CYBERSPACE: PROVIDING AN ALTERNATE SPHERE
The constant expanding boundaries of the internet with more and more access have resulted in technology mediated experiences and gave birth to the notion of cyberspace. Cyberspace can be referred to spaces or opportunities for social interaction provided by computers, satellites, and telephone lines- what we have come to call the internet.
William Gibson, who coined the term cyberspace in Neuromancer describes the it as a ‘consensual hallucination’1 experienced by billions of legitimate operators. Cyberspace is a medium about the manipulation of the mental dimension4. It is a common “mental geography”5where people reveal their aspects of mental processes by involving with each other through languages, texts and other multimedia. The non
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This is a space where one is allowed to experiment with itself and the societal notions do not apply to this space. People can communicate over long distances and form a community; they can raise questions and protest. All this would be impossible for the marginalized communities to perform in the real space which ties several boundations on an individual or a group.
Sherry Turkle in ‘Whom am we’6 argues that life on the screen permits us to "project ourselves into our own dramas, dramas in which we are producer, director, and star.... Computer screens are the new location for our fantasies, both erotic and intellectual. We are using life on computer screens to become comfortable with new ways of thinking about evolution, relationships, sexuality, politics, and identity." Computer chnges the way we think.
The internet has provided an individual the possibility to escape and practice an identity which the real world may not be aware of. It has the potential to counter the dominant public sphere and form a space which is open to pluralistic ideas and