Howard Rheingold: The Virtual Community: Homesteading on the Electronic Frontier (1993)

“In this book, Howard Rheingold tours the ‘virtual community’ of online networking. He describes a community that is as real and as much a mixed bag as any physical community andmdash;one where people talk, argue, seek information, organize politically, fall in love, and dupe others. At the same time that he tells stories about people who have received online emotional support during devastating illnesses, he acknowledges a darker side to people’s behavior in cyberspace. Indeed, contends Rheingold, people relate to each other online much the same as they do in physical communities.”

Publisher Addison-Wesley, Reading, MA, 1993
William Patrick Book series
ISBN 9780201608700, 0201608707
ix+325 pages

Interview with author (Katie Hafner, WELL, about 2nd edition, 2000)
Reviews: Geert Lovink (Mediamatic, 1993), John Stimson (Social Science Computer Review, 1995), P.A. Dee Southard (Social Science Computer Review, 1995), Douglas B. Hindman (J Applied Communications, 1996), Scott London (c.1993), Ian Goodwin (Westminster Papers in Communication and Culture, 2004).
Analysis: Fred Turner (Technology & Culture, 2005).

Wikipedia

HTML

Lawrence Lessig: Code: Version 2.0 (2006)

From the Preface: “This is a translation of an old book—indeed, in Internet time, it is a translation of an ancient text.” That text is Lessig’s “Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace.” The second version of that book is “Code v2.” The aim of Code v2 is to update the earlier work, making its argument more relevant to the current internet.

Code v2 was written in part through a collaborative Wiki. That version is still accessible here. Lessig took the Wiki text as of 12/31/05, and then added his own edits. Code v2 is the result.

The Wiki text was licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5 License. So too is the derivative. Reflecting the contributions of the community to this new work, all royalties have been dedicated to Creative Commons.

You can download the full text in PDF form. The text is also available in a Wiki hosted by SocialText. And obviously, you can also buy the book at the links to the right. (A wise choice, as it is cheaper than printing the book in most contexts.)

This second edition, or Version 2.0, of Code has been prepared through the author’s wiki, a web site that allows readers to edit the text, making this the first reader-edited revision of a popular book

Edition: 2
Published by Basic Books, 2006
ISBN 0465039146, 9780465039142
410 pages

project website

PDF
PDF (version 1) [Croatian]

Diana Saco: Cybering Democracy: Public Space and the Internet (2002)

The Internet has been billed by some proponents as an “electronic agora” ushering in a “new Athenian age of democracy.” That assertion assumes that cyberspace’s virtual environment is compatible with democratic practice. But the anonymous sociality that is intrinsic to the Internet seems at odds with theories of democracy that presuppose the possibility, at least, of face-to-face meetings among citizens. The Internet, then, raises provocative questions about democratic participation: Must the public sphere exist as a physical space? Does citizenship require a bodily presence?

In Cybering Democracy, Diana Saco boldly reconceptualizes the relationship between democratic participation and spatial realities both actual and virtual. She argues that cyberspace must be viewed as a produced social space, one that fruitfully confounds the ordering conventions of our physical spaces. Within this innovative framework, Saco investigates recent and ongoing debates over cryptography, hacking, privacy, national security, information control, and Internet culture, focusing on how different online practices have shaped this particular social space. In the process, she highlights fundamental issues about the significance of corporeality in the development of civic-mindedness, the exercise of citizenship, and the politics of collective action.

cyberspace, heterotopia, encryption, computer networking, Clipper chip, cyberpunk, ARPAnet, Foucault, personal computers, panopticon, ENIAC, mass media, Information Superhighway, Hacker Ethic, John Perry Barlow, newsgroups, Visible Human Project, Cypherpunks, participatory democracy, Neuromancer

Published by U of Minnesota Press, 2002
ISBN 0816635412, 9780816635412
296 pages
preview

PDF
Alternative download