Cyberpower as a Possession

If we think about all the tales that are relevant to the nature of individual cyberpower, we can see they all embody a notion of personal empowerment. In the myth of Julie, Sanford became a woman to experience conversations he desired and, until the deception was revealed, Julie provided support to a number of women. In cybersex, people can experiment and explore in ways they cannot do offline. In institutions, cyberspace can reorder hierarchies to benefit individuals. Even where it is not clear that empowerment is all that is on offer, the power of the individual still seems to dominate cyberspace. In the flame war between alt.tasteless and rec.pets.cats, both communities were first empowered to exist—that is, to find other people committed to discussions about tastelessness or cats—but alt.tasteless then had the ability to invade rec.pets.cats. Online cat lovers found themselves losing the community cyberspace had allowed in the first place, but in kill files they engaged with each individual attacker. When cat lovers battled within cyberspace the battle was with individuals, not the collective of alt.tasteless.

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Power continually appears as a possession that individuals have to greater or lesser extent. Whether others like it or not, identity fluidity supports the masquerades and experiments of avatars. Whether others like it or not, renovated hierarchies mean greater expertise and more inclusive forms of decision making. These flows of power produce little pieces of power—the ability to change gender, the ability to contact experts—that individuals take up and possess, utilising them to impose their will. For example, Sanford was able to utilise identity fluidity successfully to create an alternate life in the avatar Julie or Philcat was able to gain expertise. Power here is only apparent in its effects, in its realisation against resistance; like any possession it lies dormant in the pocket until the individual calls it into action. Sanford’s initial reason for creating Julie was to gain access to women’s conversations denied to him as a man. He found and utilised the power of identity fluidity against the emotional resistance of women to men. When any of these individual possessions of power, of the capacity for action, are systematised, then forms of domination emerge.

In the flame war between alt.tasteless and rec.pets.cats, the individual actions of those from alt.tasteless, each avatar utilising both identity fluidity (concealing their lack of concern for cats) and renovated hierarchies (even with kill files they could not be kept out), eventually culminated in the domination of rec.pets.cats. Trolling is another example. When trolling is used systematically to establish boundaries between those who can recognise and enjoy a good troll from those who cannot, then a system of dominance appears out of the individual actions of those able to indulge in trolling because of the powers they possess in cyberspace.

The form of cyberpower that emerges when we take the obvious starting point for analysis of cyberspace, the individual in front of the screen, is cyberpower as a virtual possession. This cyberpower, first, underpins the ability to impose an intention or a will on someone or something else, second, is only realised against resistance and, third, may accumulate into systems of domination. By beginning from the common sense view of cyberspace we find the common sense view of power. Cyberpower from this perspective consists of three elements in constant circulation with each other—identity fluidity, renovated hierarchies, informational spaces—that each articulate a sense of power being a possession one avatar can utilise for or against another avatar. This is the abstract picture of cyberpower from the perspective of the individual and it gives rise not only to the wonderful forms of social and cultural life already examined but also to a distinctive form of politics. This cyberpolitics, flowing from cyberpower as individualised possession, is strung across the two axes of access to cyberspace and individual rights within
cyberspace. Exploring these axes completes the analysis of cyberpower at the level of the individual in cyberspace.

From : Jordan, Tim. Cyberpower : The Culture and Politics of Cyberspace and the Internet. Routledge. 1999 (page : 88-89)