Theme 2: Digital cultures as social and cultural constructs

This theme examines how digital cultures form, persist, and change. It foregrounds how platform affordances and norms organize participation, how online-offline ties co-produce community life, and how identities and belonging are negotiated–then synthesizes emerging directions (fluid interaction, civic engagement, fandom, and games).

In 2004 (Macfadyen et al.) we found that work published in preceding decades had begun exploring the nature and characteristics of so-called cyberculture and understood it to be an emergent and continually evolving phenomenon. Scholars described digital culture as a distinct cultural order shaped by advances in computer, information, and biological technologies. Contrary to the notion of technological neutrality, digital spaces were recognized as hosting their own sets of cultural norms and practices, sometimes resulting in gaps between individuals and the broader dominant online culture. This challenged any assumption that the internet might be inherently culture-free. The pre-2004 literature further underscored the paradoxical character of the internet, which was seen as universalizing yet non-totalizing, liberating yet dominating, and both empowering and fragmenting. Debates around internet culture were often sharply divided, with some interpreting its rise as a utopian development and others viewing it through a more dystopian lens. Finally, scholars debated whether the internet represented a continuation of modern cultural evolution or marked a radical, postmodern departure from traditional cultural patterns.

In examining the values and power dynamics of pre-2004 online cultures, scholars speculated about whether online cultural norms were simply inherited from existing societies or whether they marked the emergence of a new and distinct digital milieu. Values such as speed, reach, openness, and rapid responsiveness were identified as central to early digital cultures, paralleling the foundational ethos of ‘hacker culture’ which privileged meritocracy and individual autonomy. However, the rise of ‘technopower’–the influence exercised by internet elites–prompted concerns that digital cultures might not transcend existing social and economic hierarchies, but would instead perpetuate American or Western-centric, technomeritocratic norms. A particular concern was the dominance of the English language in digital spaces; while research often focussed on English-speaking practices, a substantial proportion of internet users communicated in other languages, raising important questions about linguistic barriers and the adequacy of considering online English language practices as globally representative. Together, these themes underscored the complex interplay of values, inequality, and language in shaping the contested terrain of digital culture(s).