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(At)America.Jp: Identity, Nationalism, And Power On The Internet, 1969-2000, Gretchen Ferris Schoel

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

" america.jp" explores identity, nationalism, and power on the Internet between 1969 and 2000 through a cultural analysis of Internet code and the creative processes behind it. The dissertation opens with an examination of a real-time Internet Blues jam that linked Japanese and American musicians between Tokyo and Mississippi in 1999. The technological, cultural, and linguistic uncertainties that characterized the Internet jam, combined with the inventive reactions of the musicians who participated, help to introduce the fundamental conceptual question of the dissertation: is code a cultural product and if so can the Internet be considered a distinctly "American" technology?;A comparative …