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A Crisis of Presence: On-line Culture and Being in the World

Miller, Vincent (2012) A Crisis of Presence: On-line Culture and Being in the World. Space and Polity, 16 (3). pp. 265-285. ISSN 1356-2576. (doi:10.1080/13562576.2012.733568) (The full text of this publication is not currently available from this repository. You may be able to access a copy if URLs are provided) (KAR id:37826)

The full text of this publication is not currently available from this repository. You may be able to access a copy if URLs are provided.
Official URL:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13562576.2012.733568

Abstract

This paper is a discussion about presence and its relationship to ethical and moral behaviour. In particular, it problematises the notion of presence within a contemporary culture in which social life is increasingly lived and experienced through networked digital communication technologies alongside the physical presence of co-present bodies. Using the work of Heidegger, Levinas, Bauman and Turkle (among others), it is suggested that the increasing use of these technologies and our increasing presence in on-line environments challenges our tendencies to ground moral and ethical behaviours in face-to-face or materially co-present contexts. Instead, the mediated presences we can achieve amplify our cultural tendency to objectify the social world and weaken our sense of moral and ethical responsibility to others. In that sense, an important disjuncture exists between the largely liminal space of on-line interactions and the ethical sensibilities of material presence which, as these two spheres become more intensely integrated, has potential consequences for the future of an ethical social world and a civil society. The examples are used of on-line suicides, trolling and cyberbullying to illustrate these ethical disjunctures.

Item Type: Article
DOI/Identification number: 10.1080/13562576.2012.733568
Additional information: Special Issue: BETWEEN ABSENCE AND PRESENCE: GEOGRAPHIES OF HIDING, INVISIBILITY AND SILENCE
Uncontrolled keywords: civil society, ethics, information and communication technology, Internet, morality, suicide
Subjects: H Social Sciences
Divisions: Divisions > Division for the Study of Law, Society and Social Justice > School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research
Depositing User: Vince Miller
Date Deposited: 22 Jan 2014 09:27 UTC
Last Modified: 16 Nov 2021 10:14 UTC
Resource URI: https://kar.kent.ac.uk/id/eprint/37826 (The current URI for this page, for reference purposes)

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