removed from
academic experts, users can create share and use information via ''crowd sourc-
ing,'' which allows large, widely distributed groups to work together toward a
common goal. Web 2.0 media have enabled large numbers of people to pick and
choose those sources of information that mesh conveniently with their ideological
presuppositions. There are obviously both advantages and disadvantages to this
approach. It is not always the case that the ''wisdom of the crowd'' is superior to
that of a few experienced individuals; by utilizing data that only confirm their
beliefs, users may never be confronted with disturbing or contradictory sources of
information.
The networked self is much more public and much less private than the
autonomous human subject who lies at the core of most traditional thought in the
social sciences. Clearly mobile phones and social media are blurring the bound-
aries between public and private life. Who has not overheard a private conver-
sation via cell phone in a public space? Increasingly, networked selves are
performed in public, to borrow Butler's (
1990
) famous terminology. In this con-
text, the virtual self becomes an integral part of one's public image, or, to use an
older terminology, what Goffman (
1959
), using a dramaturgical model, called each
person's ''front stage.'' As Katz and Aakhus (
2002
) make clear, cell phone usage
often involves public displays of performance. Similarly, given the propensity of
many young people to post every detail of their private lives on the web, social
media constitute a form of panopticon, facilitating self-policing of internal worlds
in conformity with the aesthetics of the internet. Through constant status updates
on Facebook, for example, the public self is carefully edited and micro-managed.
Social networks point to a changing sense of privacy, one in which the personal is
