Gays in (Cyber-) Space

ISBN-13: 9783836420808 / Angielski / Miękka / 2007 / 276 str.

Ragan Fox

Opis

Computer-mediated communication offers opportunities for gay men toaffirm their identities in digital contexts. Many gay men have turned toonline journals, or "blogs," and internet-bound broadcasts, otherwise knownas "podcasts," to perform their subjectivities. Digital performances of gayidentities potentially intervene on reductive understandings of gay maleidentity that are prevalent in several mass mediated modes of communication.This project is grounded in a review of literature relevant to performancesof identity, personal narrative, social activism, and online methods ofcultural intervention. Through the use of virtual ethnographic methods, theauthor reveals that gay bloggers and podcasters construct multiple onlinepersonas and skillfully manipulate language to articulate their needs, desires,fears, reflections of the past, and hopes for the future. Audience membersreact to the generative texts by finding their own ways to contribute to onlineperformance and bolster gay male subjectivities. The book concludes with adiscussion of how bloggers, podcasters, and audience members work in anactivist manner.