poliTE-Literatur-Datenbank

Bülow, William; Felix, Cathrine (2016): On Friendship Between Online Equals. In: Philosophy & Technology 29 (1), S. 21-34. DOI: 10.1007/s13347-014-0183-6

Abstract: There is an ongoing debate about the value of virtual friendship. In contrast to previous authorships, this paper argues that virtual friendship can have independent value. It is argued that within an Aristotelian framework, some friendships that are perhaps impossible offline can exist online, i.e., some offline unequals can be online equals and thus form online friendships of independent value.

Keywords: digital, Disziplin, Favoriten, Freundschaft, Internet, Modelle/Theorien, Philosophie, Soziale Angemessenheit, Technikphilosophie, Theorien der Freundschaft, Zeitschrift: Philosophy and Technology

Bakardjieva, Maria; Gaden, Georgia (2012): Web 2.0 Technologies of the Self. In: Philosophy & Technology 25 (3), S. 399-413. DOI: 10.1007/s13347-011-0032-9

Abstract: Although no scholarly consensus exists on the issue, the claim that a substantive reconfiguration of the Internet has occurred in the beginning of the 2000s has settled firmly in public common sense. The label tentatively chosen for the new turn in the medium’s evolution is Web 2.0. The developments constituting this turn have been contemplated from different perspectives in technical and business publications (O’Reilly 2005), in treatises on “convergence” or “participatory” culture (Jenkins 2006; Jenkins et al. 2009), and could be usefully interrogated by means of political economy concepts such as the “social factory” and “free labor” (Terranova 2004). Marked, or rather symbolically constructed, by these discursive pickets lies a field of practice that the members of the participatory culture, the “produsers” (Bruns 2008) of open journalism, blogs, social networking sites and other characteristic Web 2.0 applications inhabit and animate with their everyday thought, decision making and action. This paper undertakes a theoretical exploration of the user practices emerging and consolidating around the new technological and organizational models making up Web 2.0. It is informed by a qualitative study of bloggers and Facebook users conducted through focus group methodology, although the concrete empirical data are not presented here. Rather, the analysis employs the concept of “technologies of the self” by Foucault (1988) as a heuristic device in order to situate Web 2.0 use, first, in a long history of culturally evolved forms of self-constitution and, second, in a complex matrix of relationships with other types of technologies, namely, those of production, sign systems and power. This conceptual choice, we argue, furnishes a study of Web 2.0 use, which holds in balance its liberatory potential and its susceptibility to new forms of domination, rationalization and commodification.

Keywords: Anerkennung, Art des Kommunikationsmediums, Blogs, critical Theory, Disziplin, Foucault, Im (wissenschaftlichen) Diskurs, Konstruktion des Selbst, Mensch-Technik-Relationen (MTR), Philosophie, (post)strukturalistische Ansätze, Reflexionen über MTR, Selbst, Social networking sites, Soziale Angemessenheit, Sozialphilosophie, Technologies of the self, Web 2.0, Zeitschrift: Philosophy and Technology

Schechtman, Marya (2012): The Story of my (Second) Life. Virtual Worlds and Narrative Identity. In: Philosophy & Technology 25 (3), S. 329-343. DOI: 10.1007/s13347-012-0062-y

Abstract: A small but significant number of residents of Second Life (SL) insist that SL is as real to them as Real Life (RL) and that their SL avatars are as much themselves as their offscreen selves. This paper investigates whether this claim can be literally true in any philosophically interesting way. Using a narrative account of personal identity I argue that there is a way of understanding these identity claims according to which the actions and experiences of the offscreen user and the online avatar are indeed actions and experiences of a single person. In the course of describing how this is so, the paper also uncovers new insights into how a narrative approach to personal identity should be structured and developed.

Keywords: Anerkennung, Anerkennung und technische Systeme, Favoriten, Identität, Informations- & Kommunikationstechnik, Mensch-Technik-Relationen (MTR), Modelle/Theorien, Narrative Online identity, Narrative Online-Identität, Online, Personal identity, Realtechnik, Second Life, Selbst, Soziale Angemessenheit, Technik, Virtual Life, Virtual worlds, Zeitschrift: Philosophy and Technology