C53.
Rice, R. E. (2008). Foreword. In T. L.
Adams & S. A. Smith (Eds.). Electronic
tribes: The virtual worlds of geeks, gamers, shamans, and scammers (pp. vii-xii.) Austin: University
of Texas Press.
The authors of this edited book -- Abrams
& Grün; Adams;
Auter & Winters; Brignall; Davidov & Andersen; Duhé;
Naughton; O’Neil;
Rosenthal; Roy; Russ; Skinner; Standerfer; Vance; Zalot – have written
a very
interesting and diverse collection of essays and studies on
“e-tribes.”
One indication of this intriguing diversity
are some of the words appearing in these chapters. Consider, for
example: anarcho-primitivists,
corporate tribes, crafters, craftsterbate, cybercrews, cyberhate,
cybertime,
digital dreamtime, eco-brutalism, electronic tribal warfare, e-tribes,
fetish,
fictive kinship, flist, gift economy, hierarchies vs. heterarchies,
horde vs.
alliance, kerfuffle, massive multiplayer online role-playing game
environment,
mayhem, online shunning, palimpsest, resurrection, retribalism, slash,
talisman, technoshamanism, transparency.
It is entirely possible that no prior book (possibly not even a
dictionary) includes all of these words.
Rather than some vague and general statements about the importance,
irrelevance, contributions, or threats of e-tribes, I am going to
highlight
some of the main themes from these chapters: what are e-tribes, sites
of
analysis, methods, theories, and social implications. In that
sense, everything that follows comes
directly from the chapters, so in essence I am citing all the authors.
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