Poblocki - Online National Communities

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Online National CommunitiesAuthor(s): KACPER POBOCKISource: Polish Sociological Review, No. 134 (2001), pp. 221-246Published by: Polskie Towarzystwo Socjologiczne (Polish Sociological Association)Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/41274800Accessed: 10-11-2015 16:46 UTC

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2/27

polish

2(134)

1

sociological

review

ISSN 1231

-

1413

KACPER

OBLOCKI

Warsaw

niversity,

University

ollege

trecht

Online National Communities*

Abstract:

his

rticle

ealswithmanifestationsf

banal

ationalismn

the nternet. ationalisms

understood

n he eutral

ense,

s a

concept

imilaro

lass,

ace nd

ender

nd n his

rticleefers

to

stablished

emocracies.

he

rgument

s that he

nternet,

efined

s

semantic

yberspace,

irrors

the

ystems

f

meanings

rom

he

real"

orldnd

hiss

why

here

re ulturalndnationalivisions

on theweb.

The

meaning

f -mail

ccounts,

apster

usic

ommunity,ortals

nd

earch

ngines

is

demonstrated

n

a

structuralist

nalysis

f he

yberspace.

everal

mplicit

ays

n

which ational

communities

re

eproduced

n

hosenternet

enres

re

resented.

number

f elated

ssues,

uch s

the aturef nlineommunicationr

virtual

ommunities"s

discussed

s

well.

"

I'm

not

consumerut

human

eing

-

Onet.pl

dd

"

The

most irtual

f

ll

activitiess the

activity

f

eading

book

-

Bill

Gates

"To

ut

t

nother

ay:

ne an

leep

with

anyone

ut

ead

nly

ome

eople's

words

- Benedictnderson

"

Postmodern

hetoric

lacking

a

compassionate

asis n

hared

xperience

and

ommon

ractices,

as ut

o

righten

he

insecure

nd o rain

ommandos ho

ttack

common

ense

-

MichaelHeim

There

hould

havebeen

no

nationalism n

the

nternet

or

ommonly

ationalism

representsarkpastwhereas nternetmbodiesbrightuture. Nationalism"nthe

*

I

would

ike o

xpress

y ratitude

owards

rof,

r

hab.

Joanna

urczewskaor

er

uidance,

advicend

ncouragement,

s

well s thank

n

nonymous

eviewer,

ytze ijkstra,

ax

Hamon,

hieu

Besselink,

anga

oros nd

Joanna

ruszewskaor

heir

elpful

emarks.

f

oursehe

uthors

the

only erson

esponsible

or he

ontent

f

his

rticle.

omments

re

welcome.

would

ike o

dedicate

this

aper

o

my

amily

nd

Hanga.

Author's

ddress:

niversity

ollege

trecht,

ocial

cience

ept.

ostbus

1-426,

508 K

Utrecht,

Holland;

-mail:

[email protected]

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp


3/27

222 KACPER OBLOCKI

popular

understanding

onnotes

ethnic

leansing,

hauvinism,

enophobia,

thno-

centrism,acism nd so forth. nternet n theotherhand, ooksahead. Internet

users

re

mostly oung

nd

they

tand

n

thefront ow f the

digital eneration

f the

new "better"

entury.

They

do not

remember

enocide,hunger, ollution,

uclear

threat,

arbed wire

and

so forth.

All

caused

by

the

"bleak"

ideologies

ike

Nazism,

communism,

nd also nationalism.

They

are

"fitter,

appier,

more

productive,"

s

well

phased

in

one

of the Radiohead

songs.

The new

generation, epresented

nd

symbolised

y

the nternet

sers,

s

supposed

to be freeof all the

nightmares

f the

20th

entury,

ationalism

mongst

hem.

This

hope

can be

easily

raced

n

Sid

Meier's

Alpha

Centauri one ofmost

opular

computer

trategy ames.

It isset n2060 when hefirst

pace

craftwithhuman rew

was

supposed

o eave

Earth

nd

colonise

nother

lanet.

Nevertheless

roblems

tart

from

he

very eginning.

An

introductory

ovie

nforms

s that

s the

ship

enters

"the

Alpha

Centauri

ystem

he rew

plits

nto evendistinct

ractions,

ivided

not

by

nationality,

ut

by deology

nd their

ision or henewworld."

Certainly

ationalism

is

a

relic,

playermay

think.We soon

discover,

onetheless,

hat

he

origin

f the

conflict

was

slightly

ifferent.Characters

f the discordant

ractionseaders

had

been

in fact constructed

n the basis of...

popular

national

tereotypes

rom

he

end

of the 20th

entury.

For

example

"Academician rokhor akharov"

labelled

as "The Scientist") peakswith strongRussian accent about the significancef

physics,

Colonel

Corazon

Santiago"

"The

Survivalist")

esembles romantic uban

guerrilla,

nd Chairman

Sheng-Ji ang

("The Despot")

is a dead

ringer

or Mao

Zedong.

In

this

way

nationalism neaked

n

to

Alpha

Centauri,

ven

though

t was

supposed

to

stay

n Earth. Just

s it sneaked

n

to other

spects

of our "brand

new"

lives.

As a matter f factnationalism

emains ne of the

mportant

lements f the

social world

n

today's

well established

emocracies. Of course it is not the

same

sort

f nationalism

hat

parked

genocide

n

Kosovo.

A

sheer blution f thisnotion

has been carried

within he astfew

years,

nd "nationalism"

cquired

new,

neutral

meaning. t no longerresembles Wagnerian pera thatmakes isteners feel ike

invading

oland,"

ust

to

paraphrase

ne of the

Woody

Allen

dialogues.

It is now

more ike some

smooth

able musicwe

do

not

really

notice. Just

s the

designers

f

"Alpha

Centauri"

did not

really

notice

hat he fractioneaderswere

n

fact

divided

by

nationality,

nd not

by

deology.

Our

very

wn

Alpha

Centauri

hathas been first

iscovered nd then ubconse-

quently

olonised,

namely

he

nternet,

as become

n this ense nationalised

s well.

Generally peaking

writing

n the

nternet as been

an

extremelynrewarding

ask.

The web

has

drasticallyhanged

ts

very

nature everal imes ver

the

past

ten

years

and surprised veryone, specially hose whohad already o precisely lueprinted

Internet's

uture

nd who can be held

responsible

or

notions uch

s

"global

village."

Yet another

problem

s that o

far

mostof

the

writing

n

the nternet

ad more

n

commonwith old

genre

of traveller's

ales,"

ccounts f adventurous

rips

rom he

civilisedworld o

newly

iscovered,

xotic ealms" hanwith

areful

cientific

nquiry

(Wellman

nd

Gulia

1999:

331-332). Ironically nough,

big

bulkof the debate

on

the nternet s

nothing

lse

but nescient

epetition

f candid

hopes

and worries hat



4/27

ONLINENATIONAL OMMUNITIES

223

werevoiced

soon

after he

discovery

f

telephone

Fischer 1992).

Therefore t

may

seemsurprisingor omestarrynthusiastshatwhathadbecomefeasible

couple

of

years

go

did

not

necessarily

ave to come truenow.

Now

everyone

an

makevirtual

friends

n remote

parts

of the

world,

ross national

borders nd

seek

information

from

unlimited" ources.

Everyone

an also

read about a

sumo

fight

n a

Japanese

magazine,

r download unknownmusicwith wkward

itles

nly

to enrich

neself

with new cultural

xperience.

The

point

s

that he

majority

oes not

do so.

Web

research hows

learly

hat,

t least n

Europe,

people

tend

to visit

web sites

that re

in

their wn

anguage,

re

created

by

their

ompatriots

nd

refer o

the

very eality

they

re

living

n

Ammelrooy

000,

Jupiter

MMXI

2001,

Kopyt

000,

Perello

2000).

We arecertainlyimited yourtechnology. ut also ourtechnologyecomes imited

by

us

and the

way

we use it.

The idea that nternets the true

global

village"

was born

whenthe

netwas still

in

handsof

a

tiny

orthern merican

ffluentnd

cosmopolitan

lite.

The

pioneer

leaders of seven fractions

n

"Alpha

Centauri"

ndeed can

communicatewith ach

other. But as their

mpiresgrow

n

size

communication

etween

members f all

the seven

different

ommunities

bviously

ecomes

ncreasingly

ifficult. s

on the

web. It is

only

now

that he

nternet s

truly lobal

Castells and

Borja

writing

n

1997

suggested

hat

n

1996

there

were around30

million

nternet

sers

12).

Today

30 million s a number hatPreecegivesas a number fusers of a

single

nternet

service

ICQ

instant

messaging

Preece,

2000:

60).

Even

the "third

world"

goes

online.

Durktonwrites hat n

Jamaica

offices re

now

being

wired

up

fore-mail

when

they

don't even

have

phones" 1996:

63).

As

the

nternet

xpanded,

t

also

became

less

homogeneous

nd

now

more and

more

different

oices can

be

heard.

Internet sers

from istant

art

of theworld

have

ess and

less in

common

just

as

television

iewers nd

newspaper

eaders n

distant

arts

f

the world

have

little n

common. nternet lso

lost ts nitial

adicalism.

t is

less and

less

the

homelandof

anarchists,

ackers,

ebels nd

so

forth.

Now

people

use

itfor

hings

ike

hopping

r

findingnformationnmedical reatment.n this ense t s banal.

I

Banal

Nationalism

Just s

the web is

now

more

casual,

nationalism

as

also

become

toothless.

Until

recently

ut

n

the

same

row

with

notions

ike

fascism,

ommunism

nd

liberalism

and regarded o be of almostpathological haracter, ow,as BenedictAnderson

advocates,

s

by

considerable

umber

f

scholars

hought

o

be

similar

o

concepts

like

kinship,

lass or

gender

1991:

141-143,

Thompson

001).

Ernest

Gellner

grees

and

writes

hat

a

Man

without

Shadow

[is]

the

Man

without

Nation"

1993:

6)

and

ndeed

t s

not

possible

o

have

no

nationality.

oreover

we

stopped

noticing

he

presence

f

our

nationality,ust

as

we

usually

o

not

notice ur

shadow. n

the era

of

global

village,"

s

Michael

Billig

oints

ut,

the

United

tates f

America,

rance,

he



5/27

224

KACPER

OBtOCKI

United

Kingdom

nd

so on continue

o exist.

Daily,

they

re

reproduced

s nations

and their

itizenry

s nationals."

(1995:

5-7).

Billig

calls this

type

of nationalism

in well established

Western

democracies

banal,"

and

defines

t as

covering

the

ideological

habitswhich

nable the stablished ations

f the

West o be

reproduced"

thathave

notbeen

"removed rom

veryday

ife"

but

are

"'flagged',

n

the ivesof ts

citizenry"

n a

daily

basis. Therefore

[t]hemetonymicmage

of

banal

nationalisms

not

a

flag

which s

being onsciously

aved

with ervent

assion;

t s the

flaghanging

unnoticed

n the

public

building" Billig

1995:

5-8).

An

interesting

evelopment

an be observed

n

countries

hat

o

farhave been

labelled as counties

f "Easternnationalism"

Smith,

973:

27-31).

Szacki,

writing

in 1997,complains hat anguages ike Polish do nothavetheAnglo-Saxon, eutral

connotation

f

nationalism

24-26). Compared

to

what

Jakubowska

1990)

wrote

seven

years

arlier

bout the Polish

national

ymbols

hat

had

more

n

common

with

an obscure

mutation

f

Christian

Mysticism

nd

victim

mentality

hanwith

notions

like

citizenship,

t is

a

remarkable

hange.

Mr

Olisadebe

the first olish football

player

with

n African

ackground

does

not

have

to

weep

when

reading

Mickiewicz;

nor

he has to

walkbare

feet

o

Cz^stochowa;

normourn

he

uprisings;

n

order

o be

accepted

by

he

public, lay

n thePolish

national ootball

eam,

wear thewhite

agle

on

his chest

nd

sing

he national

nthem efore he

game.

Certainly

lso

in Poland

many eople stoppednoticinghepresence f their hadows.

The

above

development,

s it is demonstrated

n

this

paper,

can be also traced

on

the Internet.

An

extensive

nalysis

f the online

banal nationalism

will

follow,

but

one

example

would be

helpful

here. One

of

the

most

mportant

xpressions

that

are used on

the web

is "asl." It standsfor

"age/sex/location."

his is often

the

very

first entence

of

an on-line onversation

ust

after

aying

hello."

In this

context location"

means

ust

as much

s "national

belonging

n

the neutral ense"

(if nationality

nd location

are not

congruent

henusers would

say e.g. "Spanish,

but

currently

n

Germany").

Here

age, gender

nd

nationality

re

put

nto

the same

basket. The underlyingssumptionsre thatnationalitys a concept imilar o age

and

gender,

nd that

t is of

high ignificance

ecause

people

ask for t

in the

very

beginning

f

an online

ncounter.

Imaging

National

Community

Banal

nationalism

an be toothless

n two

ways. Initially

t s toothless

s

an

infant,

and then t ooses

itsdentition

nce

it

getsgrey

hair.

BenedictAnderson

beautifully

described owbaby-nationalismouldedbaby-nations,hat reformed s "imagined

communities"

ue

to "interaction etween

system

f

production

nd

productive

relations

capitalism),

technology

f communications

print),

nd

the

fatality

f

human

inguistic

iversity"1991: 42-43).

These three lements

ogether

with he

modern

apprehension

f time construct

community

o a

large

extent n

purely

imagined

asis. Anderson raws

parallel

between

maging

nation nd construction

ofmodern ovels.

n

both he

haracters ho

may

o

different

hings

t the ame time



6/27

ONLINENATIONAL OMMUNITIES

225

without

nowing

bout

each

other

re still

onnected or

he

"omniscient eaders."

"AnAmericanwillnevermeet,or even know he namesof morethan handful f

his

240,000,000-odd

ellow-Americans.e has

no idea of

what

hey

re

up

to at

any

one time.

But

he

has

complete

onfidence

n

their

teady,

nonymous,

imultaneous

activity."

1991:

25-26).

Furthermore:

"The bsolescencef he

ewspaper

n hemorrowf ts

rinting

...)

createshis

xtraordinary

ass

ceremony:

he lmost

recisely

imultaneous

onsumption

'imaging')

f

he

ewspaper-as-fiction.

e

know

hat

articular

orning

nd

vening

ditions

ill

verwhelmingly

e

consumed

etweenhis our

and

hat,

nly

n his

ay,

ot hat.

Contrast

ugar,

he se fwhich

roceeds

n n

unclocked,

ontinuous

flow;

t

may o

bad,

ut

t

oes ot

o

ut f

ate.)

he

ignificance

f his ass

eremony

Hegel

bserved

thatewspaperserve odern an s substituteormorningrayersisparadoxical.t sperformednsilent

rivacy,

n he air f he kull. et ach ommunicantswellwarehat

he

eremony

e

performs

is

being

eplicatedimultaneouslyy

housands

ormillions)

f

thers

fwhose

xistencee s

onfident,

yet

fwhose

dentity

e

has

not he

lightest

otion.

urthermore,

his

eremony

s

ncreasinglyepeated

at

daily

r

half-daily

ntervals

hroughout

he alendar. hat

ore ivid

igure

or he

ecular,

istorically

clocked,

magined

ommunity

anbe envisioned?t

he

ame

ime,

he

ewspaper

eader,

bserving

exact

eplicas

f

his

wn

aper

eing

onsumed

y

is

ubway,

arbershop,

rresidential

eighbours,

s

continually

eassured

hat

he

magined

orlds

visibly

ooted

n

veryday

ife.

...)

F]iction

eeps

uietly

and

ontinuously

nto

eality,reating

hat emarkable

onfidencef

ommunity

n

nonymity

hich

s

he

hallmark

fmodernations"

1991:

2-36).

It is

mportant

o remember hat similar

rocess

an

be

stimulated

y

other

me-

dia,such s television,adioor the nternet.t also canbe executed n a smaller cale

and

knead other

magined

ommunities,

ot

necessarily

n

national

basis

(Ovarec

1996:

5;

Muniz and

O'Guinn

2001).

Reproduction

f

Communities

lready

magined

Once

a

national

magined

ommunity

as

been

established

he

activity

f

making

it "real"

has

to

be

performed

n

daily

basis,

so

the

community

oes

not

vanish n

a vacuum.This"reproduction"ies atthevery oreofbanalnationalism. illigwrites

that:

"For

uch

ailyeproduction

o

ccur,

ne

might

ypothesise

hat

whole

omplex

f

eliefs,

ssump-

tions, abits,

epresentations

nd

ractices

ust

lso

be

reproduced.

oreover,

his

omplex

ust

e

reproduced

n

banally

undane

ay,

or heworld

f

nationss

he

veryday

orld,

he amiliar

errain

of

ontemporary

imes"(Billig,

995:

-7)

This

"complex"

nevertheless

as one

factor hat

s

slightly

ore

significant

han

other

nes,

namely anguage.

It was

important

hen

nationalism

was still n

cradle

(Anderson1991: 40-45, 77, 145) but it is even moreimportant or thewalking-

stick

nationalism

Billig:

1995:

17-19).

"[F]rom

the

start he

nation

was conceived

in

language,

not in

blood"

(Anderson

1991:

145)

and

therefore

[w]hat

eye

is

to

the over

that

particular,

rdinary ye

he or

she is

bornwith

language

whatever

languagehistory

as

made his or

her

mother-tongue

it is to the

patriot.

Through

that

anguage,

ncountered t

mother's nee

and

parted

with

nly

t

the

grave, asts

are

restored,

ellowships

re

imagined,

nd

futures

reamed"

Anderson

1991:154).



7/27

226

KACPER OBLOCKI

Nevertheless

anguage

s not

only

he

main

factor

hat

magined

ommunitiesre

embodied n,but languagealso drawsprecisely he borderlines etweendifferent

national

communities.

According

o Anderson

[w]hat

imits ne's access to other

languages

s not

their

mperviousness

utone's own

mortalityAnderson

1991:

148).

We have to

accept

thatwe do not

speak

all the

languages

n

the

world,

ust

as we

have to

accept

that

our

language

s

not

spoken

everywhere

n the

planet.

"The lex-

icographic

evolution

n

Europe

(...)

created,

nd

gradually

pread,

the conviction

that

anguages

...)

were

...)

the

personalproperty

f

quite specific

roups

their

daily

peakers

nd readers

and moreover

hat hese

groups, magined

s commu-

nities,

were entitled

o their utonomous

lace

in a

fraternity

f

equals" (Anderson

1991: 84). No nation magines tself s the wholehumanity. herefore aradoxi-

cally

nationalism

s

an international

octrine

Billig

1995:

10, 21-21;

Anderson

1991:

37-38).

Moreover

[b]ilingual

ictionaries

made visible

n

approaching galitarian-

ism

among anguages

whatever

he

political

realities

utside,

within he

coversof

the

Czech-German/German-Czech

ictionary

he

paired anguages

had

a

common

status"

Anderson

1991:

71).

Subsequent

ranslations

f texts

rom ne

language

to

another

raternised

hose

anguages.

National breathing pace"

Nevertheless,

ven

a

beginner

nterpreter

ould

gree

that here

re

some

things

hat

simply

annot

be translated

nto ther

anguages.

Communication

s to a

large

xtent

based

on context

and sometimes ontext

f

anguages

X have no

equivalent

ontext

in

anguage

Y. Anderson

writes:

"[e]arlyazettes

ontained

aside rom

ews bout

he

metropole

commercial

ews

when

hips

would

rrive

nd

epart,

hat

rices

ere urrent

or

hatommodities

n

what

orts),

swell

s

colonial

political

ppointments,

arriages

f he

wealthy,

nd oforth.

n

other

ords,

hat

roughtogether,

n

theame age,his arriageithhathip,hisrice ithhatishop,as he erytructuref heolonial

administration

nd

market-system

tself.

nthis

ay,

he

ewspaper

fCaracas

uite aturally,

nd ven

apolitically,

reated

n

magined

ommunity

mongspecific

ssemblage

f ellow

eaders,

owhom

hese

ships,

rides,

ishops

nd

riceselonged"

1991:

2,

mphasis

riginal).

For

Ernest

Gellner,

who

understands

ation s

a

"marriage

f

polity

nd culture"

(1993:

1,

13),

the

possibility

f effective

ommunication

etween

trangers

who

nev-

ertheless

hare

common

xperiences)

was

one of the

most

mportant

chievements

of

modernisation.

Thanks to

standardised

eneral

education

and

general

iteracy

now

we are

"explicit

nd

reasonably

recise" 1993:

33),

so two

persons

ducated

n

differentorners fthenation-statean communicate ith ach otherwithnoprob-

lem.

The

expansion

fnational

elevision

nd national

adiofurther

trengthened

his

process.

All

these

developments

reated

situation

where

the

imits f the culture

withinwhich

people]

were educated

are also the

limits f the

world

withinwhich

they

an,

morally

nd

professionally,

reathe"

Gellner

1993:

36).

Paradoxically

thenthe

development

f

culturally omogeneous

modernnations

nd nation-states

created

situationwhere

here ommunications

pending

etween

ompatriots

hat



8/27

ONLINE

NATIONAL OMMUNITIES

227

operate

within he same

cultural

nd

symbolic

rameworkut t

grows

ncreasingly

difficultetween

people

that haredifferentultural

breathing paces." Obviously

such

breathing

paces"

overlap,

therwise herewouldbe

no internationalelations.

Nevertheless,

s

Rogers

writes one of the most bvious nd

fundamental

rinciples

of

human ommunication

s that he ransferf deas

most

requently

ccursbetween

a source

and receiverwho

have certain imilarities"

Rogers

1973:

300),

and

thus

international

ommunication

equires

ome extra

inguistic

nd

symbolic

ffortshan

communication

etween

nationals.

II

There

would

have been no nationalism

n the

WorldWide

Web

if

the

structure

f

the nternet

as not based on written

anguage.

This

observation,

owever

bvious

may

seem,

gains

relevancewhen

we

compare

nternet o

telephone.

It has been

done often

e.g.

Poster 1995:

83,

Heim 1998:

12-13,

Sussman

1997:

72-76)

for

Internet

losely

resembles

elephone both

are

horizontal

networks).

The secret

of the nternet evertheless

ies

n

the

very

act hat ts

tructures based on

written

languagehypertext),

hereas

elephone

s

structurally

uild

uponrandomlyssigned

digits.

For

example

fwe want o find he

home

page

of

Sting

the British

op

star,

we

could

expect

hat

his

namewould

be

somehow

ncorporated

n

the ite

ddress. So we

type

n

www.sting.com

nd

t urns utto be a web

ite f

"competitive

nline

gamer."

We

trywww.sting.co.uk,

nd then:

www.sting.uk.com.

othof them

ead to a

page

of

an

Internet

evelopment ompany.

Www.sting.org

s a

siteof n

e-mall.

Nevertheless

one ofthose

pages apparently

as

a link

o

anther ne

www.sting.compaq.com

and

here t s whatwe were

ooking

or.

It would not be so

easy

f

we had

only telephone.

No one

would start

ialling

random

numbers

n the

faith hat ne

of the

combinations

may

ead

to

Sting's

house.

Finding ting's elephone

number s

virtuallympossible

without

upporting

neself

with

telephone

ook. This

example

hows

hat

he

nternets a

muchmore

"open"

medium han he

telephone

s such.

But also the

tunning

imilarity

etween

ooking

for

ting's

nline ite

and

navigating

n

real

space

shouldnot

be

overlooked.

Typing

in

those

site names

could be

compared

o

looking

or

Sting

CD

in a

music

tore.

Firstwe

go

to

"pop"

section

nd

find

ut that t

s

not

there,

henwe

go

to

"British

pop"

and stilldo not

find

t,

nd

finally

e ask an

assistant nd

they

oint

t

"rock

foreign"

ection

where

ll

the

Sting

CDs are.

1

t

muste

rememberedhat

he

nternet,

ust

s a

nation,

s

"sociologicalrganism

oving

allen-

drically

hroughomogeneous,

mpty

ime"

Anderson

991:

5-26),

nd

herefore

ll

he

xamples

rom

theWorld

ideWeb hat

give

re

ubject

o

geing.

his s

why

he eader

hould

ot e

urprised

f,

reading

hese

ords

couple

f

years

fter

hey

ad

een

written,

ome

ebsitesam

referring

o not

exist

nymore,

r heir

ontent

s

omehow

ifferentowhatt

was n

etween

une000 nd

April

00



9/27

228

KACPER

OBLOCKI

Internet s

Space

Indeed

"picking p

a

new

book can be

compared

o

a

stranger

ntering

new town"

(Dillon,

McKnight,

Richardson

1993:

179)

and

this

analogy

s

even more

true n

case of

hypertext

hat

we

have on the

Internet. It is

not an

accident that

most

of

the

nternet

ocabulary

s

spatial:

"home

age,"

"cyberquatting,"

Internet ite"

"Netscape Navigator

"

sites

have their

maps,"

we

"visit"

www

pages,

and

there

re

"webmasters,"

ust

as we

have

housemasters.

One

of

the

most

popular

sites

n

the

world "AltaVista"

erives ts name

from town n the

mountains nd

it means in

Spanish

high

view." The

trademark

f AltaVista s a

snowy

mountain,

nd a

search

engine ndeed could be comparedto a mountain hatwe climb fwe wantto have

a

better iew

on

the rest

f the

cyberspace

n

order o find

whatwe

are

looking

or.

We

think f he nternet

s

spatial

irst

ecause

t

has

some

permanent

eatures hat

remind s

of the real"

space,

and

second

that

navigating

n theweb

tself eminds s

of

navigating

n real

space.

The

Internet

ranscendsndividuals

one

person

annot

"shut own"

he

nternet,

s one

can shut own

ne's Personal

omputer.

ervers hat

operate

24

hours

day

have

became

ndependent

ntities

with life n their

wn,"

s

we

think.

ites

re "not

us"

and

they

re

always

n

the ame

spot

ofthe

yberspace,

nd

they

o not

change

overmuch.

AltaVista s at

www.altavista.com4

hours

day,

nd

eventhoughome of tsfeaturesmaydiffer,tsgeneral ayout the nterface always

remains he ame.

Just ike a

mountain.

Such

"navigation ...)

can

be

conceptualised

n

psychological

erms s

involving

four

evels of

representation:

chemata,

andmarks,

outes and

surveys

nd

that

several f

these evels re of

direct elevance

o

hypertext

esign" Dillon,

McKnight,

Richardson1993:

172).

Schemata

are frames

hat exist t all

levels

of

scale from

looking

t theworld n

terms f

east

and

west

or First nd Third

Worlds,

o national

distinctions etween

north nd south"

172).

There are

"global"

("basic

or

raw

knowledge tructure")

nd

"instantiated"

"the

product

f

adding pecific

etails

to

a global chema ndtherebyeducingtsgenerality")chemata173). Cognitivemaps

of document

paces

are

created

byglobal

chema

nstantiation.

t can

occuron

three

levels:

landmarks,

outes and

surveys.

Landmarks re

"features f

environment

which

are

relatively

table and

conspicuous.

We

recognise

ur

position

n

terms

relative

o these

landmarks,

.g.

our

destination s near

building

X or if

we see

statue

Y

then

we must e

nearthe

railway

tation

nd

so forth"

173).

In

our

example

www.compaq.com

ould be such a

landmark,

incewe know

hat

Sting'shomepage


s

ocated

omewhere ear t. Route s

the

ability

o

navigate

from

oint

A

to

point

B,

using

whatever andmark

nowledge

we have

acquired

to

makedecisions" 173). Ifweforgotting's ite ddress,we canalways o thewaywe

got

there.

Typing

n

www.sting.com.uk

inked

us to


we can

always

epeat

his onlinewalk."

Finally surveyor map)

knowledge.

his allowsus

to

give

directions r

plan

ourneys

long

routes

we have not

directly

ravelled s well

as

describe

elative

ocations

f

andmarks ithin n

environment"

174).

This s the

ability

f

moving

rom ne

page

to

another nce

we have

become

accustomed o the

global

schemata

f

nternet

ites.



10/27

ONLINENATIONAL

OMMUNITIES

229

Another

mportant

eason

forwhichwe think

f

the

Internet s

spatial

s that

navigation

s interactive,.e. we

actually

eave

footsteps

n the

cyberspace.

The

following

xercise

may

xemplify

his:

try

o visitwww.amazon.comnd

search for

a book

title.

A site

with nformationn this ook would

open.

Then close

the nternet

browser,

nd next

open

www.amazon.com

gain

on the

startpage ou

would see

advertisements

f books either

y

the same author

you

searched

for,

r of book

on

similar

opic.

Amazon.com

remembered"

our

"cookie"

as

well as the sites

you

visited

nd

responded

o

your

consecutive isit.

Similarly

"virtual uicide" that

Argyle

nd Shields

1996: 135)

witnessed onsists f

removing

ll the

tracks f one's

presence

n

the

cyberspace

e.g. posted messages.

This is

the crucial difference

between he nternetndothermedia one does not eaveany rackswhen apping

between

elevision

hannels,

r

reading newspaper.

Almost

very

lick four mouse

is recorded.

Internet s Semantic

pace

This is

why

he

nternet

s

commonly

eferred o

a

"cyberspace."

There have been

different

efinitionsf

this

notion

Bromberg

996:

144,

Shields

1996:

5,

Burrows,

Featherstone995,Heim 1993:78-79,Robin 1995: 135-137),nevertheless e under-

stand

yberspace

s "semantic

pace" (Dillon,

McKnight,

ichardson 993:

186-7).

In

fact he

nternetmirrorsheworld f

culture,

nd

not,

s Michael Heim was des-

perately

rying

o

argue

Heim

1998:

156-158),

the worldof

nature. It is semantic

because

t s

structurally

ased

on

language

hat however efined

consists f

a self-

contained

ystem

f

igns

nd

meanings.

he

computer

tselfs a

meaning-generating

machine,

s Andersenwrites:

being

a

sign

can be a

primary

letters,

ocal

sounds

and

pictures)

r

a

secondarycar

as

a

sign

f

status,

louds s

a

sign

f

rain)

function

of

objects; ...) computer ystems

esemble etters

more han louds nd

carsbecause

their

rimary

unctions

to enter nto

emiosis"

1997: 2).

Also

Heim

agreesthat:

"[l]ike

the chess

board,

the

computer

elivers

self-contained

ystem

f

meaning."

(1998: 144).

But

some

people forget

hat t

is

humanswho create

those

meanings

and

manipulate

with hem

hrough

he

computer

nterface.

We

compose

and

read

messages.Very

ften

eople

refer o

computers

s

independent

ntities ho can

take

actions n

their

wn,

.g.

in

one of

thePolish

quiz

shows

presenter

onstantly

sks

the

"computer

o eliminate

wo

wrong

nswers."

The

point

s

thaton both

ends

of

the

communication

ine

there re

two human

beings

nterpreting

he

signs

hat re

transported

ia

themedium.

nternets not

bout

technology,

or

bout

nformation,

but t

s about

communication

Putnam

000:

171).

And

about humans

who send and

receive

messages.

Linguistic

iversity

nd

National

Cyberspaces

Therefore

verything

hat

ravels

hrough

ires nd blinks

n

computer

creenshave

in

factbeen created

by

humans nd

belongs

o the

very

world

we live n.

Given the



11/27

230

KACPER OBLOCKI

already

mentioned

mportance

f nationalism

n

the

contemporaryociety,

he web

shouldthusreflecthosedivisions. he most bvious

xample

ofthe nationalisation

of

the

cyberspace

s the

linguistic

iversity

n

the web. Indeed we cannot

speak

of one semantic

yberspace,

ecause

many anguages

are

used on the

Web,

and

cyberspace

s contained

n thewritten

anguage.

As a research f The

UnitedStates

Internet

ouncil

shows,

nly

1%

of nternet sers re native

English peakers

nd

this

number

willbe

deteriorating

Reuters2000).

For

example

AltaVista,

ne of the

largest

nternational

earch

ngines,

ffers

nly

ne

option

we can

manipulate

with

the

anguage

thatwe

want

displayed ages

to be in. We can

choose

from

Chinese

to

Swedish,

nd the

list of results

displayed

eflects he

linguistic

ivisions f the

cyberspace.

All the

anguages

re ordered lphabetically,xcept f

English,

which s

on

the

very

op

of the

ist,

nd this hows he

egalitarian

spect

of

nationalism, hat,

just

to

say

t one

more

time,

nationalism

ndeed s

an

international octrine.

So

by

choosing

or

xampleHungarian

we limit ur search

only

o the

Hungarian

portion

of

cyberspace.

hoosing panish

wouldfocus

ur attention n the

Spanish,

heLatin

American

s well as

any

other

arts

f

cyberspace

n

Spanish.

n this ense

anguages

separate

people

on

the

web,

since

anguage

s the

key

for

being

ble

to

make sense

of

whatwe see on

the

screen,

ut

t also links or nstance

paniards

nd

Latinos

n

this ase.

The above

becomes clear

when

one

uses Latin American

earch

engines,

like MexicanMexicochannel.net,hat ften inks opagesconstructednSpain,and

Spanish

ike

Terra.es hat ften

ink

o

Portuguese ages.

I

refer o

Mexican,

Spanish,

Hungarian

pages,

but how can we

recognise

hat

a

page

is of this

or that

nationality?

he most

mportant art

of

every

ite,

ts

http

address

or

location

in

software

t is used

interchangeably)

onsists

f

following

parts:

"www"

prefix

in majority

f the

cases),

name and domain. Most of the

siteshave extensions

hat

ncorporate

amesof nation-states:

"pi"

stand

for

Poland,

."de" for

Germany,"jp"

for

Japan

nd so forth. t

is as banal as it

gets.

We take

those two etters

or

granted,

ust

as we take our Shadows for

granted

s well.

But

theveryfact thatthis nformations giventogetherwith ite name and itsprofile

puts

nationality

n the "first ivision" f

site characteristics.

verygood

example

for heernationalisation

f

cyberspace

s the

very

ritish co.uk"

domain.

Generally

domains nform s

on what s the

specialisation

f the

page.

For

example

"com"

standfor

commercial,"

"edu" for

ducational,

"gov"

for

governmental

nd so on.

Apparently

co.uk" means

the

same

what "com.uk"would

mean,

but the latter

s

rarely

sed. On

the other

hand there

re no

sites

ike "co.fr" r "co.de."

Only

the

British se ."co"

instead f "com."

Yet

another

ntriguing

ssue

s

that,

ust

as

English

s

privileged

n

the

fraternity

f

languages istednAltavista.com,imilarlyhere s no "usa" domain.As Posterwrites,

"Internet

ormalizes

merican sers"

1995: 83)

which s

quite

understandable

ince

the nternet

s to a

large

extent

n American nvention

nd still

significant

art

of

its users s

American. Also the "it"

and ."es" extensions re American

nventions,

and

it

is an

excellentmanifestationf

Americanbanal

nationalism,

ince t locates

nationality

s such on

peripheryBillig

1995:

5-7).

"They

have

nationality,

ot

us" seems to

be

the

thought

ehind t.

Generally

iteswithno national xtensions



12/27

ONLINENATIONAL

OMMUNITIES

231

are American.

This is

why

www.officialtomwaits.com"as

no national

xtension,

but

"www.voovoo.art.pl"

oes ("Voo Voo" is a Polish rock

band).

Nevertheless

even

the most

popular

domain

names,

such as

."com,"

can

reveal

atentnational

divisions.

For

instance

yping

n

www.dictionary.com

eads us to an

American

part

of the

cyberspace,

ut

www.dicionnaire.comto

French,

www.diccionarios.comto

Spanish,

nd www.slownik.com

to Polish.Those four

ddresses

orrespond

o

four

different

breathingpaces":

American,

rench,

panish

nd

Polish.

Limits f nterface-to-interfaceommunication

The

very

act hat

nternet ommunication

s based

on written

anguage

lmost xclu-

sively,

nd that here s no

face-to-face

ommunication,

ut

only

nterface-to-interface

contacts,

makes he nvisible orderlines

etween

ifferent

inguistic

nd

national

n-

line

breathingpaces"

evenmore

rigid.

n real

ife ituations

peasant

from

inland

would

get

on well

with shoemaker rom

Kenya

somehow,

most

probably y using

their

ndex

ingers,

ather han

ongues,

or

definingbjects Fischer

1973:

317).

On

the

nternet

here here s no face-to-faceommunicationnd

virtuallyvery iece

of

informations

cultural,

ross-cultural

ommunication

s

extremely

ifficult.

n

other

words onlinewe have to be explicit, ecause language s almost ll we have and

we are

deprived

f thecontextwhatwould

explainpeople

that

we

communicate

ith

whatwe

actually

mean. Even the

smiley

ace

)

-

that s

supposed

to

substitute

he

real-life mile s

purely

ultural

ecause

people

that

do

not

knowwhat

t standsfor

read it as

a

colon

and a

bracket

ut

together

or

ome

bizarrereason.

Some chat

(and

RPG

and

MUDs)

developers

ry

o solve this

problem

by

adding

options

of

emotional

xpression,

ike

"Janina

iggles,"

r

"Janina

rins."

Nevertheless

ne

has

to understand hat

giggle"

nd

"grin"

mean

n

the

English

anguage

nd

those

who

do not

peak English

will

notbe able to

participate

n

an

English

anguage

hat,

RPG

orMUD.

Navigating

n

cyberspace

n

a

language

we do not

speak

can be

equally

difficult.

Finding

nformation

ouldnotbe

easy,

ven

though eneral

chema

of

all

the ites s

very

imilar. f

one knows owto

move round n a

German

portal

hen

navigating

n

a

Japaneseportal

ould be

slightly

asier but still

not

enough

o feel

as

comfortable

as at home. In

this

respect

navigating

n a

Japanese

city

when

having

navigated

in a

German

city

s much

more

consoling.

For

instance t is

much

easier to find

a

real

shopping

mall n

a

foreign

ountry

han

finding

shopping

mall in a

foreign

cyberspace.

German

n

a

Japanese

ity

s

bombardedwith

nformationhat

s cross-

cultural whenhe seesclothes nwindows nd abelswith rices, eoplecomingn nd

out this

s

likely

o be a

mall.

Online

this xtra

non-linguistic

nformations imited.

If

one wants

o find

Japanese

-mail

hen ne either

as to

know he

ddress

lready

(and

obviously

ot

many

Germansknow

ddresses f

Japanese

-malls),

se a

search

engine choose

between

nternational

nd

Japanese

if

does not

peakJapanese

hen

will

ook for

t

n

an

international

earch

ngine

nd

those

have imited

nformation

on

non-English

ages),

or

try

o

improvise

nd

type

n

things

ike

www.shopping.jp.



13/27

232

KACPER OBtOCKI

The

latter an turn

ut to

be

ineffective

fwe

do not know he

anguage.

And

even

f

we

actually

ave found hee-mall ddress, hen

buying

omething

s also muchmore

difficulthan

n real ife.

n

real

ife ll

you

have

to do is

ust

to

pick

up

what

you

want,

go

to

the

cashdesk,

mile

to

the

shop

assistant o

compensate

ornot

speaking

he

language,

ay

and leave.

Online

we have

to

click he

right

cons,

o

from ne

page

to

another,

ill

n

forms

a lot of

nearly

ureaucratic ork hat

requiresmanipulation

of

precisely

hose

nd not other

in this ase

Japanese

signs.

Even

sending very

enthusiastic

-smile

:)))

to the

webmaster ouldnot

help

overmuch.

Is "Cyberspace"Real?

Perhaps

hemost

popular opic

related o

cyberspace

hat

undits

ave been

dwelling

upon

is

the relation f

cyberspace

o

physical pace.

Some

argue

that

cyberspace

is a

parallel

reality, easonably

ndependent

rom he

physical

ne.

One MUD

(a

combination

f a

role-playing

ame

and

a

chat)

useradvocates his dea

bygiving

he

following

xplanation:

"I tendo ecomeetached

nd lso

ompartmentilize.

hiss

specially

rue hen

'm t

computer,

because

t eemsike

becomeetachedrom

y hysical

elf.

hiss

not

ust

mudding

r

playing

ames,

or eingn he et;hisswhenever'm t computer.lose rackf ime,nd on'teel ungryr ired."

(Bromberg

996:

49-150)

The idea that

igns

an substitute he

objects

hey

enote s

well

known,

nd

the

case of Charles

Morris hows

nicely

hat s

also rathernaive.

Morris,

describing

conditioning

f

Pavlov's

dogs,truly

oticed hat he bell that s

rang

before

dogs get

their ood

gradually

ecomes

a

sign

of

this

ood. Then he concluded hat ince both

a

bell

and

sight

f

food ead to the same

reaction,

amely og

salivates,

here

s

no

difference etween

he two

1949).

Nevertheless e

happened

not to notice hat he

dog

actually

oes

not

eat the

bell,

ust

as it

does eat the

food,

nd therefore here s

quite differenceetween sign nd theobject tdenotes Kotarbiriska957:92-93;

Black 1949:

253). Having

heabove

in

mind,

he

following

dealism

eems to be

very

airy: [t]hequality

f

virtual

ife

n

theNet s not

yet

ndistinguishable

rom he

real'

thing,

ut

while

cyberspace

s

not

yet hyper-real,

here s a

progressive rocess

of

conditioning

nvolvedwhere ndividualslearn' to

identify

heir nline

experience

s

real"

(Interrogate

he

nternet,

996:

130-131,

my mphasis).

As Bauman

noticed,

we,

and the

respondent

who

argued

thathe does not feel

hunger

n

the

cyberspace

is

no different

n

this

respect,

have to

"sink

our]

teeth nto some

quite

real

bread

before

we]

abandon

[our]selves

o

munching

mages"

in

Ritzer 1998:

143).

We

maybuya sandwich n an e-grocery,ut we cannot, t least notin 2001,eat itby

clicking

ome icons on the screen. This

culinary xample

hows hatwe

still

annot

get

rid of

the

"meat,"

as the

body

s

referred o

in

the

cyberpunklang

Sobchack

1995).

But this

s

only

n

illustrationf a more

generalproblem

hat,

s

Robin

writes,

"we

are

deeply

rooted

n

the

Reality

We Live In

(1995:

135-137). "[W]e

discover

thatnot

only

re we

forced o live

nsidethe

physical

world,

we

are made

of it

and

we are

almost

powerless

n

it"

(Lanier

in

Robin,

139).

All the

ideas of

consensual



14/27

ONLINENATIONAL

OMMUNITIES

233

hallucination

as William

Gibson

calls

cyberspace

Bromberg

1996:

144),

can be

compared

o Kantian transcendental

magination,

ooted n a coherent nd unified

subjectivity,

n the

unity

f

mind nd

body,

the

"

transcendental

ynthesis"

f our

sensible

nd

intelligible

xperience'

Kearney

n

Robin 1995:

140).

Actually eople

who

makecontact nline

ery

ftenmeet

ater n

in

real ife

Argyle

nd

Shields:

1996:

59;

Muniz

and

O'Guinn

2001:

417;

Parks

nd

Floyd 1996).

Marriages

f

people

that

"fell

n

ove,"

s

Rheingold

1994)

suggests,

hen

hatting

n the nternet ake

place

in

the

physical

eality.

hose

people

wouldnothave meet

without

he

nternet,

ut t

does

not

mean that

hey

an

spend

ll their ives here.

Referential

ature f

Cyberspace

On

the

other

hand we

have

another

orthodoxy

hat

predicts gloomy

future f

ghost-like

umans

ngulfed

n simulacrumhat s

only poor

version f the

good

old

realityWellman

nd

Gulia

1999:

332-333).

Indeed

"[w]e

must

alance the dealist's

enthusiasm

or

omputerized

ife

with heneed to

ground

urselvesmore

deeply

n

the

felt arth

ffirmed

y

herealist

s

our

primaryeality"Heim

1998:

43).

The debate

on

"realness"

of the nternet

eems to

be

very

imilar

o the debate on "realness"

of iterature. he goldenmeanthatHeim asks for s whatSheriffalls "referential

function

f iterature"

ased

on Peirce's

heory

f

meaning.

heriff

rites:

"Peirce

ould ave

ound

implistic

he

hinking

urrent

oday

hat

here

s

somehowfixed

ulf

between

igns

nd

eality;

hat

ince

verything

or s

s

sign,reality"

s

fiction.Let

s

not

retend

todoubt

n

philosophy,"

e

urges,

what

e

do not oubtn urhearts"

5.265).

he ore fPeirce's

pragmaticism

s refutationf bsolute

dealismnd ealismnd n nsistence

pon

he

nterdependence

of

eality

nd

hought"

Sheriff

989:

41).

It seems also

to be thecase thatmass media

and

personal

ontact re not here to

struggle

or

upremacy

ver

the meansof nter-human

ommunication,

ut ikewise

theyhavecomplementaryoles Rogers1973). Just nasmuch s thetelephone nd

face-to-faceontacts

f East Yorkers esearched

y

Wellman

eem

not

to

cancel

each

other

ut,

but

ctually upplement

ne another

Wellman

nd

Potter

999).

Therefore

the bold statement:

if

you

are not on the

nternet,

ou

don't exist"

Preece

2000:

6)

is

paradoxically

rue.

"Reality"

nd

cyberspace

re

interconnected

Wellman

nd

Gulia

1999:

332-334;

Muniz and

O'Guinn

2001),

and now

any

can

hardly

xist

independently. yberspace

s

a

sole extensionf thereal

world,

or

t

reproduces

he

system

f

meanings

rom he world

we

are

living

n.

Signs

n the

cyberspace

have

not been takenout of the

blue,

but first ere

created

n

this

very hysical

world nd

then aunched nto hecyberspace,ndsecondthey eferothisvery hysicalworld.

We

do not

speak

new

anguages

n

the

cyberspace,

ut the

very

nes thathas been

created and

used

in

this

very eality

or

ges

already.

Of course those

languages,

used also in

cyberspace,

volve,

nd

very

ftennew

developments

re born

n

the

cyberspace

hat

descent" o

our

daily

ives,

ust

as

the

lready

mentioned

miley

ace

:).

But

cyberspace

nfluences ur

daily

anguages

ust

as much

as

advertising

nd

other

phenomena.

Also


efers o a

real

person

iving

n

the



15/27

234

KACPER OBtOCKI

physical

world.

t could not exist

without

im.

But also

Sting,ust

like other

rtists,

takes moreand morethepossibilityfhaving website orgranted.Forexample t

is more

convenient

or

rtists o

put

the

yrics

f their

ongs

online,

hanto

publish

it

n a

booklet

old

together

with

CD,

and more

and

moreoften

rtists o so. CD

covers

have

inks o artists'

websites,

o

in

this

way hey

re also

a

part

f the

package.

In a

way

a booklet

without he

homepage

s not

complete.

Indeed,

one of the ten

most

popular

key

wordsusers

type

n

when

using

search

engine

s

"lyrics" Alexa

Research

2001).

TVuth s. Fiction

Nevertheless

ome

may

ay:

"well,

what

bout

all

the new communities

hat tarted

flourishing

n

the

yberspace?

hey

do not

refer

o

anything

lse

in

theoffline orld."

What about

chat

rooms,

Amazon.com,

Napster,

virtual ities

where

people

meet

when

using

ar

simulator

oftware,

nd

many

more hat xist

olely

n the

yberspace?

Indeed this

oint

s

valid,

nd

t eems

t s

mportant

o

know f n

online

phenomenon

has

an

equivalent

n the real

world,

r not.

And

it

s even more

mportant

hen

we

are

speaking

bout online

communities,

s it

will

be

shown ater. These

exclusively

cyber

phenomena,

nevertheless,

ould be divided

nto two

categories.

There are

"mythical"

nes that re meant o

be

imaginaryust

as Alice's Wonderland as meant

to be

imaginary,

nd

that now

serve a similar unction o

myths Bromberg

1996:

145-147;

Robin

1995:

139).

The best

example

or

t

could

be

TheStone.com,

virtual

site where ubscribers

an solve riddles nd do treasure

hunting.

The other

ype

s

theones that

have

typological

quivalents

n

thereal

ife,

utno

literal ne. Here the

example

of Amazon.com

would suffice: ndeed there

re

bookshops

n

real

life,

ut

no

specifically

mazon.com

ookshop.

The distinctionetween

ruth nd

fiction,

ust

as in thecase of televisionEco 1998), sfairly igid ndpeople generally

end o

keep

it.

Generally peaking graduate

from

Oxford

would not

subscribe

o

Cambridge's

alumninewsletter.

We want o

keep

online he ame relation etween ruth

nd

false.

In

otherwords:

what

s true

fflinehouldbe also true

nline,

nd what s falseoffline

shouldbe also

falseonline. For

example

n

netiquette

IRL' stands or

in real ife."

It is

an

exclusively

n-line

xpression,

n

expression

hathas been coined on-line

nd

is used on-line

o refer o

the

world

off-line

Preece

2000:

101).

"In

real life

am

a

doctor,

ven

though

now am

an

alien"(sic ),

as one

of the

MUD

players

would

say Bromberg

996:

147-148)

for nstance.

To illustratets

mportance

we

need to

saythat t is clearly n abbreviation,nd abbreviationsre generally oined in the

process

f

repeated

use ofthe

whole

ong xpression,ust

as

BTW in

netiquette

tands

for

by

the

way,"

nd TIA

standsfor

thanks

n

advance."

And

obviously

here

re

several ccounts f frustratederds

elling

heir irtual

friends" hat

hey

re a tall

and attractive lond

Talko

and

Pi^tkowska

000),

but the

generaltendency

s that

in

mostof the

banal

situations

nlinewe tend to

keep

the borderbetween

rue nd

false.



16/27

ONLINE

NATIONAL OMMUNITIES 235

Abolition f

Territory

We extend

the

"real world"onto

the

cyberspace,

r we

project igns

nto the

cy-

berspace,

ecause

the atter

as

some

crucial

dvantages. hysical

world s to a

large

extent

onstrained

y

ime

nd

space,

which an make

communication ore

difficult.

Those

barriers

o not

exist n the

cyberspace,

r to be

more

precise

will

disappear

completely

n

a

couple

of

years.

An e-mail

arriveswithin

couple

of

seconds to

a few

hours,

but this

will

approach

zero

very

oon. So now

there s no difference

if we chat

with omeone

from he nextroom or the

nextcontinent

Castells

and

Borja

1997:

1). Cyberspace

n

this

respect

s

yet

anothernail

to the coffin

f the

physical erritoryCastells 1989;Muniz and O'Guinn 2001). Furthermorehecy-

berspace

s,

unlike

physical pace,

unlimited.New

domains an be created n a

split

of

a

second,

and there s

enough

Lebensraum or

veryone.

And

the

United States

Internet

ouncil

has

recently

ntroduced ewdomains.

Of course ome domains

re

more valuable

than

others,

nd

this s

why

Madonna is

fighting

n a

court for the

www.madonna.comomain

name thathas been

"cybersquatted"

y

omeone

hoping

to make

profit

rom

egistering

t first.

Nevertheless,

enerally

peaking yberspace

is

unlimited,

inceeven a site ike

www.colourless_green_ideas_sleep_furiously.com

is

theoreticallyossible.

Ill

Networks

nd

Communities

Telephone

nd

Internet

There couldhavebeenno

nationalism n

the

nternet

nly

f

heweb

belonged olely

to

the

private

domain. The

comparison

etween

the

telephone

nd

the

Internet

demonstrates his

well.

We said

thaton

telephone

we

usually

do not

dial random

numbers,ndthat t smainly ecausetelephone s a mediumsnotbased onwritten

language.

And ifwe dial an

accidental

number,

hen his s

usually

mistake nd

we

apologise

the

person

we

speak

to for

onfusing igits.

On

the

other

hand

we do not feel

embarrassed f

ooking

for

the

homepage

of

Sting

we

get

to

the

homepage

of a

"competitive

nline

gamer."

We do

not send

e-mails

aying:

I'm

sorry

visited

our

homepage,

ut

was

looking

or

omething

else,

and..."

But we do

apologise

f

we had

sent

omeone

else an e-mail

that urned

out to be

containing

iruses.

Just s we

do not

pologise

when

ntered

nto

liqueur

store

while

ooking

or

bookshop,

utwe do

apologise

when

we knock

o

someone

else's doorbymistake. he differences that hetelephone elongsmostlyoprivate,

and

the

nternet

mostly

o

public

domain,

s well

as

telephone

upports

networks,

whereas

he nternetn

general

upports

ommunities.

There are

several

easons or

t.

Telephone,

utting

side

the

possibility

f

a "con-

ference

alk"

used

mostly

n

business,

s

generally

one-to-one

ommunication

ool.

The

Internet an

be

one-to-one

e-mails),

ne-to-manynewsletters,

ndividualweb-

sites),

or

many-to-many

most

websites).

We

get

angry

when

someone we

hardly



17/27

236

KACPER OBtOCKI

know ends

us another diotic

hain

etter,

r whenwe

get

ome more

unk

mail

n

our

inbox. t is so because itviolates ur

private pace

wehaveunappreciated uests,n

other

words.We

delete this

mail

nstantly,ust

as we

kindly aybye

to

unappreciated

visitors.

-mail

functions

n almost he same

way

s the

telephone,

t

belongs

to

the

private

omain

and

supports

etworks.

he networks e have

in

mind re

in

most

of the

cases

egocentric

nd

first-order,

ince

we

usually

end e-mails r

speak

on the

telephone

with

eople

we know

lready.

f

we

still ssume hat here re no

telephone

books

for

telephone

ook

is a

print

ext,

nd

ust

as

newspapers

nd websites

up-

port

communities

hanks o

the

process

of

maging

f

others),

henthe

onlyway

of

speaking

with

omeone

we do not

know s

by sking

or

his or her

telephone

number

from ne ofourfriends.n this

way

ournetworksecome

second-order,

ut still it

is

a

network,

ot

a

community.

n

e-mail,

r a virus an

span

the

globe

in a

cou-

ple

of hours

only

hanks o intertwinement

f

personal

networks,

ndeed this

s the

best

proof

or he

"strength

fweak ties"

Granovetter

973),

but

maging,

n

strictly

Andersonian

erms,

s

here

still

mpossible.

Even

conceptualisation

f networks

s

"personal

ommunities"

Wellman

nd Potter

999) brings

n

only

onfusion,

ecause

there

s

no

"central"

ntity

n Wellman's

personal

ommunities,"

uch as

a

newspa-

per,

that

very

member

nd

all

the members

t the same time

an

consciously

elate

to.

An

individual,

rrespective

f their

bilities,

annot

replace newspaper,

r other

similar

media,

n

serving

s themeans

ofcommunication

nd

dentity-shaping

rocess

between

nonymous,

eographically

eparated

ndividuals.

Debate on Virtual

ommunities

As

Barry

Wellman

noticed,

he debate

on virtual ommunities

ave been

extremely

"presentist"

nd

unscientific,

nd

many

pundits

have written

bout communities

n

cyberspace

s if social scientists

ave

not been

pondering

ver the nature

nd fate

of

communities

n

the

social worldbefore

Wellman

nd Gulia

1999:

333).

These

are the sourcesof bothextreme nthusiasmbout thepossibilities pened bythe

"discovery"

f

the

cyberspace,

parked

y

n influential

ook

byRheingold

1993)

in

which

he described

his

experiences

n

one of the

first

arge-scale

irtual ommunities

as

well as orthodox

cepticism.

For some

people

virtual ommunities

ecame the

panacea

for

the

fall of the

public

man"

(Sussman

1997:

277-278),

and forothers

it was

simply

threat

o "the real

thing."

To

a

large

extent he

rootsof the

dispute

lie

in the

very

fact that

different,

nd sometimes

ven

contradictory,

henomena

taking

lace

on

the web

were all

put

into the

same basket

and labelled

as "virtual

communities."

or

example

accounts

of

genuine

trong

olidarities hat

developed

betweenmembers fonlinecommunities,ike nthehope-bringingrticle yArgyle

and

Shields,

who

describehow newsletter

roup

members

mourned he

death

of one

of

their -mail

friends

1996),

were confronted

ith ommon

bservations

hat

most

oftheonline ncounters

re

superficial

nd

give

false

mpression

f

ntimacyPreece

2000:

21).

Then the

following uestion

would be raised: "can social lifeflourish

n

the

cyberspace?,"

nd then

ome,

who

became

convinced

y

tories ike

Rheingold's

or

Argyle's,

would

answer

yes,

t

can,"

and

others,

who for

example

chattedonce



18/27

ONLINE

NATIONAL

OMMUNITIES 237

with

trangers,

ound

t

uninteresting

nd abandoned the

dea,

would answer

no,

it

cannot."

Sometimes

ven

people

abuse the accountsof

strong

olidarities or their wn

commercial

urposes.

Internet

evelopers

long

time

ago

discovered he

magic

of

media

that,

ust

as

described

y

Anderson,

an

support ociability

y

making

n

individual

magine

olidarities

ith ther

people. Developers

ike

Wonnacott

2000)

think hat

they

an

create communities

ut of

blue,

on basis of

virtually

nything.

Downloading

Winamp"

one

of the most

popular

oftware or

playing

music

from

a

computer)

nevitably

orcesus to

find ut about

"Winamp

Community."

When

sending

sms

message

o someone

else from

Mtnsms.com,

e are informed

n

detail

that ourcommunity"as this nd thisnumber fmembers,hat n a joined effort

send this

nd

this

number f

messages

ast

month,

which

s

on

average

this nd this

number

f

messages

erday

nd so on

and

so

forth.Mtnsms.commission tatement"

is

a beautiful

xample

or

how

trong

as the

designer's

eterminationo

give

sense

of

unity

o the

networked

sers

who use

this

particular

ervice

ust

like

they

use

telephone:

"1.

We

r

all connected

2. Less

is

better

3.

Now

is the

only

moment"

Unfortunatelyo oneexplainswhat hose hree oints resupposed omean.The

conclusion

s that

here re certain

imits o the

self-fulfillingrophecy

mechanism,

and it

appears

that

moreelements

re needed for

genuine

olidarities o be formed

between

sersof

similar

roducts

Muniz

and O'Guinn

2001).

The

point

s

the

concept

f

community

as

been one of

the

most

p

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Poblocki - Online National Communities