Virtual Ethnicity

Where is the ethnic minority presence in cyberspace? In this book, Linda Leung makes a pioneering exploration of ethnic minority presence in cyberspace. She finds that despite the apparent white, Western, male, middle class profile of cyberspace, there is significant ethnic minority activity. The work draws on the author's empirical research amongst ethnic minority women and incorporates discussion of media and web-texts from the US, Canada, Britain and Australia. This is a fascinating interdisciplinary examination of the web-participation of ethnic communities, which sheds light on how ethnic identities are articulated in cyberspace and contemporary society in both predictable and surprising ways.

Linda Leung is Senior Lecturer in the Institute for Interactive Media and Learning, at the University of Technology Sydney, Australia.

Contents: Introduction; 'Not Everything in Black and White Makes Sense': differing definitions of difference; 'Its All There in Black and White': media studies and the theorising of race and ethnicity on the world wide web; Tactics and technologies of resistance: the web as minority medium; The Matrix: the complexities of the empirical research and its interdisciplinary methodologies; A computer in the home or a bug in the house? Ethnic minority women's consumption of information technology in the domestic sphere; Continuing the tradition: translating the web through previous media; Reconfiguring ethnicity: the web as technology of self-representation; Conclusions; Bibliography; Index.