Cinema and Cyberphobia: Internet Tropes in Film and Television
Main Article Content
Keywords
Telecommunications, Framing, Media, Popular Culture
Abstract
Despite the widespread embrace of the Internet and the second nature way we each turn to Google for information, to social media to see our friends, to netporn and Netflix for recreation, film and television tells a very different story. On screen, a character dating online, gaming online or shopping online, invariably serves as a clue that they’re somewhat troubled: they may be a socially excluded nerd at one end of the spectrum, through to being a paedophile or homicidal maniac seeking prey at the other. On screen, the Internet is frequently presented as a clue, a risk factor and a rationale for a character’s deviance or danger. While the Internet has come to play a significant role in screen narratives, an undercurrent of many depictions – in varying degrees of fervour – is that the Web is complicated, elusive and potentially even hazardous. This paper draws from research conducted for my book Cyberbullies, Cyberactivists, Cyberpredators: Film, TV, and Internet Stereotypes (Rosewarne, 2016). While that volume provided an analysis of the denizens of the Internet through the examination of over 500 film and television examples – profiling screen stereotypes such as netgeeks, neckbeards, and netaddicts – this paper focuses on some of the recurring themes in portrayals of the Internet, shedding light on the how, and perhaps most importantly why, the fear of the technology is so common. This paper presents a series of themes used to frame the Internet as negative on screen including dehumanisation, the Internet as a badlands, the Web as possessing inherent vulnerabilities and the cyberbogeyman.
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Attwood, T. 1998. Asperger’s Syndrome: A Guide for Parents and Professionals, London, Jessica Kingsley Publishers.
Barlow, J.B. 1990. Crime and puzzlement. Whole Earth Review, Fall, pp. 44-47.
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Clifton, W.S. 2012. Feeling Bad about Feeling Good: Is It Morally Wrong to Laugh at Sheldon. In D. Kowalski (Ed.), The Big Bang Theory and Philosophy: Rock, Paper, Scissors, Aristotle, Locke (pp. 51-64), Hoboken, New Jersey, John Wiley and Sons.
Couch, D., Liamputtong, P. & Pitts, M. 2012. What Are the Real and Perceived Risks and Dangers of Online Dating? Perspectives from Online Daters. Health, Risk & Society, 14, 7–8, pp. 697–714.
Hardman, M., Drew, D. & Egan, M.W. 2011. Human Exceptionality: School, Community, and Family, Belmont, California, Wadsworth Cengage Learning.
Harrington, H. 2009. Deception: From Ancient Empires to Internet Dating, Stanford, California, Stanford University Press.
Jack, J. 2014. Autism and Gender: From Refrigerator Mothers to Computer Geeks, Urbana, Illinois, University of Illinois Press.
Kiss, J. 2010. The Social Network: How to make a sensational film about coding Facebook, by Aaron Sorkin, The Guardian, February 28. Accessed March 6, 2015. Available from www.theguardian.com/technology/pda/2010/sep/28/facebook-film-social-network-zuckerberg.
Kowalski, R.M., Limber, S. & Agatston, P.W. 2012. Cyberbullying: Bullying in the Digital Age, Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.
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Markham, A.N. 2011. Internet communication as a tool for qualitative research. In D. Silverman (Ed.), Qualitative Research: Theory, Method and Practice (pp. 95-124), London, Sage Publications.
Martin, M. & Simms, M. 2012. Labeling Lisbeth: Sti(e)gma and Spoiled Identity. In E. Bronson (Ed.), The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and Philosophy: Everything Is Fire (pp. 7-18), Hoboken, New Jersey, Wiley and Sons.
Mokyr, J. 2002. The Gifts of Athena: Historical Origins of the Knowledge Economy, Princeton, New Jersey, Princeton University Press.
Nugent, B. 2008. American Nerd: The Story of My People, New York, Scribner.
Paumgarten, Nick. 2011. Looking for Someone. The New Yorker, July 4. Accessed July 26, 2015. Available from http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/07/04/looking-for-someone.
Rosewarne, L. 2016. Cyberbullies, Cyberactivists, Cyberpredators: Film, TV, and Internet Stereotypes, Santa Barbara, California, Praeger.
Schell, B. 2011. Lisbeth Slaander, Hacker. In S. Rosenberg & S. O’Neill, S (Eds.), The Psychology of the Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (pp. 233-252), Dallas, Texas, Smart Pop.
Thompson, Z.B. 2013. Male Fantasy, Sexual Exploitation, and the Femme Fatale. In B, Åström, K. Gregersdotter & Tanya Horeck (Eds.), Rape in Stieg Larsson’s Millennium Trilogy and Beyond: Contemporary Scandinavian and Anglophone Crime Fiction (pp. 136-156), New York, Palgrave Macmillan.
Tucker, T. 2014. Interfacing with the Internet in Popular Cinema, New York, Palgrave Macmillan.
Turkle, S. 1984. The Second Self: Computers and the Human Spirit, New York, Simon and Schuster.
Turkle, S. 1995. Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet, New York, Simon and Schuster.
Whitty, M.T. & Carr, A.N. 2006. Cyberspace Romance: The Psychology of Online Relationships, New York, Palgrave Macmillan.
Zetter, K. 2015. Mr. Robot is the Best Hacking Show Yet - But It’s Not Perfect, Wired,
July 8. Accessed February 6, 2016. Available from http://www.wired.com/2015/07/mr-robot-fact-check/.
Article Sidebar
Published
Apr 7, 2016
Article Details
How to Cite
Rosewarne, L. (2016). Cinema and Cyberphobia: Internet Tropes in Film and Television. Journal of Telecommunications and the Digital Economy, 4(1), 36–53. https://doi.org/10.18080/jtde.v4n1.46
Issue
Section
Telecommunications
Copyright Telecommunications Association Inc.
Author Biography
Lauren Rosewarne, University of Melbourne
Dr Lauren Rosewarne is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Melbourne, Australia. She currently teaches in the areas of political science and gender studies and writes, comments and speaks on a wide variety of topics including gender, sexuality, public policy, social media, pop culture and technology. She is widely published as the author of seven books, hundreds of opinion pieces and several book chapters and opinion pieces.
