Cyberspaces of Loneliness

Targeted at a readership of undergraduate and graduate students in the fields related to arts, media, anthropology and sociology with regional focus, international or inter-cultural exchanges, economics and politics of mass entertainment, gender and masculinity studies in interdisciplinary approach as well as regular citizens searching for information on the dynamics of late-modern societies, the ideas outlined in this volume are the result of a three-year empiric-phenomenological fieldwork in the slippery domain of virtual inter-gender interactions as well as in-depth literature research on new media, masculinity studies and entertainment industry, which moved during the last three years from an international perspective towards a more specific focus on Japan. 
 

Nowadays, it is an open secret that online interactions represent the main way for men and women to socialize, to get to know each other and, if circumstances allow it, to pursue some sort of romantic relationship. As it is described in great detail throughout the chapters, a constant trend from real-life inter-human interactions towards the cyberspaces which provide the illusion of safety through anonymity and disengagement is painfully observable in the last ten to fifteen years in all post-industrialized, service-based societies of late modernity – and consistently spreading worldwide. While it takes into account the various mechanisms which have been contributing to the this phenomenon, the book critically scrutinizes the role played by shifting paradigms in constructing and representing masculinity, in a dramatic combination of domestic developments with international influences no longer sanctioned or filtered by official policies. It takes under the microscope the dialectical interplay of power, (cultural) consumption and state-driven reproduction politics, and suggests some possible measures towards a more social-friendly future of the digital universe in addressing the challenges masculin-ity is facing currently, in a global perspective. 

Maria Grajdian, PhD (born 1977, in Bucharest/Romania) is associate professor of Media Studies, Cultural Anthropology and Aesthetics of Subculture(s)/Popular Culture(s) at Hiroshima University, Graduate School of Integrated Arts and Sciences (Hiroshima/Japan).