Anita Greenhill

The social construction of electronic space

Abstract Computer‐mediated communication is a phenomenon of post‐industrial society. As a consequence of the interactivity and persistent textual nature of this form of communication, new spaces of sociality are constructed which can be analysed and interpreted with the epistemologies and methodologies utilised in understanding more conventional places. This approach reveals that electronic spaces are constructions firmly tied to the cultural and social experiences of ‘real‐world’ existences. Electronic identities, then, are built from this wide base of experience and ‘real‐world’ identity rather than, as is sometimes claimed, begun afresh. These connections to understood material culture and the prevalence of the typed word in electronic spaces permits a digital archaeology, inspired by material culture studies, which is both revealing of the users of these spaces as well as the wider social constructions of post‐industrial society.

Academic Referencing of Internet-Based Resources.

The rapid growth of the Internet has outstripped conventions for citing material from that source. Distinguishing material as a [computer file] does not provide sufficient information about the platform necessary for reading it. The URL provides useful information, but augmenting it with other details such as author and date not only provides a more meaningful citation, its similarity to conventional bibliographical notation lends a greater degree of legitimacy in academic discourse. The article considers information derivable from the URL, and HTML documents (including non-displayed source text), in order to derive bibliography and in-line text citations for various kinds of material. The conventions proposed are also applicable to Gopher, FTP, Usenet News, journals distributed by listservers, and email.