“Community without Community in Digital Culture” by Charlie Gere
Community without Community in Digital Culture by Charlie Gere, Palgrave Macmillan:
The word ‘digital’ refers to both digital data, as used in computers, and also the digits, fingers, of the hand, and thus by extension touch, which has long been a trope for connectivity, community, and participation. Thus, in its drive towards greater connectivity, our culture is digital in more than one sense, in that it increasingly encourages such contact (from the Latin, ‘com’, together, and ‘tangere’, to touch). But at the same time such technologies always involve separation, gap and distance.
Community Without Community in Digital Culture suggests that networks always involve this other aspect of touch, separation, distance and gap, as a necessary concomitant of our fundamental technicity. Continue reading