An impossible future: John Perry Barlow's 'Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace' Export

@article{citeulike:5971629, abstract = {John Perry Barlow's 'Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace' narrates a world in which revolutionary politics are assumed to be immanent in the machines that structure and enable networked communication. Attention to the rhetorical strategies of the piece reveals a wealth of contradictions and misdirection: newness is rooted in history; revolution is effected by commercial transaction; and liberal democracy becomes libertarianism. The ways in which the Declaration establishes and resolves narrative conflict promote an 'impossible future' that is blind both to the history of the underlying technologies and to the American revolutionary politics on which it claims to base itself. Barlow's project would have been served better by a more pragmatic intervention into real-world processes.Ten years after its original publication, the Declaration is both widely reprinted and increasingly mocked: its language has become commonplace and its idealism has come to seem absurd. 10.1177/1461444808100161}, author = {Morrison, Aimee H.}, citeulike-article-id = {5971629}, citeulike-linkout-0 = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1461444808100161}, citeulike-linkout-1 = {http://nms.sagepub.com/content/11/1-2/53.abstract}, citeulike-linkout-2 = {http://nms.sagepub.com/content/11/1-2/53.full.pdf}, citeulike-linkout-3 = {http://nms.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/11/1-2/53}, day = {1}, doi = {10.1177/1461444808100161}, journal = {New Media Society}, keywords = {barlow, cyberspace, democracy, digital, electronic, foundation, frontier, john, perry, subjectivity}, month = {February}, number = {1-2}, pages = {53--71}, posted-at = {2009-10-19 17:42:36}, priority = {5}, title = {An impossible future: John Perry Barlow's 'Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace'}, url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1461444808100161}, volume = {11}, year = {2009} }

TY - JOUR ID - citeulike:5971629 L3 - citeulike-article-id:5971629 N2 - John Perry Barlow's 'Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace' narrates a world in which revolutionary politics are assumed to be immanent in the machines that structure and enable networked communication. Attention to the rhetorical strategies of the piece reveals a wealth of contradictions and misdirection: newness is rooted in history; revolution is effected by commercial transaction; and liberal democracy becomes libertarianism. The ways in which the Declaration establishes and resolves narrative conflict promote an 'impossible future' that is blind both to the history of the underlying technologies and to the American revolutionary politics on which it claims to base itself. Barlow's project would have been served better by a more pragmatic intervention into real-world processes.Ten years after its original publication, the Declaration is both widely reprinted and increasingly mocked: its language has become commonplace and its idealism has come to seem absurd. 10.1177/1461444808100161 IS - 1-2 JF - New Media Society EP - 71 TI - An impossible future: John Perry Barlow's 'Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace' VL - 11 SP - 53 KW - barlow KW - cyberspace KW - democracy KW - digital KW - electronic KW - foundation KW - frontier KW - john KW - perry KW - subjectivity AU - Morrison, Aimee PY - 2009/02/01/ UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1461444808100161 ER -