The Hypertext and Imagined Communities: Technologies of Self and Culture

Digital communities are not just about communication but power. They tend to not only facilitate individual voices but disenfranchise them as well, interpellating a community identity at the expense of individuals, which can be both appealing and alarming. A goal of digital curriculum then should not just include using and mastering the tools of education but providing opportunities for students to evaluate the impacts of these technologies on individual and communal identities using historically aware and culturally sensitive theories. This paper proposes a hypertextual class project as a collaborative digital activity that will exercise students’ comprehension and appreciation of these basic cybernetics concepts.