July 23, 2005
Poster, Mark. “Virtual Ethnicity.” What’s the Matter with the Internet? Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2001. 148-170.
In chapter eight of What’s the Matter with the Internet?, Mark Poster (UC Irvine) applies his broader thesis analyzing the material matter of the Internet on the subject of race and ethnicity. Drawing upon heavy theory, Poster questions how the Internet affects race. He speculates that race and ethnicity as portrayed on the Internet is somehow transformed; that in becoming virtual and disembodied, race and ethnicity (and on a larger scale, communities in general) must define itself against a global context, causing a technology-induced anxiety for some, elation for others. In his attempt to systematically parse and organize virtual ethnicity, Poster touches on the Maori, Asian American and Jewish cybercommunities, which, he contends, use the Internet as a means for enhancing and strengthening their communities, rather than any kind of transcendence of ethnicity.