Hanging Out in the Virtual Pub

Download or read book Hanging Out in the Virtual Pub written by Lori Kendall and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2002-06-27 with total page 314 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Lori Kendall is one of the first to explore the brave new world of social relations as they have evolved on the Internet. In this highly readable ethnography, she examines how men and women negotiate their gender roles on an online forum she calls BlueSky. The result is a first-rate analysis of the emerging social phenomenon of Internet-mediated communication and a ground-breaking study of the social and cultural effects of a medium that allows participants to assume identities of their own choosing. Despite the common assumption that the personas these men and women craft for themselves bear little resemblance to reality, Kendall discovers that the habitués of BlueSky stick surprisingly close to the facts of their actual lives and personalities.