Session 8: Commercial and Military Colonisations of Cyberculture
Chair: Joshua Raulerson

Cyberculture.mil: a Cautionary Tale for an Emerging Field of Study
David Silver
University of Washington, USA

On May 2 2003, U.S. President George W. Bush left the battleship USS Abraham Lincoln, where he led a war-is-over rally/photo opportunity, to land in Silicon Valley. The shift was more than a mere sea-to-land exercise -- it was a symbolic and mediated event, signifying Bush's close attention to the economy, an attention his father was missing in 1991 and cost him his reelection. Bush the Younger's destination was Santa Clara, yet unlike Clinton/Gore who visited the region frequently as champions of the "new economy," he delivered a speech on tax cuts at United Defense Industries. The shift, we can say, is now official: the United States economy has gone from "new" to war; the military-industrial complex has returned, that is, of course, if it ever left.

Since at least the mid-1990s, with the release of Howard Rheingold's The Virtual Community and Sherry Turkle's Life on the Screen, the field of cyberculture studies has been emerging, transforming from what could be described as a counter-cultural movement to an academic and institutionalized movement. The legitimating elements are in place: a canon (if not constituted by shared texts, then certainly by relatively shared intellectual topics); journals (New Media & Society, Information, Communication & Society, The Information Society); associations (the Association of Internet Researchers); and departments (Brandeis University, Curtin University of Technology, Washington State University). This paper argues that the field, especially as represented and developed by scholars and institutions based in the United States, may be on the verge of a new paradigm, one that I am referring to as cyberculture.mil.

Using Bush's Silicon Valley talk/media event as a starting point, this paper offers a brief history of the intersections between academic cyberculture studies and the United States military, going back to, of course, the original Internet, developed by DARPA. It then argues for the immediate stoppage of this convergence, and presents a statement with which scholars and institutions, located internationally, can debate, disagree, or help develop.

The Man Machine at War: Cyber Warriors, Suicide Bombers and the Anti-Cyborg
Christopher Macallister
University of Kent at Canterbury, UK

No abstract presently available

Amazon.com and the New Economy: "Work hard. Have fun. Make history. [Make money.]"
Adrienne Massanari
University of Washington, USA

While the story of the "new economy" has been retold in countless newspaper and magazine articles, cyberculture scholars have only recently turned their attention to the culture that these companies created. Much of the so-called "hype" around the dot-coms had to do with the stories that they told about themselves to their investors, customers, and employees, as well as the stories that were told about them by the press, the financial community, and the culture at-large.

Many of the dot-coms distanced themselves from traditional business models (the "story" that had been accepted by the public and press for many years) in favour of more glamorous tales of unlimited cash potential for investors and employees. These stories could take on mythic qualities and obfuscate, or outright deny, real financial problems. Companies were no longer expected to make a profit quickly, or even to make a profit at all; they only had to have a good story to explain how investors would inevitably make money as their stock prices skyrocketed.

As the "poster child for the Internet revolution," Amazon.com played an important role in both leading and shaping the dot-com economy. The company's unofficial motto: "Work hard. Have fun. Make history. [Make money.]" succinctly expressed many of the cultural values of dot-coms that Bronson (1999), Delbecq & Weiss (2000), English-Lueck (2000), Marschall (2002) and others have discussed: youth, long hours, work as an "adventure," and stock options.

This paper suggests that Amazon.com's motto can be used as a lens to understand the discursive environment that surrounded the company (and other dot-coms). It presents the results from a close reading of letters that Jeff Bezos, Amazon.com's founder, sent to shareholders in 1997 and 2001; examining these texts is a unique (and under-explored) way to approach cyberculture studies. This reading draws upon narrative theory from Genette (1982) and Foucault (1984), Barthes' (1999) work on myth, and Boje's (1991) research on storytelling systems within businesses. The paper explores the themes, the authorial "voices" that Bezos uses, and the various audiences to which the letters are addressed – all in an attempt to understand how Bezos rhetorically presented the company to the public, investors, and the media. In addition, it examines how these two letters reflect the changing economic climate of 1997 and 2001. Finally, this paper argues that certain corporate values (as found in the company's motto) were reified throughout the text, while other values and events affecting the company were marginalized.

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