Digital epiphany on chat-rooms: writing and subjectivation on cyberculture

Author(s)

Marco Toledo de Assis Bastos

• Document type: Master's Dissertation
• Press: São Paulo.
• Institution: Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Escola de Comunicações e Artes (ECA/SBD)
• Defense date: 2005-09-12

Examining board members

Ciro Juvenal Rodrigues Marcondes Filho; Elizabeth Nicolau Saad Correa; Eugênio Rondini Trivinho

• Advisor: Ciro Juvenal Rodrigues Marcondes Filho

Abstract

The present dissertation concerns Internet chat-rooms making an effort to work them with a different approach. It is not about surrounding the object but trying a kind of conversation with them. It is an attempt to pursue it across bits. Roughly speaking, this work is divided in three major chapters or sections: The first chapter intends to clarify the relation between researcher and object embraced in this work. In fact, some parts of this chapter are written in first person. The point is to show how this object (chatrooms) comes to the researcher. In theoretical terms, it is to say how subject (a concept no longer used on this work) can represent itself with such a shifty object. The last extract on this chapter, Modus Operandi, is about the very methodological issue that guides this investigation. It is on the second chapter that subjectiveness comes to surface. It is an attempt to map these little spots in cyberculture we call bubble-characters and also to point out their very nomad technique of doing and undoing culture. War, Control and Terrorism: electronic communication presents a vast amount of phenomena not clearly referred previous to this networking era. That means power has also been shaped in fresh new ways. The last two excerpts of this chapter concerns this strange modality in spectral communication. It is about how these subjectivity machines work on contemporaneity. The third and last chapter is mostly about the writing style this medium brings on. Once again, the aim is to discuss how this intangible and networked text turns to be composed by small clusters called nicks. It is focused on language, imagination, and a seduction of the text which is an image itself. These are all questions theory of communication can no longer evade. However, it is not enough to just discuss how interactivity on Internet creates new subjectivity. It is also important to identify how these interactions create a new logic of communication conspicuously innovative. It is mandatory to identify how this feedback circuit works thus creating reality. (AU)