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Español | Deutsch Search Home / Publications / Media Development / 2004/3 / What is ‘cyberspace’?
RecentPublications What is ‘cyberspace’?Vassilys FourkasThe term ‘cyberspace’ was first coined by
William Gibson in his 1982 short story‘Burning Chrome’ to refer to a computer generated virtual reality.
However, theterm became popular in 1984, after its use in Gibson’s novel Neuromancer.Etymologically,
cyberspace is a compound word and the origin of the first term‘cyber’ comes from the Greek word
kybernetes, which means pilot, governor, andruler. The root ‘cyber’ is also related to ‘cyborg’, a term that
describes a human-machine synthesis resulted by connecting the human body in advanced high-
techdevices.According to Gibson, cyberspace is the name of a real non-space world, which
ischaracterised by the ability for virtual presence of, and interaction between, peoplethrough ‘icons,
waypoints and artificial realities’. The Gibsonian cyberspace is anurban ‘thin’ space (Kneale, 1999),
dealing with urban experiences and problemssuch as crime, social exclusion and poverty. It mirrors
socio-economic conflicts andgeographical divisions that occur in enormously enlarged and highly
polarisedcities, in which speed and movements over the virtual world of cyberspace are thekey
metaphors for new spatial experiences. Gibson himself recognises that, by hisimaginative stories, he did
not predict the widespread use of computer networkslike Internet around the globe, but he simply used
actual technologicaldevelopments to make sense of the imagined and futuristic worlds described in
hisnovels (Gibson, 1996).But cyberspace no longer strictly refers to the fictional ‘matrix’ in William
Gibson’snovels; it is not science fiction but rather a science fact. It has now entered intocommon speech
on and off the Internet, as shorthand for the conception ofcomputer networks as a virtual space. Instead
of the human-parts metaphors(brains, memories etc.) that were basically used to describe the first
appearance ofcomputers, the literary term cyberspace is used as a virtual place-metaphor todescribe
and understand the function of ICTs networks. ‘One doesn’t “go”somewhere when picking up the
telephone. But when the computer couples withthese same telephone lines, suddenly spatial and kinetic
metaphors begin toproliferate’ (Nunes, 1995: 1).According to Vinton Cerf, one of the inventors of
Internet, the ‘informationsuperhighway’ metaphor has very little ability to explain either where the
Internetarose or where it could go (Cerf, Forward, in Stefik, 1997). Stefik says thatpoliticians, especially
the American ones, use the highway metaphor in theirrhetoric in an attempt to persuade people that
large-scale investments on theInternet will, similar to a highway system, benefit the common good.
Stefik,instead, teases out four other metaphors from current discourse about theInternet: First, the
digital library metaphor shows up in digital libraries, databasesand other archival information services. It
emphasises the publishing and storageof collected knowledge for preservation and access by a society.
Second, theelectronic mail metaphor shows up the Internet as a communications system.Third, the
electronic market metaphor is used for thinking about issues of digitalcommerce, digital money, and
digital property. Finally, the digital worlds metaphorshows up in description of geographical and social
settings and navigations on thenetwork, groupware and multi-user virtual environments, augmented
reality,telepresence, and ubiquitous computing (Stefik, 1997: xx-xxi).Indeed, the development of
Internet/ Web technologies have formed a virtualspace that is based on the operational integration of
the above spatial metaphorsand which is concerned with information, communication and various types
ofinteraction, as well as the diversity of personal interests and values. It is able toembrace and integrate
many forms of human activities that are related to realplaces and physical proximity/movement (i.e.
online shopping and banking). ‘Butthe price to pay for inclusion in the system is to adapt to its logic, to
its language,to its points of entry, to its encoding’ (Castells, 1996: 374). Thus, through thepowerful
influence of the Internet as a new communication system mediated bysocial interests, government
policies, and business strategies, a new culture isemerging: the culture of real virtuality (Castells, 1996:
461). He further explainsthat:‘it is real virtuality, and not virtual reality, because when our symbolic
environmentis, by and large, structured in this inclusive, flexible, diversified hypertext, in whichAbout
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we navigate every day, the virtuality of this text is in fact our reality, the symbolsfrom which we live and
communicate’ (Castells, 1997:10-11).On the other hand, places/spaces are not static objects, but rather
dynamicsystems of connections where the external sphere (society and space) acts uponthe internal
sphere (self and mind) and vice versa. Regarding the spatialconception of cyberspace, therefore, the
significance of the bi-pole place-metaphor/real virtuality is interrelated to the fact that our ‘internal
sphere’ ismaking use of the network topology of virtual places. Cyberspace could then benotionally
linked either to the Platonic definition of space as the totality ofgeometric relations possible, or to the
Aristotle’s more topological definition ofspace as the generalized sum and place of all (virtual, in our
case) places. It mightbe also argued that computer networking provides, more than even before,
aselective setting for the extension of ‘cognitive space’, thus of the space which isconstructed
intellectually, and delineates our knowledge of others (Adams,1998:102-3).Based on the above, I would
argue that spatiality of cyberspace is defined aroundits interrelation to real (physical) space (see Batty,
1997). The spatial embodimentof cyberspace can be described as having at least three layers: the
technical, whichis concerned with the technological infrastructure of cyberspace; the geographical,thus
the topology of ICTs networks formed by the location of their nodes andhubs; third is the social layer,
which is concerned with the spatial organisation ofpeople using the ICTs networks. Cyberspace is a
spatial system; its networktopology is certainly dependent upon spatial fixity; its development is
criticallyinfluenced by the geography of economic and technological development.Having said that, we
should approach it not by treating it as an artefact but as aserious ontological challenge to modern
spatial studies. The maintenance ofgeography and its characteristics (people, space, time) are considered
importantmeans to draw conclusions regarding the basic features of cyberspace’s spatialconception and
embodiment in contemporary society.ReferencesAdams, C. P. (1998): Network Topologies and Virtual
Places, Annals of theAssociation of American Geographers, Vol. 88, No 1, pp. 88-106.Batty, M. (1997):
Virtual Geography, Futures, Vol. 29, No 4/5, May/June1997, pp.337-352.Castells, M. (1996): The Rise of
Network Society, Blackwells: Oxford.Castells, M. (1997): An Introduction to the Information Age, CITY, 7,
pp. 6-16:introductory speech to the Conference on ‘Information and the City’, organised bythe CITY
journal and held at the School of Geography, Oxford University, on 22ndof March 1997.Gibson, W.
(1996): Civilisation and the Edge of Popular Culture, an interview toBob Catterall; CITY, 5-6, pp: 174-
177.Kneale, J. (1999): The Virtual Realities of Technology and Fiction: Reading WilliamGibson’s
Cyberspace, in Crang, M. et al (eds.): Virtual Geographies: Bodies, Spaceand Relations, pp. 205-221;
Routledge: London.Nunes, M. (1995): Baudrillard in Cyberspace: Internet, Virtuality, andPostmodernity,
Style 29, pp. 314-327.Stefik, M. (ed.), (1997): Internet Dreams: Archetypes, Myths, and Metaphors,
MITPress: Cambridge, Massachusetts, London.Vassilys Fourkas (PhD) Spatial Development Research Unit,
Department of Urbanand Regional Planning and Development, School of Architecture, PO Box
491,Aristotle University of Thessalonica, 54124 Thessalonica, Greece Email:vfourkas@estia.arch.auth.gr
URL: http://estia.arch.auth.gr/cyberspaceTip a friend Download PDF version of this pageAfrica | Asia |
Caribbean | Europe | Latin America | Middle East | North America | PacificWACC promotes
communication for social change. It believes that communication is a basic human right that defines
people's common humanity,strengthens cultures, enables participation, creates community and
challenges tyranny and oppression.

Citations (0)
References (4)

Jan 1998ANN AM ASSOC GEOGR88-106

C P Adams

Adams, C. P. (1998): Network Topologies and Virtual Places, Annals of the Association of American
Geographers, Vol. 88, No 1, pp. 88-106.

introductory speech to the Conference on 'Information and the City', organised by the CITY journal and
held at the School of Geography

Mar 19976-16

M Castells

Castells, M. (1997): An Introduction to the Information Age, CITY, 7, pp. 6-16: introductory speech to the
Conference on 'Information and the City', organised by the CITY journal and held at the School of
Geography, Oxford University, on 22nd of March 1997.

Civilisation and the Edge of Popular Culture, an interview to Bob Catterall

Jan 1996174-177

W Gibson

Gibson, W. (1996): Civilisation and the Edge of Popular Culture, an interview to Bob Catterall; CITY, 5-6,
pp: 174-177.

The Virtual Realities of Technology and Fiction: Reading William Gibson's Cyberspace

Jan 1999205-221

J Kneale

Kneale, J. (1999): The Virtual Realities of Technology and Fiction: Reading William Gibson's Cyberspace,
in Crang, M. et al (eds.): Virtual Geographies: Bodies, Space and Relations, pp. 205-221; Routledge:
London.

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