Award Date
1-1-1998
Degree Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Arts (MA)
Department
Communication Studies
First Committee Member
Richard Jensen
Number of Pages
111
Abstract
Cyberspace is a metaphor for an alternative reality situated in the linear, physical world but yet capable of transcending it. The otherness of cyberspace manifests itself through virtual transient worlds, reconstituting the stable human subject in a radically interactive electronic medium. The study identifies three simple stages to demonstrate how cyberspace accomplishes the dispersion of the human subject: (i) role-playing which occurs in interactive games such as Multi-User Simulated Environments; (ii) the deconstruction of the boundaries between the autonomous author and the reader in hypertextual platforms and (iii) the deconstruction of the boundaries between the virtual and the real in Virtual Reality machines. By seeking anchoring not merely in the bourgeois reality of linear time and linear space but also in virtual worlds, the dispersed human subject is creatively enriched and is momentarily free to redefine oneself in unimaginable ways that poets and visionaries could only dream about.
Keywords
Cyberspace; Postmodern; Redefining; Self
Controlled Subject
Communication; Computer science; Ethnology; Social psychology
File Format
File Size
3348.48 KB
Degree Grantor
University of Nevada, Las Vegas
Permissions
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Repository Citation
Joseph, Roy, "Redefining the self in postmodern cyberspace" (1998). UNLV Retrospective Theses & Dissertations. 905.
http://dx.doi.org/10.25669/g85q-pqnh
Rights
IN COPYRIGHT. For more information about this rights statement, please visit http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
