Defense Date
10-22-2004
Graduation Date
Fall 2004
Availability
Immediate Access
Submission Type
dissertation
Degree Name
PhD
Department
Clinical Psychology
School
McAnulty College and Graduate School of Liberal Arts
Committee Chair
Paul Richer
Committee Member
Daniel Burston
Committee Member
Michael Sipiora
Keywords
critical research, cyberculture studies, cyborg subjectivity, Foucault and Heidegger, hermeneutic research, Internet
Abstract
Amidst modernity's expanding electronic social matrix, this cultural-historical inquiry explores the technological construction of human being (e.g., cyborgs) and sociality in the America Online cyberscape. A two-tiered critical-hermeneutic method enables exploration of the broad rationalizing historical narrative and the localized play of virtual discursive practices impacting human meaning construction, selfhood, and social practice. A third and fourth tier of inquiry occasions integration of "psychological" meanings found in research participant experiential descriptions and interviews. This four-tier interplay reveals a bodily ethic enabling participants to modify subjectifying Internet practices toward meaningful social ends. Otherwise, eclipsed interpretive bodily powers contribute to "undecidability" about meaning constructions and identities. Despite multiple identity solicitations, normalization of objectified and schizoid being, and "panoptic" e-surveillance, participants pursued genuine and personally satisfying encounters.
Format
Language
English
Recommended Citation
Felder, A. (2004). Internet Dwelling, Cyborgs, and the Matrix of Modernity: An Empirical Inquiry with Critical-Hermeneutic Features (Doctoral dissertation, Duquesne University). Retrieved from https://dsc.duq.edu/etd/533