The prediction, in brief:

E-mail, Internet-based communication, is clearly potentially subversive as it allows bi-directional, unfiltered, uncensored mass communication … Are we witnessing the rise of an alternative cyberculture that propagates an uncensored self? (Not through alternative sexuality or drug use, but through a new geography of existence in uncensored cyberspace – change the geography of existence and you change the nature of the self.)

Predictor: Strangelove, Michael

Prediction, in context:

In a 1994 essay for Computer-Mediated Communication magazine, Michael Strangelove, publisher of the Internet Business Journal and the author of “How to Advertise on the Internet,” writes about the anthropology of cyberspace, exploring, as he says, “the emergence of a new type of self I have called the uncensored self and looking into the possible social dynamics that will arise from the convergence of this new type of self with the approaching new millennium.” Strangelove writes:”E-mail, as a metaphor for networked, global, uncensored communication, is already under attack by the state (through the Clipper chip legislation – an attempt to provide wiretap capability for all electronic communication). E-mail, Internet-based communication, is clearly potentially subversive as it allows bi-directional, unfiltered, uncensored mass communication. Uncontrolled sex (unowned bodies), illicit drugs (multiple or distributed selves), and e-mail (uncensored electronic mass communication) are all inherently subversive. If there is a question behind this [essay], it is this: ‘Are we witnessing the rise of an alternative cyberculture that propagates an uncensored self?’ (Not through alternative sexuality or drug use, but through a new geography of existence in uncensored cyberspace – change the geography of existence and you change the nature of the self.)”

Date of prediction: September 1, 1994

Topic of prediction: Communication

Subtopic: E-mail

Name of publication: Computer-Mediated Communication

Title, headline, chapter name: Sex, Drugs and E-mail: The Elements of a New Style of Consciousness

Quote Type: Direct quote

Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://www.december.com/cmc/mag/1994/sep/self.html

This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Vellucci, Amanda