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Resource
Centre for Cyberculture Studies
Run by the enormously talented
David Silver of the University of Maryland, the Resource Center for Cyberculture
Studies is "an online, not-for-profit organization whose purpose is to research,
study, teach, support, and create diverse and dynamic elements of cyberculture".
Full of good stuff. It is handy if there is one site that everybody who
is interested in an area looks at, and sends information to. I think that for
cyberculture studies, it should be this one.
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Spark
Spark is an excellent monthly
online magazine, and it's lovingly designed too, so be prepared to be jealous.
It's about culture, mass media, and new media. Wander around and you find more
content than you originally thought -- fashion! comics! technology! dance! religion?!
Visit!
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Wired
News
Surprisingly, the style-conscious
Wired magazine has a rather conventional site, but it's well organised
and has lots of (daily) news about internet developments, regulations, and innovations.
You can also study the excellent extensive on-line archive of Wired
magazine articles.
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The
World Wide Web Consortium
Lots of useful basic (and
advanced) information about the world wide web. Tim Berners-Lee, who invented
the web [not the internet, but the www], has an interesting Frequently
Asked Questions page in which he indicates that he always thought that
the web should be about the free flow of information, and that people aren't using
hyperlinks properly these days, because he wanted everybody to link to everything
else that was relevant to them, but people (or companies, rather) often don't,
and try to tie visitors in, rather than sending them off on an eclectic
cybertrip.
Dig around for other good
stuff.
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The
MIT Media Lab
Very interesting... the
famous MIT Media Lab gets money from lots of companies so that it can spend its
time contemplating digital futures, etc, on their behalf. And why not.
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Netscape's
Developer Pages
Enormous amounts of information
about web technologies and web building. Not a sociological cyberculture type
site, obviously, but an understanding of one goes hand in hand with the other,
and Netscape have put together a load of valuable, up-to-date reference material
here, and it seems to be free of Microsoft-style corporate bias.
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Virtual
Society?
This site for the ESRC-funded
Virtual Society? research programme -- "the social science of electronic
technologies" -- has a good range of information about research findings,
articles, and a bunch of relevant links. Ironic entertainment can be found as
articles about Web inaccessibility are reproduced as enormous GIF files. But it's
good stuff.
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The
Internet Society
You would expect the Internet
Society to have some brilliantly-designed webpages. But they don't. However, there's
lots of information here on the history and development of the internet. The Internet
Society's mission statement is "To assure the beneficial, open evolution of the
global Internet and its related internetworking technologies through leadership
in standards, issues, and education". Good-o.
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Iconocast
- Web marketing research
Iconocast, it says here,
"is the definitive resource for facts, figures, trends and rumors in the
Internet marketing industry". Whilst you might think that internet marketing sounds
very dull, these marketing people are very keen on having up-to-date information
on who is using the internet, how long for, what their favourite kind of cheese
is, and so on. Some of which can be interesting.
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The
Industry Standard: The Newsmagazine of the Internet Economy
Seems to me to be a useful
source on what's going down in the commercialisation of the internet. It may be
insufficiently critical of developments, but at least it tells you they're happening.
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Toolkit
for Web Activists
This 'Activist Toolkit'
produced by 'ONE/Northwest: Online Networking for the Environment' is full of
information on how to be an internet activist, which includes some very good stuff
on how to make webpages which are of much broader interest.
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UseIt
This site by Jakob Nielsen
contains loads of information about web usability. Jakob is into having websites
which are as quick to load, and as easy to navigate around, as possible. As his
main page (pictured left) suggests, this doesn't necessarily lead to very gorgeous
design; but Jakob would say that users just want to get to the information that
they are after, and don't really care about gorgeous design, and he's probably
right. In any case, the site contains lots of advice about improving navigation
which many sites (whether plain or complex) would benefit from.
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Yale
Web Style Guide
From the authors of Web
Style Guide: Basic Design Principles for Creating Web Sites (Yale University
Press, 1999), it's... a web style guide. On the web. Handy. (The book is, of course,
reviewed in our web design book reviews section).
The slightly dull look of
their site suggests that they are more interested in good, clear design, rather
than design which is imaginative as well as being good and clear, but given
the number of horrible websites in the world, this is much needed. Speaking of
which...
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Web
Pages That Suck
At www.webpagesthatsuck.com
they suggest that you learn good design by looking at bad design -- and they have
the links to a good range of sucky sites so that you can try this active learning
method for yourself. Thankfully they help out those who aren't sure by explaining
what sucks about the sites in question. This started life as a website, which
is still regularly updated, and then mutated into the book which you see pictured
here.
(This is also reviewed -- and highly recommended -- in our web
design book reviews section).
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The
Information Society
The Information Society
journal, published since 1981, is (it says here) "a key critical forum for
leading edge analysis of the impacts, policies, system concepts, and methodologies
related to information technologies and changes in society and culture".
And, with a deft show of
unintentional ironic humour, the site highlights a key aspect of the information
society by telling you that you have to, er, pay to see The Informattion Society.
(With a revolutionary take on hypermedia, they get you to pay for a subscription
to the paper version, and then when you've got that you can access it on the web
too!). So at least that was a laugh, and it's not actually quite such a closed
shop -- a handful of articles appear on-line, and you can see the abstracts of
all the articles they've published. I got to print out a 30-page article called
'Hyperbole over Cyberspace'
which looks interesting, anyway.
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High
Noon on the Electronic Frontier
This is most of the text
of the book High Noon on the Electronic Frontier: Conceptual Issues in Cyberspace,
edited by Peter Ludlow (MIT Press, 1996). Has numerous chapters, on piracy, property
rights, privacy, censorship, and self and community online. Obviously a bit old
now, but bound to be something useful here.
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SocioSite's
Cyberspace and Web Sociology section
It's an enormous, well annotated,
and up-to-date list of links.
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Center
for Digital Discourse and Culture
This site is rather slim
in places at the moment, but I am assured that it is a grower. Has a good set
of links.
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Cybersoc.com
Run by Robin Hamman, Cybersoc
is "an online resource for social scientists interested in the study of the
internet, cyberspace, computer mediated communication, and online communities".
Hurray.
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Hypermedia
Research Centre
The HyperMedia Research
Centre of the University of Westminster. Mostly about putting arts onto the web,
with some interesting stuff. It houses the old Future Sound of London site. Overall
the HyperMedia site feels a bit like it needs more work, though.
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Postmodern
Culture
Contain some cyberculture
articles alongside all of the other pomo stuff.
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CyberStudies
Resources WebRing
Unsurprisingly, it's a ring
of resources on cyberstudies.
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CMC
Magazine
Computer-Mediated Communication
Magazine ceased to publish new issues at the start of 1999. But it still has a
valuable archive of stuff on this subject (which will gradually become more and
more outdated, obviously).
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Papers
and Research on Cyberculture
Okay, it's just a page of
links, but they're good links.
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Scott's
Library: Cyberculture and Cyberstudies
It's another up-to-date
page of links. Well I can't be bothered to list and check this many links, so
be thankful you have, er, Scott.
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Peculiarities
of Cyberspace: Building Blocks for an Internet Sociology
Albert Benschop of Amsterdam
considers virtual communities, cyber capitalism, distance learning, and the nature
of internet culture in some depth. Lots of content here.
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Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication
The Journal of Computer-Mediated
Communication established 1995, does appear on the web, so check it
out. Might be a little dry for some tastes, but students of computer-mediated
communication are bound to find something useful here.
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Corporate
Watch: Microsoft
Well-organised internet
activists Corporate Watch have put together a good site on Microsoft's domination
of computer systems and communications. Includes an interview with Noam
Chomsky and material on Microsoft
and globalisation. And their site looks very good too -- unlike most of
the CMC [computer-mediated communication] people above.
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MCS
(Media and Communications Studies Site)
This well-established site
is by Daniel Chandler at the University of Wales, and is full of links. The internet
stuff lives in the 'IT and Telecoms' section. It's not just links -- there is
some original material there too. Web purists will say that we could do without
the 200k sound file at the top of the site which makes you jump by saying 'Welcome
to the MCS site', but Daniel works hard on this site, and is a nice guy, so we
can forgive him these things.
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The
Psychology of Cyberspace
John Suler has put this
"online hypertext book" on the Web. It is an interactive project --
you can make suggestions and if they are brilliant, John may change his text accordingly!
If only all books were like this. (Other books may be easier to read on the beach,
but you can't have everything).
The purpose of this work
is "to explore the psychological dimensions of environments created by computers
and online networks. It is intended as an evolving conceptual framework for understanding
the various psychological components of cyberspace and how people react to and
behave within it".
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 If
you have suggestions for sites that should be listed here,
please e-mail them to me. Thanks!
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connections,
I've included screen grabs of all of the sites so that you can see what they look
like before you decide whether to visit. They aren't in any order, and arguably
get more interesting towards the bottom, so scroll on down there.