Master thesis
Online-Spaces and Cyber-Spaces
The research of spatial practices in cultural science is increasingly confronted with new embodiments of space. Established concepts of space are often not designed to describe the characteristics of digital online spaces. Johanna Rolshoven’s model of a space-triad offers a cultural-analytic approach to apprehend spatial constellations. But how can this space-model be adapted and appropriated to serve as a methodological tool in the research of cyber-spaces?Based on an actor-centered understanding of space, the focus of this research remains on the lived and experienced space, which is investigated with ethnographic means. It is constructed interdependently through the symbolic space of representations and the structural element that used to be referred to as »physical« or »built« space. As physical manifestations grow less important in cyber-spaces, this aspect of manifested power relations and historicity is replaced by the element of »architecture« of digital online spaces, to describe the structural aspects of Hardware and Software, including Code and Interface.An ethnographic approach that among others uses interviews, observations and mental maps, shows the interaction of these spatial aspects and reveals its social and cultural dynamics. The more we learn about exponential development, obsolete knowledge, digital divide and difficulties concerning the appropriation of these spaces, meeting the symbolic level on which the internet is constructed as a complex and hard-to-grasp phenomenon, and the architecture, with its absolute regulations through code, interface and devices, the more the concealed mechanisms of knowledge, power and control are revealed. Simultaneously also the potentials of cyber-spaces become apparent, as they offer new opportunities of spatial experiences and appropriation for its users.
Publications
2019 Mapping Cyber-Spaces. Potentiale und Herausforderungen der Anwendung von Mental Maps als Methode in digitalen online Räumen. In: Jens Klingner, Merve Lühr (eds.) Forschungsdesign 4.0. Datengenerierung und Wissenstransfer in interdisziplinärer Perspektive, Dresden: ISGV digital, pp. 80-93. Original publication: https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:bsz:14-qucosa2-359184.
2015 Online-Räume-und-Cyber-Spaces ” Der eigentliche Raum erstreckt sich erst dahinter in die Tiefe.” Master Thesis, University of Graz
Talks
2018 Mapping Cyber-Spaces. Potentiale und Herausforderungen der Anwendung von Mental Maps als Methode in digitalen online Räumen. Conference Forschungsdesign 4.0 – Datengenerierung und Wissenstransfer in interdisziplinärer Perspektive, 19.04.2018–21.04.2018, University of Dresden, Germany.
2017 CyberSpaceTriad. A tool for researching digital spaces. Conference:Annual STS Conference, Critical Issues in Science, Technology and Society Studies, 8-9.5.2017, Graz, Austria.