Nicoletta Vittadini

The definition of the status of space in the new media, and in the Internet in particular, has long constituted a theoretical key-point, representing a pivotal element of debate. Virtual space and its characteristics have been invoked as a driving element of the concerning new media, engaging the attention of many scholars in the 1990s. The same theme also constitutes one of the starting points to identify the disciplinary and methodological divergences in the new media analysis. Currently, one of the most interesting keys to interpret the relation between space and computer networks is that obtained by analysing the processes linking the technology to a specific culture and to the social discourse that characterises a given culture. Such a reading is particularly insightful, as its aim is that of encompassing the complexity of the intertwined strands within which a culture develops. This study therefore focuses on the space of the network and on the concept of cyberspace according to a perspective that seeks to take into consideration the numerous strands of the current debate and to address several crucial key-points. The approach to these issues will follow two directions. The first highlights a view of cyberspace as a place allowing interaction between interfaces that shape individuals’ spaces for action; the second focuses on the main forms of the conceptualisation of cyberspace as social space. The arguments put forward here allow us to state that cyberspace forges an indissoluble integration between the dimension of social space and that of the space for action, the latter being constantly crossed by flows that reshape and redelineate its geography. It is not a question, however, of a uniform space. New local dimensions become anchored in cyberspace, and they are anthropologically charged with interest, even though certainly not similar to off-line spaces.