DIGITAL CULTURES & DIGITIZED LIVES
This site is dedicated to the analysis of digital cultures, or cybercultures -- the social relationships that occur in the realm of new media like the Internet, video games, smartphones and other high tech tools. Few doubt that new digital media are rapidly changing many aspects of the political, social, economic and cultural lives of millions of people around the world. But what those changes are and what their long-term impact will be are open questions. Digital culture studies asks how new technologies reflect the wider social world offline, how they create new cultural interactions, and how those new interactions in turn reshape the real (non-virtual) world. Part of that work is showing that the distinction between life online and life offline, or virtual and real life is a false dichotomy; the two are now deeply intertwined for over 3 billion digital culture participants on the planet.
"Darth Vader Skywalker Hellwalker" by Elisa Insua
This site also serves as the web companion to the book, Digitized Lives: Culture, Power and Social Change in the Internet Era. The book provides a critical overview of the effects and affects of digital technology on virtually every aspect of contemporary life. The site provides additional information and links treating all of the topics covered in the book -- including the impact of digital technology on sexuality, identity, surveillance, race, class and gender, activism, the arts, electoral politics, and the environment -- as well as other important topics outside the scope of the book.
The site focuses especially on issues of digital diversity. Digital diversity is at once a fact and an unrealized promise. The Internet is a vast web of words, images and sounds made by millions of people all around the globe that certainly reflects a diverse range of cultures and ideas. On the other hand, data shows that there are vast inequalities of access to these new media, both within and between countries. These inequalities, often referred to by the short-hand term, the "digital divide," involve both questions of access (who is online) and representation (what is online and how truly does it reflect the diverse cultures of the world). The gap between those who enjoy the benefits of new communications technologies and those who do not is a major societal concern. New media technology have the potential, as yet mostly unrealized, to assist people facing economic inequality, discrimination and cultural misrepresentation.
This site presents a wide array of efforts to bring greater inclusion and just representation to the digital world through the arts, political activism, community technology projects, digital humanities and social science scholarship, and other avenues of transformation. Online articles and useful web sites, as well as a bibliographies of offline resources, are provided that address a range of forms of new media, and the social issues raised by our increasing immersion in digital cultures.