1. Web Studies Parts I & II Spring 2002

2. Web Studies Parts I & II  Cyberculture Studies  Web Research Methodologies  Presentation of Self Home Pages Fan communities Artists Webcams  Web and Movies  Web and Free Speech

3. Cyberculture Studies  Popular Cyberculture  Cyberculture Studies  Critical Cyberculture Studies

4. Popular Cyberculture  Description  Binary Cool Bane  Frontier Metaphor

5. Cyberculture Studies  Redefinitions  Community  “Space” becomes problematic  Focus on interaction  Online identity

6. Critical Cyberculture Studies  Online Social, cultural, and economic interactions  Focus on “narratives” used to tell about online life  Analyze what keeps some people out of the loop  Question technological decisions in face of human interactions  Contexualization of cyberspace

7. Types of Methods  Discourse Analysis Analyze web text  Ethnography  Surveys  Hypertext Analysis

8. Discourse Analysis  Six Characteristics Intertextual (links) Not linear Reader as author by link selection Multimedia text Global Impermanent in nature

9. Methodological Concepualizations  Web page as cultural representation  Web a technical network of human networks BBS, Newgroups  Web as offline research topic Tied to what happens in the world of which it is a part  How web is defined will determine how we study it

10. Self Presentation: Home Pages  Home Pages Real self Presented self Censored self Self an author is capable of presenting

11. Self Presentation: Fan Communities  Fans create an alternative social world  Fans create cultural artifacts  Fans create “meta-texts” about the icons they adore  Fans “intervene” into cultural texts

12. Fan Communities Manifested  Home Pages  Webrings  Newsgroups/Bulletin Boards  Newsletters  Zines

13. Self Presentation: Artists  Web is a no quality control venue for artists  Art is inherently self-referential  Web allows artists to express themselves with no censor but with an audience (or at least a potential audience)

14. Self Presentation: Webcam  Self as movie star on the Web  Do it as a hobby  Do it as an expression of self  Do it for money Usually involves X-rated stuff

15. Self Presentation: Online meets Offline  Queer Study Homosexual can “out” online easier than offline Web identity slops over into “real” world identy Confidence gained on the web via chats and newsgroups

16. Web and Movies  Movies promoted on the Web  Movies viewed on the Web  Audience able to comment on movies on the Web in a free form  No longer at the mercy of “professional” critics

17. Free Speech  Rating Teachers  Ranting Teachers  Free Speech Wins Out in the End Teachers caved in on Law Suit