This is an innovative study of digital culture, in particular the politics of the emerging digital culture, and especially the cultural and political dimensions of network technologies. Across the cybercultural landscape of mailing lists, discussion groups, e-zines and the digital press, it sees the emergence of a new collective political subject, a networked intelligence.
The author touches on key concepts and debates in cultural theory and cultural politics, and makes use of student-friendly examples including cyberfeminism, activism and cyberorganising on the net – such as J18, Seattle, and the anti-war movement.
Terranova presents a sophisticated argument about what the new forms of communication and organisation mean for politics, democracy, and identity. The book draws on online debates about labour, self-organisation, virtual activism, and future identities to outline some of the features of current societies of control (following Hardt and Negri) and the political answers that are being formulated within these new digital cultures.