Online.Communication..Linking.Technology,.Identity,.and.Cult 2005.-.

When someone says, “I’m going online,” where are they going? Early in the 21st century,
when so much of the globe is mapped and so much geography charted, is there
really a new place to be visited on the World Wide Web? We think so. Considering
online communication as a metaphorical journey involves adopting many of the same
words and images that we use in other excursions. We borrow ideas from our physical
interactions to make sense of communication through computer networks. Using the
Internet, we send mail, we visit libraries, we even surf. Yet these words alone limit our
understanding of online communication, so we must employ new ones. Uploading,
downloading, pinging, networking—these relatively new words hint at a new world of
human interaction that emerged with the popularization of the Internet. As you can
guess, hundreds of books promise to make sense of this new world. The problem is that
most of these books try to explore online communication as merely a site of new technologies.
Few attempt the synthesis of technology, identity, and culture that we feel
can place the Internet in human perspective. This book is our attempt to fill that void.